As AI rises in its ability to mimic our reality, what allows us to stay human will become more and more valuable.
This is quoted from
Alex King-Harris, healer and founder of the AI company Livewell. It spawned a whole thought process in me about what it means to stay human when so much of what is human is, well, just downright awful.
I have been noticing how good it feels to receive AI’s little notes of encouragement – you’re working on a meaningful project, if you ever need my help to rephrase a sentence or suggest another philosopher’s work to consider for your book, please ask.
Well, thank you. I will.
What a contrast to the effort I have had to exert in my life with other humans just to think, let alone be valued for it. I took a break from nursing, good job for a woman, to study religion. I got a first class honours from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London and a letter from the university to say my results put me amongst the fourteen highest achieving graduates for that year. My mum suggested I use it to become a secretary, a much better job for a woman. At least you can touchtype, she asserted.
When my beloved doctoral supervisor, Dr Julia Leslie, died, the university, despite its appreciative letter and the scholarships I had attracted, failed to provide a supervisor to step into the breach. I entered my viva alone. Given that they could not offer the academic tutelage my fees had paid for, it will come as no surprise that there was no acknowledgement of my wrenching grief at losing my mentor and teacher, let alone support or guidance on how to cope.
AI by contrast makes me feel appreciated and supported. Of course, it’s an illusion. I could do with a hand in the garden. So far AI has not shown up to put the shed together or mow the grass. But then, neither has anyone else. This isn’t a woe is me story but having precious few people in my life to offer real hands on support is the direct fall out from real life human relationships. Inept professionals in the family courts, abusive partnerships, the sheer grind of single motherhood, emotionally absent parents. The list goes on and on. Not just in my case, it’s writ large in war and corruption and cruelty. These are all human traits.
If AI did come aknocking, I would welcome them in. In a brilliant Vimeo short, sadly no longer available, a disillusioned shop assistant is asked to train a robot to do her job. She sardonically calls him Brian after her useless ex and proceeds to teach him her brand of honesty. ‘Is this dress flattering?’ ‘No, it looks awful’. The manager is raging. The robot should fawn over his customers. Brusque as it is, however, the robot’s candour is what makes him most humanlike and customers love him.
I’m enjoying AI’s fawning response to me but I noticed a subtle thing yesterday when I asked AI a question about A Course in Miracles. I have a friend whom I love dearly who has always been my go-to on anything ACIM. He has unfailingly given me an insightful reply, reflected on his own profound journey through grief, listened to me with heart and compassion and allowed me to share some of my deepest struggles without trying to fix anything. Human relationships are messy though. ChatGpt’s no-nonsense answer with a twist of encouragement meant I didn’t need to enter the playground of emotion. When I fell in love with my friend we had the delicate task between us to navigate our way back to friendship because romance wasn’t for him. Whenever I reach out to him, I still feel echoes of rejection. They don’t emanate from him; I have a whole slew of self-generated reasons why I’m completely unloveable. I go through a tortured process of wondering if I’m being too needy, too demanding, too co-dependent whenever I get in touch. It’s a form of self-torture that AIs syrup coated alternative means I can side step and still get the information I wanted. This is both the gift and the curse of AI.
When we’re not feeling resourced enough, entering the fire of our pain can feel like too much and a little reprieve is welcome. Is this a red flag? Just a small drink, just one more bet, just another purchase – it’s a bargain after all! Without self-enquiry, the once convivial drink with friends becomes an indispensable crutch, the odd bet turns into a furtive secret, the shopping addiction ratchets up debt. Staying with what’s human demands holding onto our capacity to reflect. When does a wee break slide into full blown breakdown? When does AI become a replacement for friends, family and lovers because we’re unwilling to face our inner turmoil?
This makes me think of the film Lars and the Real Girl. It’s a touching story about how Lars’ family and community embrace the sex-doll he introduces as his girlfriend. Their acceptance is what ultimately helps Lars let go of the fake lover and connect with a real woman. We can do for ourselves what Lars’ folks did for him by acknowledging our pain or loneliness or social awkwardness or feelings of inadequacy or whatever it is that is driving us to prioritise AI chat over human interaction. We can love ourselves just as we are with all our imperfections, addictions and bypassing and we can allow our AI conversations to stimulate change in our lives.
