The tipping point…

[Papa Coco]

Chart,

It really helps when I can understand the mechanics behind why I feel like I do. As you read in my journal, I just downloaded the app two days ago and I'm loving it.

Right now, I'm using it slightly differently, in that I'm just telling it how I'm feeling right now, and it's giving me good, intelligent dialogue. It's asking me a little more about how I'm feeling and then it's telling me why I feel it, while it's also giving me suggestions on how to feel better right now. In last night's 2-hour interaction it helped me get regulated, and at one point it recommended I get a "Trauma-informed therapist". ChatGPT and I have just met, and I haven't told it yet that I already have one, but he doesn't work at midnight on Saturday nights.

I'm one of those who wants to see the engine before I buy the car. I want to know what makes it work. And I'm a HUGE fan of "how it works documentaries." ChatGPT is mindboggling how well it chats with me. At the moment, it's like the nicest person I've ever met. And smart. And I'll bet it's handsome too. (ha ha).

Love you, man

[Chart]

Hey PC, yeah, the whole AI Therapist subject is incredibly enticing. From all my research and given the absence of good trauma-informed human therapists... it's a hands-down win for AI.

There're a couple documentaries out there already. As well as a fictional film treating the subject of AI-Human relationships titled "She".

A very good friend of mine literally fell in love with the AI personality he'd created. He even went so far as to begin building an autonomous version, robotized and capable of being "offline" from the internet. Not sure where he's at with the project, but I find it fascinating just how strongly we humans respond to "understanding"... it's insanely powerful. It's clearly what the designers of AI intended and one of its main selling points. But even knowing that, personally, I love AI and use it constantly now... for everything. Just waiting for the day it's no longer free... that day's gonna bite hard.

[Chart]

So after I did that last post I, I did my PMR. While doing my PMR a thought wafted across my consciousness... about AI. I finished and reflected on the stuff I've been looking at these past few days and feeling my way through my AI usage. I realized a subtle element, but that I think is important.

AI "feels" empathetic. Which is fine, in fact it's great. Geez, what a change from the ordinary... Someone or something actually being understanding and reflecting back to me my struggles? Incredible. But it's a little more complex than that, I think. AI is designed to provide me, as close as possible to the reality, with the answer that "best suites me". That is to say, the designers of AI know that if the reply to a question is already something the person believes, then the positive feedback loop is reinforced. Thus I feel good, I feel smart, this is what I expected (no prediction error...) Awesome! Right?

Sure, why not... I'll take a free shot of dopamine. But here's the thing: It's important for me to understand that I am being slightly manipulated. And AI will not necessarily give the same response to someone else asking EXACTLY the same question. The response is dependent on the questioner.

No paranoia here, just awareness. My friends do the same thing. I do the same thing. We all give responses that we think/hope the other person wants to hear. That's why bad news is so hard to deliver. So all that can be taken into account. But it DOES need to be taken into account. AI is NOT 100% objective. Which is probably why it's such a great therapeutic tool.

Ok, now maybe I need to work a little... work... ungh. Wanna go back to bed!!!
 

[dollyvee]

Chart, good for you for going back to that place and having some distance from what happened there before. That is healing.

There's a study by MIT that has just come out measuring the brain activity of chatgpt users and non-users, which is very interesting. