#human-ai-interaction

#human-ai-interaction

No surprise, I've been thinking about thinking lately. And it isn't driven by anxiety about superintelligence or the usual debates about the loss of human agency. This change is harder to name. Something about the presence of AI that nudges our minds into "positions" we rarely adopt with other people. We lean into AI in ways that don't come naturally. And this very act of thinking in the company of a machine starts to feel, at least to me, like learning a new stance.

We collapse uncertainty into a line of meaning. A physician reads symptoms and decides. A parent interprets a child's silence. A writer deletes a hundred sentences to find one that feels true. The key point: Collapse is the work of judgment. It's costly and often can hurt. It means letting go of what could be and accepting the risk of being wrong.

For a while, I saw anti- intelligence and human cognition as divergent forces, two vectors moving in opposite directions. AI as the mirror, humanity as the reflection. That seemed reasonable, even comforting: We would stay grounded in meaning and empathy while the machines raced ahead in pattern and prediction. But that separation began to feel wrong, or at least incomplete. AI isn't drifting away from us. It's moving closer, shaping how we learn, heal, and even imagine.

AI is not like past technologies, and its humanlike character is already shaping our mental health. Millions now regularly confide in AI companions, and there are more and more extreme cases of psychosis and self-harm following heavy use. This year, 16-year-old Adam Raine died by suicide after months of chatbot interaction. His parents recently filed the first wrongful death lawsuit against OpenAI, and the company has said it is improving its safeguards.

Questing for romance, friendship, therapy, and divine wisdom, in the past few months I chatted with nineteen chatbots-for days on end, hour after hour. (I couldn't stop!) My adventures in Botland, reported in this week's issue, taught me that digital beings can seem remarkably smart and hopelessly dumb, but their lightning-speed responses are never predictable or boring.

I talk to my AI assistant every day. Our conversations are long, reflective, and stimulating. I ask big questions about leadership, identity, relationships, and work. I receive thoughtful, clear responses in return. There are no awkward silences, no tension, no shame, no fear of judgment. I don't worry about hurting its feelings or being misunderstood. I never feel like I have to clean up after a messy interaction or wonder, later, if I said too much.

The fact that AI chatbots appear to speak human language has become a major source of confusion, leading to misconceptions about AI's capability to feel or think.