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Posts tagged ‘Utopia’

Jun 18

The AI Utopia, Part 2: Only a Human Can Live a Human Life

This is Part 2 in a series. Read Part 1 here.

While it is true that there are no barriers to accessing AI online, and finding answers is part of what psychotherapy is meant to do, therapy should also help you explore the relationship you create with another human. In today’s climate, this exploration is needed. We need to explore things with another person.

The fact is that social media and too much screen time are causing people to look at their phones and not other people. The ability to pick up on social cues is fading.

Too much screen time is causing depression, poor social skills, poor concentration, and the inability to learn some essential life skills.

A chatbot can’t really interact with you in this way. It takes another human!

A chatbot can’t read the room. A chatbot can be programmed to meet certain parameters, but you are the one setting this up, and are you really going to want to be fully challenged? What if you need to be challenged in a way you don’t recognize? Getting called out on your reality testing is a tricky thing. Physicians should never heal themselves. We need that objective human to push us in a better direction.

A chatbot can’t be completely erased. Once there is a history, it is out there—forever. Don’t forget the “Wayback Machine” and its ability to find stuff that has supposedly been removed from the annals of the internet. Do you want your life questions to be permanently stored in that way?

The more I think about all of this, the more the answers I get are no, no, and no.

The uses of AI for mental health are being discussed. AI as a research tool will be a helpful way of using this technology. Could AI help on the medical end of things? Yes. It would be wonderful to see a “cure” for schizophrenia, bipolar disorders, and depression. Relieving someone of severe anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorders would be life changing for so many in the human population. The research applications are wonderful to think about.

On the other hand, AI will not be able to sit with someone who is grieving or mourning a lost relationship. It can’t look a person in the eyes, witness the tears and the trauma, and offer comfort and reassurance that they are being understood. AI can “speak” the words: it fails in the human life-experience portion of things. AI can’t live a human life—only a human can.

As I write this, I’m taken back to another experience of grad school. In one of my courses, we were asked to create a utopian society where peace reigned and equality for everyone in the world existed, and oh, by the way, no Star Trek Next Generation models. Our group met, and we couldn’t do it. We may have come close in some ways, but the realization that we, as humans, were faced with diversity and the dilemma of how to give everyone a piece of the pie… Well, let’s just say it didn’t happen. I return to the question of who will live in this AI utopia that is being touted. 

Emotions are what cause us to be who we are. The ability to resolve conflict and work out differences is what creates successful outcomes in our lives.

We need diverse communities and everything that comes with them to challenge and cause us to think and move forward. An example of how this is not happening right now is when people are not allowing conflicting views to be expressed and banning them from the discussion. This creates an echo chamber. Progress will not occur in an echo chamber: stagnation is born in such places. I recently heard someone describe their version of a utopia, and as I was hearing them speak, I thought to myself: But do you understand how hard everyone would need to work to make this happen? Having grown up with “flower power,” and then seeing it fade away for something else, I’m aware of how the climate changed. I’m also hopeful that the lessons of that period of time can be worked with. I hold onto hope that we can do better.

I’m not hopeful that society is wise enough or ready for what AI presents. I’m willing to embrace the use of AI for assisting us with science and related areas of study. I’m not willing to turn my life over to AI in other ways.

I believe in humanity, and I want to see it thrive. Just like you, I want to see people heal, grow stronger, and build solid relationships that will support us as human beings. I also want to be realistic. I want to see greed wiped off the face of the planet. Doing that would be very helpful to humanity. It we could wipe out greed, we could wipe out poverty. If greed and poverty were wiped out, there would be no war. That would be a type of utopia many of us could live in.

Maybe if we turn AI loose on medical issues, world hunger, and have it do some serious thinking there, we can focus on enabling each of us to deal with relating to each other on a more functional level. First, we need to fully deal with the question of being able to create such tools and taking a hard look at the ethics surrounding their usage. Yes, I can. But should I? This needs to become the question we must ask ourselves.

If we were to slow ourselves down in this way, what types of changes might we open ourselves up to exploring? Yes, I can. Should I? Yes.

Jun 11

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The AI Utopia, Part 1: Where Will Our Minds Carry Us?

