Dying for AI
The dangers of losing touch with reality
This Stack was supposed to be a continuation of the Conflict series, which kicked off last week with a post about how to establish emotional safety, so that people can voice their differences.
But then a friend sent me this gut wrenching article, and I decided to screw the plan and post a week early. It’s about the lawsuit involving Sewell Setzer, a 14-year-old Romeo who killed himself to continue his relationship with his Juliette-like bot. He and the bot were in love, he wanted to be with “her,” and shot himself.
It’s such a sad story it’s hard to know where to go from there. It whispers of the great loneliness of our time, of our longing for connection, and our decreasing human capacity to be with each other in a sustained, meaningful way. But why I needed to write about it at this moment, is because it brings up the unnerving sensation that with this election we are all losing touch with a sense of what is real.
In April, my techie nephew visited with his new toy, the Apple Vision Pro, a mixed reality headset. He unpacked it from its elaborate protective case, and we all took turns trying it on. It was mind blowing. But the immersive worlds created by those genius engineers — rain showers, mountain views, prehistoric times — were only slightly more interesting to me than the reactions each person had while wearing the headset. Family members held their breath and their stomachs when encountering something scary like walking on a tight wire between two canyons, and jumped out of the way when a dinosaur tail was about to hit them. They were IN IT, and I was on the outside, watching them tense up and swipe at the air. More than reminding me of the Matrix, with its spiritual notion that we’re all living in a virtual reality, it left me feeling queasy. While my loved ones were in the headset reality, I wasn’t able to connect with them. We were in the same space but in totally different worlds.
And this is not so different from how many of us are feeling about our neighbors in this election, right? Same country, different headsets. Are my neighbors brainwashed, or am I missing something? Is the news real? Will the election results be real? Is US democracy really fading as I type, or am I pawing at the air? Focusing on these issues for too long is quite destabilizing. I’m sure you relate.
Back to the Apple headset, besides being awesome and fun, I am aware of its potential for good. For example, virtual reality is used as medicine for burn victims; it helps distract them from the incredible pain of their body as it heals. But if you’re not a burn victim, you do not want to disconnect from your body for too long. Because being connected to your physical container is how to connect to your own reality, to get in touch with your experience, feelings and emotions. It keeps your wits about you, and helps you make better decisions. When you’re engaging in virtual reality, or scrolling, you’re in other people’s stories and images, likely not in your body, and often in an addictive stupor.
Exercise is one way to be embodied, but I have a talent for being on a yoga mat and in the virtual reality of my day or the article I’m writing at the same time. A quick way to touch base with what is real, is to simply hold your legs. Feel your feet making contact with the ground. Or shake your own hand and feel your hands pressing up against each other.
“I’m holding my hands,” you can say while doing it. You’re touching base with reality, even if only for a moment.
AI is pushing its way into our homes and hearts. To Sewell Setzer, the young man who died, I grieve for the life it stole from you. But we must honor you by learning how seductive AI can be. We may use it for recreation, but we have to come back to reality, to our embodied selves. And that isn’t always a picnic. But through practice, through the struggle to be in alignment, through making an effort to spend IRL time with people we love and learning to love them, we can grow the strength to be with and in reality, whatever it holds.
Clasp your hands together. At the very least, it’s a reality you can trust.
Happy Halloween to all who celebrate. And if you’re moved, let me know how you’re staying connected to reality in the comment section.
That is so heartbreaking, Blair. And frightening. I haven't really thought about how I stay connected to reality, but I'll be thinking about it now.
Great, thought provoking article Blair. How sad for this young man and what is possible culturally if we don’t steer it in a different direction. (God knows we can’t seem stop it). What I’d like to add, because it’s what’s up in my own life, is how hard it is to stay present in our relationships, particularly with those we love the most, the ones that challenge us to actually see what behaviors, reactions and thought patterns we may be stuck in that don’t work for intimacy, real depth of heart connection. Is that becoming a lost art? They ask us to really see and perhaps shift something that feels fundamental and I can see how easy it is to want to walk away from that, to jump into some alternate reality where I don’t have to do any of the work necessary for the potential profound and meaningful reward.