Great roundup, and I especially appreciated the Egg Theory and Future You components.
I think there's a lot more to Artificial Intimacy than the part Esther Perel has been talking about, including that SxSW talk. I took a more agnostic view in my 2021 book _Artificial Intimacy_, as the tech has a potential upside. As you say, these are lonely times. I am happy to send copies of the book to you and to a handful (I only have a dozen or so copies at the moment) of readers. Please let me know if you're interested.
Beautiful review! I'm particularly focusing on the artificial intimacy at the moment. I've used GPT to facilitate dozens of incredible conversations that I couldn't have had easily otherwise. Things ranging from acting as a couples therapist (works really well) to a spiritual coach (also great) to a vedanta teacher (okay). Those have essentially enabled me to have 24/7 cheap access to things that are hard to access with long delays and for significant cost.
But for the more regular conversations, like a brainstorm, ideas on a topic, discussing what I want to do - I can't help but think that these are conversations I used to have *with someone*. I would call a friend and yarn and discuss. Not all the time, sometimes they'd simply be in my head. But at least some percentage of the time convenience is outweighing the wait of discussing with a real person. So artificial intimacy is decreasing the time spent in communion with others.
Great roundup, and I especially appreciated the Egg Theory and Future You components.
I think there's a lot more to Artificial Intimacy than the part Esther Perel has been talking about, including that SxSW talk. I took a more agnostic view in my 2021 book _Artificial Intimacy_, as the tech has a potential upside. As you say, these are lonely times. I am happy to send copies of the book to you and to a handful (I only have a dozen or so copies at the moment) of readers. Please let me know if you're interested.
Beautiful review! I'm particularly focusing on the artificial intimacy at the moment. I've used GPT to facilitate dozens of incredible conversations that I couldn't have had easily otherwise. Things ranging from acting as a couples therapist (works really well) to a spiritual coach (also great) to a vedanta teacher (okay). Those have essentially enabled me to have 24/7 cheap access to things that are hard to access with long delays and for significant cost.
But for the more regular conversations, like a brainstorm, ideas on a topic, discussing what I want to do - I can't help but think that these are conversations I used to have *with someone*. I would call a friend and yarn and discuss. Not all the time, sometimes they'd simply be in my head. But at least some percentage of the time convenience is outweighing the wait of discussing with a real person. So artificial intimacy is decreasing the time spent in communion with others.