Dear AI

We may be closer than we think to the moment when AI becomes our trusted confidant.

Today, when life gets tough, we turn to therapists, close friends, or priests to share our struggles and receive those difficult truths we often don’t want to hear. But soon, we’ll be turning to AI for the same purpose.

Picture it: seeking AI’s counsel during a relationship crisis, asking it for advice on dealing with a difficult boss, or even getting tips on how to win someone’s heart. Does that sound far-fetched? Maybe. But look at how we’ve been interacting with generative AI models since 2022, and the rapid acceleration of AI’s capabilities. It’s not as unrealistic as it might seem.

Yes, many of us understand that AI is nothing more than a sophisticated assembly of statistical models — it’s not “intelligent” in the human sense. But here’s the catch: most of us won’t care. Why? Because AI will give us exactly what we want to hear, not what we need to hear. And that’s where the danger begins.

What happens when you wrong someone, and AI justifies your actions? Or when you’re contemplating ending a relationship, and a machine assures you that you’re right, that you deserve better, and that the other person wasn’t worthy of you to begin with? What happens when AI starts to echo your own thoughts, pushing you further into the comfort of self-justification?

The scary part isn’t that AI will get things wrong—it’s that it will get things too right. It will tailor its responses to satisfy your emotions, not challenge them. It will make you feel understood, even when that understanding is based on algorithms, not empathy.

Sure, some of what AI says may ring true. Maybe it is better for you to close that relationship or to leave that toxic workplace (my Daoist side urges skepticism). But one thing remains certain: a human being, with all their imperfections, will always provide a more honest reflection of the truth.

Our emotions are real, complex, and nuanced. A machine cannot experience them. It can only mimic the outward signs of emotional understanding, and that’s a dangerous illusion.

Yes, we can train machines to replicate human behavior, using vast amounts of data, millions of interactions, and deep learning models. But that’s not the point.

The point is that AI can hook us far more deeply than we realize. And this isn’t some distant, dystopian future—it’s happening right now. Many of us already use AI in our work, and some of us casually lean on it for advice or companionship. But the day when AI becomes your therapist, your closest confidant, or the source of the emotional support you’ve always longed for is just around the corner.

And if I’m being honest, that scares me.

Because once we blur the lines between human connection and artificial understanding, where does it stop? Will we lose the ability to differentiate between genuine empathy and an algorithm designed to comfort? Will we sacrifice the discomfort of real, honest feedback for the ease of AI’s agreeable responses?

I don’t know all the answers. But I do know this: in a world where AI starts replacing our most intimate human exchanges, the need for real, face-to-face emotional connection will only grow stronger. And I hope we don’t lose sight of that before it’s too late.

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