The disclosure/confession distinction is a gorgeous hinge for the piece. I appreciated the way you give the incentive critique its due weight and still leave room for companionship-shaped support that users can describe on their own terms. That combination is rarer than it should be in this debate.
I like that you refuse the question the discourse keeps trying to answer: is the tool good? And swap it for the actual variable: what else is in the room? Same reframe good addiction medicine has been making for decades, and almost nobody applies it here.
A room that's empty of humans is often also empty of the environmental infrastructure a nervous system needs at 3AM. Loneliness has a business model partly because we've engineered a whole class of environments that hold nothing back for a nervous system when the humans go home.
I am a firm believer that the socials are just at the mercy and tinkering of ultra-rich Americans (by and large). The vulnerable and the manosphere are the latest markets the merchants have realised are profitable. Make money on the vulnerable — and the vulnerable know no different, and certainly never experience it. And the young boys and men being sold ‘what a man is’ are being sold a poor photocopy of something that never really was.
What stayed with me was your question, “What else is in the room?” That shifts the conversation away from arguing over whether AI companionship is inherently good or bad and toward something much more human: what else is available to the person reaching for it? “The relationship is one-sided; the effects are not.” That paradox will stay with me.
Thanks, Mary. I once wrote a book about the imbalance of all culture dichotomies—monsters are a myth; what helps us understand these ‘monsters’ better is seeing what garden they were standing in and what fences (if any) were there to protect us AND them?
Seeing the whole garden really helps.
If you’ll like, I’ll send you a copy; let me know.
Lee, I’d be glad to receive a copy. “Seeing the whole garden” is a compelling way to think about context—especially the fences, who they protect, and what happens when they aren’t there. Thank you for offering. Let me know the best way to connect.
The clinical framing here is sharp: audit the network, not just the tool. That distinction makes room for both truths at once: some companion products are built around troubling incentives, and some people are using them in contexts where the alternative was not abundant human care but nothing at all.
Totally, Amy Jean. Thank you for reading my article, and for your comment! I have long railed against ‘the’ truth; I believe that apart from physics there are only ‘a’ truths.
I like that distinction. It keeps the question from becoming a verdict and makes it more diagnostic: what truth is operating for this person, in this setting, with these incentives and gaps around them?
The disclosure/confession distinction is a gorgeous hinge for the piece. I appreciated the way you give the incentive critique its due weight and still leave room for companionship-shaped support that users can describe on their own terms. That combination is rarer than it should be in this debate.
Thanks, Amy :)
I like that you refuse the question the discourse keeps trying to answer: is the tool good? And swap it for the actual variable: what else is in the room? Same reframe good addiction medicine has been making for decades, and almost nobody applies it here.
A room that's empty of humans is often also empty of the environmental infrastructure a nervous system needs at 3AM. Loneliness has a business model partly because we've engineered a whole class of environments that hold nothing back for a nervous system when the humans go home.
I am a firm believer that the socials are just at the mercy and tinkering of ultra-rich Americans (by and large). The vulnerable and the manosphere are the latest markets the merchants have realised are profitable. Make money on the vulnerable — and the vulnerable know no different, and certainly never experience it. And the young boys and men being sold ‘what a man is’ are being sold a poor photocopy of something that never really was.
https://BookHip.com/ZQMTDBP
What stayed with me was your question, “What else is in the room?” That shifts the conversation away from arguing over whether AI companionship is inherently good or bad and toward something much more human: what else is available to the person reaching for it? “The relationship is one-sided; the effects are not.” That paradox will stay with me.
Thanks, Mary. I once wrote a book about the imbalance of all culture dichotomies—monsters are a myth; what helps us understand these ‘monsters’ better is seeing what garden they were standing in and what fences (if any) were there to protect us AND them?
Seeing the whole garden really helps.
If you’ll like, I’ll send you a copy; let me know.
https://a.co/d/0a6CSPB3
Lee, I’d be glad to receive a copy. “Seeing the whole garden” is a compelling way to think about context—especially the fences, who they protect, and what happens when they aren’t there. Thank you for offering. Let me know the best way to connect.
Have at it 📚😊
https://BookHip.com/KDNMGHQ
Thank you Lee.
The clinical framing here is sharp: audit the network, not just the tool. That distinction makes room for both truths at once: some companion products are built around troubling incentives, and some people are using them in contexts where the alternative was not abundant human care but nothing at all.
Totally, Amy Jean. Thank you for reading my article, and for your comment! I have long railed against ‘the’ truth; I believe that apart from physics there are only ‘a’ truths.
I like that distinction. It keeps the question from becoming a verdict and makes it more diagnostic: what truth is operating for this person, in this setting, with these incentives and gaps around them?