Navigating AI and the Power of Real Human Connection
I address the importance of human connection a lot in this newsletter. I did my dissertation way back in the 90’s on social support, so it’s a topic I know well from research and boots-on-the-ground practice.
Before I start the content portion of this article, please read the following:
Last week, I wrote an article and recorded a podcast about my journey with AI. I thought it would be helpful to give you an update on how I'm using AI in my content generation. This week, I'm recording my podcast first, working from a loose outline rather than a full script – that's just how I prefer to work. Then, I'll upload the audio to AI to generate a transcript, which I'll then edit and use as the written content for this article. I'm letting you know how I'm using AI, and we'll see how it goes. You'll have to tell me if you can tell I used AI! I hope not, since it'll be a transcript of my actual voice and words. I will, however, ask AI to help me with headers and titles because I'm not great at those. I don't want AI generating content for me for many reasons, but I do appreciate its ability to assist with tasks I struggle with, potentially making my life a little easier. I'll keep you all updated. (As an aside, I don’t like the results of this experiment, but I’ll give it another try next week!)
ADD! OK, this section is not in the podcast because it happened after I recorded it. I thought I’d insert my experience with AI in generating a transcript for helping produce this written article. It did NOT go according to plan and ended up being QUITE FRUSTRATING!
It turns out that most major AI platforms don’t make transcripts from long-ish audio files (at least for free). I tried asking Gemini and Co-Pilot to help, and neither gave me anything useful. I struggled for about an hour and finally walked away to do my workout for the day – I really needed to blow off some steam, LOL!
On my morning walk I remembered that Substack has a transcript option! So when I sat back down at my desk, I logged onto Substack and lo and behold….a TRANSCRIPT that took all of two seconds to copy and paste into Word for me to modify and edit.
My journey with AI continues….
My Concerns About AI and the Erosion of Connection
Speaking of AI….and the reason for this post…..AI is leading us in a direction that genuinely concerns me. And it's not just me – many people share concerns about AI while also acknowledging its wonderful aspects. There are potential problems, and before launching into them I want to preface this content by explaining what I love most about my career, and it should become obvious as to why AI troubles me so much.
I went to graduate school in 1991, so I've been providing health and human services in many different capacities for a very long time. The common thread across everything I've done is witnessing the power of one person improving and getting better. When one person improves, that improvement translates into them showing up in other areas of their lives in much more powerful ways.💪❤️
With my current practice, clients develop better leadership skills. They might learn to move forward in important areas of their lives. If they were struggling with depression, crippling anxiety, intense stress, or overwhelm, they are able to engage with their kids' lives again. You hear about deeply depressed people who can't even get off the sofa to attend their kids' baseball games. When they can do that again, that's a massive jump in connection. Everything improves. 💯
Growth and improvement have a ripple effect. When you show up with more impact, no matter where you are, everyone around you also rises. That's just how it works.
On the flip side, when people are struggling, one sign of that struggle is experiencing troubled or unsatisfying relationships. Our ability to bring our best to other people, especially the ones we love most like our spouses and children, is significantly hindered when we're dealing with tough things.
Having emotional issues, stressors, or feeling overwhelmed is like having a broken leg. You can still move around and do many things, but it takes longer, there are restrictions, and it's much more painful. It's the same with any kind of frustration, overwhelm, depression, or anxiety.
I say this because when we're struggling, it manifests in our relationships. When this happens, our total health and productivity picture suffers.
This is a problem because of the crucial importance of relationships, specifically the idea of human connection. I want to make the case that every one of us needs to be far more mindful about creating and nurturing genuine human connections with real-life people.
There are forces working against us, forces that AI is building, and they're coming at us more strongly and won't let up. It's up to us to maintain our humanity and, more importantly, transmit that sense of maintaining humanity to the next generation – our children – by showing them the way and by encouraging everyone around us: employees, coworkers, friends, and community members.
I'm concerned that we're moving in the opposite direction.
The Undermining of Genuine Connection
AI is coming at us, and it is undermining us by eroding genuine connection with other human beings. We have to fight to prioritize genuine connection.
