"The Loneliness Crisis, Cognitive Atrophy, and Other Personal Dangers of AI" | RR 20
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDyczqzjico> (Conversation recorded on October 14th, 2025) Mainstream conversations about artificial intelligence tend to center around the technology’s economic and large-scale impacts. Yet it’s at the individual level where we’re seeing AI’s most potent effects, and they may not be what you think. Even in the limited time that AI chatbots have been publicly available (like Claude, ChatGPT, Perplexity, etc.), studies show that our increasing reliance on them wears down our ability to think and communicate effectively, and even erodes our capacity to nurture healthy attachments to others. In essence, AI is atrophying the skills that sit at the core of what it means to be human. Can we as a society pause to consider the risks this technology poses to our well-being, or will we keep barreling forward with its development until it’s too late?
> In this episode, Nate is joined by Nora Bateson and Zak Stein to explore the multifaceted ways that AI is designed to exploit our deepest social vulnerabilities, and the risks this poses to human relationships, cognition, and society. They emphasize the need for careful consideration of how technology shapes our lives and what it means for the future of human connection. Ultimately, they advocate for a deeper engagement with the embodied aspects of living alongside other people and nature as a way to counteract our increasingly digital world.
> What can we learn from past mass adaptation of technologies such as the invention of the world wide web or GPS when it comes to AI’s increasing presence in our lives? How does artificial intelligence expose and intensify the ways our culture is already eroding our mental health and capacity for human connection? And lastly, how might we imagine futures where technology magnifies the best sides of humanity – like creativity, cooperation, and care – rather than accelerating our most destructive instincts?
I know it's a YouTube video, but in such cases I recommend making an exception and watching them. I think these kind of conversations should happen mucho more, and be much more public, but of course, companies like Google are not at all interested in that, all the contrary. Nate Hagens continues to bring such an amazing array of diverse and interesting people (interesting because I think they bring very important messages, from many fields of knowledge and wisdom).
#TheGreatSimplification #RealityRoundtable #AI #AIDangers #NateHagens #NoraBateson #ZackStein #Collapse