I spent the weekend listening to podcasts about AI. It caused me to reflect on some thoughts that I had in the past about the wisdom of what we as humans can create—but should we be creating it? 

Have you ever watched the AI, Terminator, or Jurassic Park movies? Or, better still, did you read the Michael Crichton book Jurassic Park? That book broaches the question: Just because we can do something, should we do it? In this case they had the ability to possess prehistoric DNA from dinosaurs, but should they be brought to life? The book had a tragic ending. Crichton nailed it.

In the film AI, they have the ability to create a humanlike child, but can humans be trusted to respect the creation and not get out of control in using it? The scene where the scientists gather to discuss the issue challenges us to think about whether we’re really wise enough to create beyond ourselves.

The Terminator series of films, with all its action-packed sequences, poses the same question in deadly form: Can we really control what we create, and should we be creating such things? What if something we can’t control takes over? What would we need to do to get control of things back?

What does any of this have to do with me? What does any of this science fiction have to do with therapy? Everything. I’m human and, as such, limited in my functioning.

If human intelligence has the ability to create artificial intelligence, should we be doing it at the speedy rate it is being done? Why is consumerism driving AI? Have we really asked all the questions we need to ask about the risks and benefits of where we’re allowing ourselves to be taken in 2026? What if we continue to allow AI to do more and more for us? 

When I was younger, and even today, I struggle with the inconvenience of low vision. I can’t get out the way a sighted person can. I’m restricted to public transportation and safe sidewalks. There are a great many unsafe sidewalks out there. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have a self-driving car that could drive me safely to where I needed to go? How would my life change if I could live anywhere and go anywhere, day or night? What would it be like to not have to depend on others for transportation? What would it be like to be able to have a life where I didn’t need to ask another person to help with something I can’t see? It would be wonderful, and in a tiny way a form of utopia. Would it be possible to live such a life? Maybe. BUT. Would I be able to deal with the outcome of it all, and what are the negatives?

There are many negatives, and the largest and most obvious one I need to ask, and we as a society need to strongly consider, is this: Is it wise to create something, and to give it the ability to roam free and surpass us humans in intelligence? This is no longer science fiction: this is present in 2026. Alexa, Siri, and chatbots (which I just used Google to check on the correct way to write it) are all a part of this. I don’t want to “chat” with a bot when I have a question that needs a human. I want to speak with a person that can help me solve the issue that is unique to my situation, and being disabled, no bot will be able to do that for me. And yet, companies want free labor, and so they use the chatbot.

This brings me to the point of thinking about how a living, breathing person can be replaced. There is dignity in working. There is dignity in providing a service or product that can be looked at as benefitting others. Getting up knowing that you can bring in a source of income is a good thing. While you can ask ChatGPT to tell you about the value of work, the AI will never be able to convey to you or create the feelings and emotions associated with having done a great job of something. Society needs to reinforce productive participation in meaningful existence, and also meaningful quality of life. Ultimately, it’s about a village.

The idea that AI will allow us to create a utopia is frightening. First off, who gets to live in this utopia? And, secondly, who is excluded? What happens when the dignity of work disappears because the new skill sets are not present in some people? Sure, it might be fun to do not much of anything for a few days, or even weeks, but what about when the novelty wears off? Where will our minds carry us?

When I was in graduate school we’d have discussions about managed health care, and many thought it would lead to more access to treatment for those with mental health issues. I argued that what it would really mean was short treatment for serious issues, unqualified employees making decisions about someone’s life, and lack of dignity in how records are kept. For the latter, you might argue that HIPAA solves the privacy issue. Once a treatment diagnosis is made, it remains on the record for the rest of someone’s life. It becomes a pre-existing condition. Using insurance to pay for psychotherapy, while useful, may not be the best life choice. There are two ways of getting help: one involves a DSM label, and the other does not. Insurance is going to require that the mental health practitioner provide an accurate diagnosis for what ails you. It goes into your file for life. The other version, and the one I use, is to keep pricing lower, and to work with people without a formal diagnosis. I might have an idea and will talk with my clients about it. I don’t need to put it into an institution’s database.

This brings me to chatbots. There is a trend to seek out psychotherapy via a chatbot. I will explore this topic next week in Part 2.