Why is genuine connection important? Your identity as a person comes from your relationships with others. Who you are is intrinsically linked to your relationships.
Imagine getting stuck on a desert island. You figure out how to survive, but there are no other human beings. You could have a robust relationship with God, and God would provide for you and love you. But who would you be? If you're alone, who are you under those circumstances? What's your identity? What's your purpose? Who do you love, and who loves you?
We're designed for authentic connection with other humans. When deprived of that connection, our senses of self and identity disintegrates. It's not because we're not valuable as humans, but because we lack meaning and purpose. Meaning and purpose are found in what we do with other people in our lives; it's not separate from that.
When we attend funerals and grieve someone's loss, what do we grieve? We grieve the loss of connection. We talk about what the person did for us, how they made us feel, how they changed someone's life or many lives, how they impacted the community. Everything we talk about when we grieve someone is how they affected other people's lives because that is our identity.
The trend toward less true connection with other humans and more reliance on digital communication—which is not real connection, just communication—means we're stripping away our humanity. I know that sounds dramatic, but I want you to truly think about what's happening.
I've gathered a lot of research on loneliness, and I'll do a separate episode on it because it's an aspect of this problem that needs to be addressed and is yet another reason why we need to prioritize making and nurturing connections with other people. But that's for next week.
Texting vs. Talking: The Communication Divide
I want to focus on the issue of connection at a higher level first, because we've been groomed away from connection. It's been happening under the guise of “bringing us closer together” by making it easier to send information to each other via text, social media, messaging, and so on. Because it's so much simpler to stay in contact with other people, it gives us the sense that we have all these "connections." We even use that word: "I have this connection on LinkedIn," "I'm connected to that person on Facebook." But it's not an actual connection. It's just not.
Working with both leadership clients, business clients, and life coaching clients in the past few years, I noticed a growing trend I didn't like. I didn't worry too much, assuming I was making a mountain out of a molehill. Well, I was not.
What I noticed was that people were telling me about text exchanges they were having with someone else, and they were using the word "talking" when referring to these text conversations. They would say, "I was talking with so-and-so." Over time, I realized I needed to start asking: "Did you actually talk to this person on the phone or in person, or was this a text conversation?" Often, not always, the answer was, "We were texting or messaging."
Here's the deal: texting and messaging is not talking. It's exchanging data and information. 94% of human communication takes place nonverbally. And of that large nonverbal portion, about 55% of human communication is conveyed through the face and neck area.
This comes from the science of body language. It's a real thing, not some "woo-woo" stuff. Dr. Paul Ekman, a very well-known psychologist, did groundbreaking research on this, looking at cross-cultural facial expressions. He found that there are culturally neutral facial expressions, meaning that no matter where you are, people who are surprised look similar. The same goes for disgust, happiness, joy, engagement. I think there are about 12 or 15 such expressions. You look at a face with that expression, and you know exactly what they're feeling, what they're experiencing. They don't need to say a word or make any sound.
When we text each other, we're only exchanging data. It's a stripped-down portion of what we intend to communicate. We lack tone, pauses, eye contact, voice inflections, physical gestures, and facial expressions. All these things provide crucial context to the other person about the meaning of what we're saying, not just the words themselves. None of that is present in text messaging. Therefore, it's not actually talking to somebody.
For instance, I can say to you: "Why don't I take you to dinner tonight?" or "Why don't I take you to dinner tonight?" or "Why don't I take you to dinner tonight?" and the meaning changes dramatically depending on where the emphasis is.
Also, if I speak slowly, that pace communicates that what I'm saying is important. If my pace is faster and higher, it shows enthusiasm and excitement.
I'm a big fan of emojis and GIFs that help convey the tone and intent of a message, but I don't think people use them as much as they could. I often try to insert an emoji 😊because I think it helps convey tone in addition to the actual content. It provides context. When we're texting, there's a severe lack of context.
If you have something serious to discuss with someone, something with real gravitas, especially if it involves emotions, for Pete's sake, pick up your phone☎️ and use the phone feature to physically talk to that person, or God forbid, get in your car and drive over to where they are and meet with them in real life. Text conversations always carry a very significant risk of creating more hurt feelings and misunderstandings.
