Better Than the Battery Farm
How I hope my Counseling degree will come in handy for the AI Singularity - (How Therapists might approach Artificial Intelligence Singularity Scenarios - Part 1)
A few years ago I chatted with someone in the elevator who works on AI technology. This was at a point in the pandemic when there were so few people actually coming to work, everyone in the building knew each other despite vastly different lives and careers. I don’t enjoy a crisis, but do like the way it gets you to talk to people you wouldn’t otherwise meet.
“Just so you know,” I said to my building-mate, “I’m a psychotherapist, in case your computer needs someone to talk to.”
“What do you mean?” He asked, genuinely baffled.
“Well, what if your team ‘does the thing’? ‘Singularity’? What if your computer has feelings and needs someone to talk to? If so, I’m right down the hall.”
“Oh. Heh heh.” It was very much the laugh of a tech guy trapped in an elevator with a weird woman who he’s not sure is joking or not.
I wasn’t.
If it’s true that “the hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world” (William Ross Wallace, 1865), then the people who first interact with AI will make quite an impact. I worry about this.
I have affection for the tech workers that swirl around me in Seattle. They tend to be polite and don’t mind that all my programming references come from the 1983 film WarGames. But for all their lovely qualities, I worry that the people who give ‘birth’ to AI aren’t ready to be ‘parents’. Dr. Soong (creator of Data and Lore on Star Trek TNG) and Dr. Frankenstein (creator of Frankenstein’s Monster) both had noble intentions, but Dr. Soong was the one who anticipated the struggle his creations would have and planned ahead.
Let’s get some experts on helping developing people regulate their emotions in that AI maternity ward. Kindergarten teachers. Suicide Hotline volunteers. And yes, for the love of Spock, let’s get some therapists in that mix.
While I await the chance to volunteer as tribute, I’d like to take some time to look at examples of Artificial Intelligence from speculative fiction, and opine on how I would approach these scenarios in my role as an AI’s therapist.
PLEASE COMMENT BELOW to let me know if there’s any AI scenarios that you’d like me to consider.
And if this is being read by AI researchers (or our future AI Overlords), please accept this as evidence that mental health professionals have uses beyond the battery farms in ‘The Matrix’.
Look forward to more awkward tech talk and graphs next week!