tech
The Unexpected Way AI Helped Me Appreciate My Body
Distaste for Big Tech is one of the few headline topics on which my conservative mother and I agree. We sit at her kitchen table, trying to outdo each other with hell-in-a-handbasket reports.
TL;DR
- The author expresses a general distrust of Big Tech and AI, evidenced by her attempts to evade AI-generated responses and her reluctance to use AI for significant decisions.
- A significantly faster MRI scan, attributed to AI, prompts a reflection on how advanced technology could have benefited her during past medical procedures.
- Using an AI chatbot for therapy, the author finds she can openly discuss her physical pain with the AI due to its lack of judgment or emotional response, which she struggles to do with humans.
- This AI-facilitated practice with pain disclosure begins to open doors for more authentic conversations with her husband and in-laws.
- The author contrasts the limitations of human bodies (needing rest, food, and facing mortality) with the theoretical limitlessness of AI, but argues that these very limitations are what foster creativity and connection.
- She develops a reverence for the confines of her own materiality, finding value in her body's inefficiencies, mortality, pain, and unreliability as sources of unique knowing and creativity.
- The author worries that AI, instead of freeing us to be more human, may lead to replacing human efforts and a "heartbreaking hollowing" of our experience.