How do we humanize non-human interactions?

I’ve been thinking a lot about the below since I posted it. The risk of trusting AI to get pseudo-human interaction right, the difficulty of knowing just how to balance AI’s advantages with the necessity of a human touch, the cognitive reward of human interaction that’s missing from AI.

I released a podcast episode with Mark Williams recently (audio/video) that touched on this from a different angle. Mark talked about the importance and power of human connection. But it all comes around to the same thing: humans will react to humans fundamentally differently, and better, than humans react to machines.

We can’t afford to ignore AI and hope for the best. That could be catastrophic.

We also can’t afford to step blindly into a world where we incorporate AI without considering its ramifications on human interaction. A machine cannot and should not replace human emotion, connection, or intuition. Let’s not pretend it can.

We need to approach this question thoughtfully and rigorously. How can AI supplement and enhance my work? How can I leverage AI without losing the human touch? If my work touches others (is there any work that doesn’t?) are they prepared for me to incorporate AI in it?

And most importantly, what do I lose and what do I gain when I bring AI into the equation?

I have thoughts on this but don’t have all the answers. I’d love to hear what you’re thinking about! Jump in the comments and let’s talk about this, human to human.