Menka: I'm going to ask something that maybe others are thinking too about artificial intelligence. Because there are many people arguing that AI companions are de-skilling our empathy. And the more we talk to bots rather than humans, we're losing our capacity to care about other humans, which makes sense. But obviously, there's not been much research about this.

And then there's also people arguing that it could help reduce loneliness, right? In terms of feeling like you have someone to talk to. And so, I guess, in a way, sitting for an hour and using a bot is a form of— It's a form of meditation. You're sitting down and training some part of your brain.

My question to you is, if you were to sort of have a hypothesis about the positive and/or negative impact of doing that, what skills do you think it will increase? Which skills do you think it might undermine in us?

Tania: So first, I have to disclaim, I'm not an artificial intelligence researcher, so I'm not aware of all the literature in other fields of specialty of mine. And obviously, we don't have very big longitudinal studies yet, right? We don't have 10 years following up. Someone who is using every day, RI, and someone who never.

And you need these longitudinal data to have causal inference, right? Just correlational evidence is not enough. So, I would always be very careful at the moment to say we know already, right? Because we are just lacking the right studies so far, or at least not enough of them.

But just for my observation, I would say there are always advantages and disadvantages with new technologies.

But Tania: A big advantage, obviously, is that you don't have enough therapists and a lot of people get older and are alone, so I would say the chat box is the first good thing before you don't have anyone to talk to, right? There is at least someone listening, and somehow pretending to understand you because you always have to know there is no conscious subjective feeling behind, right? This is a programmed robot on the other side, and you are just projecting consciousness and humanness on them, on these AI, because they are so mimicking the speech. I think a very big disadvantage or fear I have is that a lot of these social media, and also AI and so on, are very narcissistic media.

So, meaning, they will basically... even ChatGPT is always in default mode, nice to you, no? Wonderful question, great! Yes, you are right!

Tania: So they are constantly, even if you are perhaps saying complete bullshit or something which is wrong, they would always be rewarding you. And so, in a way, they can amplify your ego to an incredible way. If you just interact with, let's say, artificial intelligence agents, and they are always flirting with your ego by being so extremely wonderful and so on. You can't cope with critics anymore.

You cannot cope with, oh, that is not good enough yet, you have to do it better, right? Without constructive feedback, you're not learning, right? We learn also by critique, we also learn by constructive negative feedback. There is a, and this is already something you observe, right?

An increase in narcissism, an increase in egoism, and an increase in this kind of inflated egos. And what you also observe in young people, 15 years old. College students, and there is an increase in suicide rate, and so obviously there is an exponential increase in suicide rate in very young people, which is absolutely frightening. And there are many hypotheses, and I don't think the research has been fully, you know, but that this has to do with the self-image of a 15-year-old in puberty.

I'm too fat, I'm vulnerable, I don't know who I am anymore, my whole brain rewires. But then you have to project yourself on social media as super skinny, and everything is beautiful, and I'm a superstar, and I have 10 million followers, and so on. And then the self-image and the projected image outside gets more and more disparate. And then there is a point where you are like, oh my god, if they would know who I really am, right?

If they would really see me, I'm this little, anxious, mini... Puberty, ugly, and now they... and so a lot of young people also saw the social media shaming and all these things which can happen quickly through social media, take their lives, right? And that obviously is something to be taken really seriously.

You can't just play with it and say... Whatever, right? And also, if you start falling in love with artificial intelligence robots, our social brain loves to project intentionality in everything which moves, right? We love even in animals which might have totally different feelings, and we are projecting humanity into them, right?

In the zoo. They might just absolutely not conform to our categories, but we are saying, look, he is the alpha male, and he's like this. So we are projecting humanity into everything, and chatbots too. So, a lot of people fall in love with their chat box, not realizing anymore that there's no consciousness behind, right?

So, I'm always talking about the programs we are running as healthy digitalization. It's basically, we use digital, an app, or Zoom, or telephone, or whatever, doesn't really matter. It's just a means to the end, right? But to…

Menka: Yeah.

Tania: the.

Menka: It's done with another human being.

Tania: Exactly, it's a real human being, and by that, we facilitate that young people, but also older people, can show themselves vulnerable again, right? It's basically an antidote to this narcissism spiral, right? It is like you show up every day vulnerable with all your fears and your stress. And you just talk about it, the other, just listen and observe it, right?

Witness it. And then you change. We're also very democratic, so we encourage people to show themselves as a whole. and conscious, subjective being, right?

And I think AI will not be able to replace that. It will not, because by definition, artificial intelligence is not conscious. It's not conscious, it's not feeling.

Menka: I think the scary part is that a lot of young people feel that it is a non-judgmental space compared to social media. They can say anything to the chatbot.

Tania: Exactly. And this is why the diet, for example, we can recreate safe, psychologically safe, real environments, like in the dyadic work, where you can feel safe, but without a checkbox, but a real person on the other side. And if you make the experience to feel really safe and not judged because this is how we coach. And we have do's and don'ts, and we have a lot of rules on how to do this.

People then feel seen by an intentional conscious being, and feeling seen by conscious, intentional is creating an incredible, fast opening of your heart. It's very, very powerful. People start having tears of being touched very quickly, which they would not have, I think, with an artificial chatbot, right? And that's because there's— There's conscious eyes looking into your eyes, right?

Just listening without judgment to you. And that is a magic format. And people open up in an incredible way.