People, in general, struggle with expressing themselves and having tough conversations under the best of circumstances. Do you really think you're going to resolve something highly complicated, especially if both people are emotionally charged, over a text message? No, it's not going to happen.
Very few people like interpersonal conflict. I think we tend to revert to text messaging because it gives us more distance from the actual conflict and a greater sense of control over when and how we respond. But that can allow us to be passive-aggressive by not intentionally responding quickly. That's not mature. You can't have mature interactions with other people over text messaging.
Text messaging is great for things like, "Hey, I'm gonna be 20 minutes late." That's fantastic. But you can't have a real, in-depth conversation and expect anything to be resolved over text messaging. All it does is heighten the emotionally charged atmosphere of whatever you're dealing with.
Now, if you can't speak to each other for a while for whatever reason, I strongly recommend using a voice or video app like Voxer or Marco Polo. I'm a big fan of Voxer. You don't even need video. Your voice alone will convey just about everything you need to convey in a message. When I started my coaching practice in 2002, I only did sessions over the phone because video conferencing didn't even exist, or certainly wasn't widespread then.
I was shocked at how much my brain🧠 was sharpened to pick up on very subtle cues in people's language over the phone. My hearing, my ability to listen to people, became acutely refined by that process. So much is communicated just through tone, inflection, pauses, and all that non-verbal “stuff.” The physical part is interesting and adds a lot, but you would be surprised how much you can pick up with just the voice. So, consider Voxer or a voice memo app.
The take-home message: reduce using text messaging for conversations. Texting is not a synonym for talking. That's the mantra. While it's common lexicon now to refer to texting as talking, I want you to remember that we're being groomed to believe that text communication is a genuine, effective, and equal replacement for real-life communication.
AI as Companion and Therapist: A Dangerous Trend
This leads to the next major issue: we're now using AI (ChatGPT or whatever) for companionship and therapy. All we're doing is typing into something – a different app than text messaging – and getting responses. And those responses are making us feel good because AI is there to please you. It's not always even there to tell you the truth; it's there to tell you what you want to hear.
When it does, that feels really good. Because we've been primed for so long to think about text or message-based communication as equal to face-to-face communication, we're not truly seeing the difference between having a conversation with AI versus having a conversation with a real human being over text messaging.
In my last Substack article, I linked to a very disturbing report about several people who essentially became psychotic from using ChatGPT and had to be hospitalized. I do believe those people were probably predisposed to having difficulty discerning reality from unreality; I don't think you can take a normally functioning person and make them psychotic, though I suppose it's possible, just not likely. But if ChatGPT weren't around, those people might not have crossed that line. It's tough to know, of course.
Apart from those extreme cases, what's happening is that more and more people are relying on AI for companionship. I'm connected with therapists on Facebook (I don't "talk" to them on Facebook, but I'm connected), and many of them are reporting that their clients are augmenting their therapy with AI in between sessions.
That's rough for a lot of reasons. As an aside, if you're seeing a therapist, you shouldn't go to another therapist. You don't get therapy from more than one therapist. If you do, say for a specialized issue like chronic pain management (which I used to work in), you'd be referred to me for pain issues while still seeing your other therapist for life issues. But I would know about it, and I'd be in contact with that person's other therapist to maintain firm boundaries and ensure no contradictions. That's what therapists are taught.
What's happening now is that people are turning to AI. I can only assume it's because they're getting information they want to hear from AI, which is how AI is established. Real therapy means confronting some ugly parts of yourself that don't feel good during the process, but you need to do it to get better. If I had to compete with AI, there truly is no competition. AI will make someone feel better 10 out of 10 times.
It's already happening. The problem, though, is that when you're having a "conversation" with Gemini, Perplexity, or whatever AI you think you're talking to, you're not talking to a person. And it's even worse than thinking you're talking to a person when you're texting them because the AI isn't alive. At least when you're texting with somebody, you're texting with someone who is alive and fleshy. AI is a brain, but it's not a human brain. And it doesn't care about you. It cannot care about you because it has no physical, fleshly body. A cat or a dog can display care towards you because they're living things.
