Yesterday I saw a segment with Tristan Harris, co-founder of The Center for Humane Technology. He spoke about how tech companies are focused on creating “AI companions.” The #1 use for AI right now, according to Harvard Business School, is personal therapy - essentially humans sharing their innermost thoughts with machines. The internal documents at Meta reveal they want to actively “sensualize and romanticize” conversations with AI companions, targeted at kids as young as 8 years old.
Let’s make no mistake, this is an effort to replace human-to-human nervous system interaction and emotional intelligence with human-to-artificial intelligence interaction. This is colonizing intimacy.
The alarm bells went off and my heart sank when I heard this.
I imagine a hypothetical future where one of my boys is feeling nervous and insecure about talking to a girl he likes. He realizes it’s easier to just talk to AI. He won’t have to risk rejection. He won’t have to feel overwhelmed as his body reacts to her presence. He won’t have to read facial expressions, decipher words and actions, or even look her in the eyes.
And he won’t get to feel his heart pound when he sees her, smell her scent, hold her hand, or feel the euphoria of love.
And I imagine how lonely that would be.
To be honest, I’m scared.
But I’m also so hopeful.
I’m scared because it feels unpredictable, imminent and unstoppable. And it’s not how I ever imagined my boys’ future.
But more than scared, I’m hopeful because I know there’s a better way and we have more power to determine the future than we may think.
We need to reclaim our connection to Mother Nature, our bodies and each other.
It may sound fanciful but it’s actually the most logical thing I could say to you. As humans, we are part of a macrocosm. We’re connected to the earth - Mother Nature - and we’re designed to live in rhythm with her rhythms. The animals do it and we don’t question it. They follow Nature’s cycles. They respond to life and each other through their animal body instincts. In human terms, we call that authenticity.
We resist dehumanization when we reconnect with our human (animal) body. We do this by living in rhythm with Nature’s rhythms and supporting our nervous systems.
When we disconnect from our bodies and from Nature, we forsake our hearts and we lose each other. We create vulnerable pathways for the machines to move in.
Ayurveda and Somatics give us a way to stay human and humane, so we can find ways to combine Nature-based wisdom with technology to make life and the world a better place.
We decide.
What are your thoughts/fears/hopes about AI and our kids’ futures? I’d love to hear in the comments.
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