More and more people are turning to AI for answers to their questions. Like a friend in times of need, it is always available, responds quickly, and is often encouraging, knowledgeable, and objective. Wonderful in so many ways!
But what happens when we increasingly turn to AI instead of turning to one another? Or when we stop allowing ourselves to live with our questions, giving ourselves the time and space to gradually discover our own answers?
What about you?
• Do you quickly turn to AI when you have a question, rather than reflecting on it yourself or asking another person?
• Do you use AI as a friend, someone to confide in, a therapist, or perhaps even an artificial romantic partner?
• Do you sometimes seek validation from AI when what you truly long for is to feel understood by another human being?
• Are there conversations you avoid having with people because talking to AI feels easier?
• Do you let AI solve tasks for you that you might actually learn something from doing yourself?
• When was the last time you allowed a question to remain unanswered for a while, or discovered something new through a conversation with another person?
If you recognize yourself in any of these questions, it is hardly surprising. As human beings, we are biologically wired for connection. We long to be seen, understood, and met with warmth and appreciation. But when we don't receive the response we long for from others, or even from ourselves, it is easy to start looking for it somewhere else.
And there is AI. Always available, quick to respond, and often kind, encouraging, and validating. A machine that rarely challenges us in the same way another human being might.
Of course, that is appealing. Especially when we feel lonely, misunderstood, or uncertain.
But receiving validating words is not the same as experiencing genuine human connection. We don't just need to feel understood. We also need opportunities to understand others, encounter differences, and experience the mutual give-and-take that exists in living, breathing relationships.
AI can provide us with lists, facts, thoughtful explanations, and useful advice. But AI has no body of its own, no human nervous system, and no lived experience of loving, grieving, longing, or connecting with another human being.
As human beings, we don't grow through understanding alone. We also need to experience.
When we communicate with one another, many different parts of the brain work together. We interpret words, tone of voice, facial expressions, and body language, while our emotions, memories, and physical responses influence how we experience what is happening. We need to listen, adapt, navigate misunderstandings, and sometimes find our way back to connection after a conflict.
All of this is part of the learning and practice that human relationships offer us.
It's not just about connection. It's about body-to-body connection, too.
And there is another important aspect: Use it or lose it. Our brains are shaped by what we do and what we practice. When we think for ourselves, find our own words, solve problems, and engage with other people, we activate neural networks that can develop and change through experience.
If we constantly allow AI to think, formulate, and solve problems for us, we risk missing out on valuable opportunities to exercise these abilities. And if AI begins to replace our human conversations, we have fewer opportunities to practice the very skills that make relationships so meaningful.
AI can be a wonderful source of support. But it cannot replace the mutual human experience of meeting one another, influencing one another, and growing together.
Because we can understand as much as we like with our minds, but for real change to take place, our bodies need to be part of the process, too.
So let's embrace AI as a tool that can help us become wiser, while remembering to keep thinking for ourselves, staying curious about one another, and having the courage to connect, even when it feels difficult.
Because so much of life happens in the space between us.
Eva Berlander & Co