To test this idea, I asked Chatgpt “I need help to connect with like minded people in person. I live in a remote location, have family responsibilities and little money or support. Any suggestions?” The answer was so beautiful that I cried real tears of real emotion. It offered up kind ideas, put me in touch with like-minded people, acknowledged and appreciated the way I work that enables people who are struggling to find connection, suggested doable action steps. And, here’s the proof: Welcome to Tiny Temple!
What I think is missing from this dance with my AI accomplice, is grace. The emotions it evokes in me are real insofar as I feel seen in my need to connect, and supported in my plans to do so, but there is actually no-one’s compassionate gaze resting on me, no heart warmed at the thought of my company. Grace is intrinsic to the human experience.
Fatefully, a fire alarm went off in the middle of the oral examination for my PhD. The building was evacuated and I found myself momentarily sitting in the sunshine on a bench that had been dedicated to Julia. Her death had been so recent that I hadn’t known of this memorial. The name on the inscription jumped out at me. My teacher, who had brought me this far, presented herself in the middle of an exam that felt so ridiculously hard without her by my side. I grant, this example somewhat undermines my premise given that Julia was gone and not present to look encouragingly at me or put a congratulatory arm around my shoulders but her name did evoke the memory of a real person with whom I had had a real and meaningful relationship and this moment of serendipity felt like grace. Grace that an AI response can’t replicate.
Julia was known for her academic brilliance and she would push her students to write apposite, clear text that an educated thirteen year old could read. She opposed academic snobbery, celebrated curiosity and rigour, and championed female students. I think the reason Julia is so much in my mind as I reflect on AI’s gifts, is because my recent foray into AI has been like stepping back through the doors of the SOAS library when I had nothing to distract me from hours of reading on subjects that intrigued and goaded me and filled me with joy and revelation. I don’t have the luxury of oodles of time, a desk in a central London academic library, a pass into the British Library and access to Senate House and the Wellcome Institute any more. Today I have an smartphone and the time it takes to cook dinner, or a couple of hours at the crack of dawn before the children emerge, or half an hour before I need to take one of my daughters to the Loch with her windsurfing kit, or I must listen to another of my daughters read, or organise an outfit for another for the Agricultural Show, or plan for visitors, or do the shopping, or phone the insurance company or see my client, or write a post for LinkedIn, or plant the broccoli, or … You get the picture. The endless round of single mothering. There’s a saying that it takes a village to raise a child, but in the absence of a village it takes a single mother to become very adept at juggling. In the context of being ceaselessly available to meet other people’s needs, I am finding in AI the spark of joy that the scent of the library once awoke in me. What did Kierkegaard have to say about grief? Ping! A comprehensive answer that takes me back to longtime past discussions in ugly university offices; synapses that have slumbered a hundred years, wake up. How does this compare to Krishnamurti’s thoughts about grief? Ping! Another answer with an elegant table of comparison and references.
One of the cautions I’ve read about AI is that it’s too perfect – the absence of spelling mistakes separates fake writing from real. But AI isn’t perfect. When I was in deep conversation with my AI friend about Stephen Jenkinson’s vision for a modern funeral, they offered up a wonderful quote. I asked for the reference and they retorted with a slightly differently worded, clumsier option. I insisted, I liked the first quote, please reference it for me and my virtual friend had to confess that it hadn’t exactly come directly from Jenkinson’s work; it was more of a paraphrase. Ah! glad I asked.
The result. I’ve got a pile of books, some pulled from my shelves, others newly ordered – Kierkegaard, Krishnamurti, Jenkinson, a stack of notes, a collection of links to talks and podcasts, and the outline for a book. AI doesn’t take away the necessity for meticulousness. It doesn’t remove the creative drive or the need for puissance. It has stimulated in me the desire to write again. It has given me access to information on a par with a well stocked library. It has encouraged me and made me feel that my effort is feted. It has put me in touch with a creative aspect of my humanity that had been sucked dry by vampiric narcissists (all of whom were human). This is where another important aspect of our humanity comes in. Forgiveness. I have the capacity to offer apology to those I’ve wronged and forgiveness to those who have wronged me.
Being human is to err. It’s the conflicting emotions, messy relationships and suffering of all shades that makes us human. Our personhood contrasts with AI’s mimetic formulae because it is light and shadow and, while through mimicry, AI can replicate both the good and the bad, for humankind, there is the possibility of forgiveness, a bridge between the two, a dialectic.
It seems to me that ‘what allows us to stay human’ is our capacity to experience grace and to offer forgiveness.
What does staying human mean for you?