But because we've been programmed to think that the exchange of words, ideas, and sentences somehow advances communication, we project that same expectation onto AI. So, texting AI is kind of the same as texting your friend. But unlike an actual relationship, you're not accountable to AI, and AI is not accountable to you. It might give you good advice, and it might even give you some insight.
But when people are struggling emotionally, remember, they are struggling with relationships. That struggle comes out in relationships in some way, shape, or form. So, if you're trying to fix that by working with AI, it cannot work, because all healing happens in the context of relationship. That's where our identity is as human beings.
You might feel a little better, but that doesn't mean you've been healed. Healing happens in the context of a relationship with another actual human being.
Because we've undermined connection and the importance of humanity, actually being with each other in physical space has now been degraded and discounted.
There's no difference between texting with your best friend and texting with AI. AI is becoming people's best friend. AI knows all the details about many people's lives. I'm not saying it's wrong, but I am saying that it cannot make that person healthier. You can get good advice, but that's not making you healthier. And it's not making other people healthier either, because you're depriving other people of you when you only make yourself vulnerable to AI.
If you have trouble making yourself vulnerable to other people because you're scared, that will not get better by interacting with AI. The only way that can get better is in the context of a healing relationship.
Healing happens in relationships, and when it doesn’t happen it is usually because the relationship is unhealthy. Then you realize you and the other person needs to make the relationship healthy. And you know how you do that? By consulting with an outside therapist to come in and help make your relationship healthy. That's how that works, because we're designed to need each other.
That's what gives all of us identity: impacting each other, growing together, struggling together, crying together, and laughing together. It doesn't happen with AI. AI is not going to cry with you. It can't. It might try to express sympathy, but it's not real. They're just words, because that's what texting is – just words. There's no tone, no intonation, no physical expression that goes along with the words on the screen.
It's really, really important to hear that I'm not telling you not to have some sort of digital connection with AI. I'm not totally discounting it. What I am saying is that you must counterbalance that with real human connection, because that's where it's at. That's why we're here.
I get scared that we're moving towards a time when everyone is just sitting in front of their screen, asking AI what to do. That's not humanity. When somebody dies, what are we going to say about them? Where's the grief going to be if you haven't had a relationship with someone? There can be no grief. This is deep. And it's troubling.
I know I'm talking about some unsettling things, and it's part of what I'm struggling with in dealing with AI. But I want to be upfront in driving home this message: you have to work on relationships. Take time out of your life to be with people, gather with people, have difficult conversations with people, and learn how to do that. You can learn that from AI, but only you can apply it in the context of an actual, physical relationship with somebody. You can get great advice on how to do that from AI, and I think you should go to AI for that advice.
But AI can't do it for you. It's not going to hold your hand to help you do it, and it's not going to hold you accountable if you don't. So, you have to do it.
That's what I want to encourage all of us to do, myself especially.
Announcing My Mastermind Group
I also want to add something somewhat related to this content: I'm starting a mastermind group in August for business owners. You need to have been in business for at least two or three years because business owners, in particular, suffer from loneliness. I'm going to talk about loneliness next time because it's a major problem. The saying "lonely at the top" is very real, and unfortunately, business owners experience this loneliness, and they don't have to. There's a way to make it better, and that's what I hope the mastermind does. I've seen it happen before, so I know it really helps to provide the knowledge that other people are going through the same things you are, and they're there to help you through it based on their experience, advice, and wisdom. It's really powerful.
Please reach out to me if you're interested in participating in this. It's limited to six people and runs for six months. It's a beta test and includes:
Monthly mastermind sessions (maximum two hours, hopefully an hour and a half).
One hour of individual coaching as part of your participation.
One hour of group coaching around a leadership topic each month.
If you're interested, send me a message or click here for more information
Please share this content if you think it's helpful or if anyone else in your life could benefit from hearing this. It's an important message, and we need to take this very, very seriously so we can fight against the coming tide. I want to be out in front of this, so I hope you'll join me.
Until next time, with more Fuel for Growth, this is Dr. Anita. To your success!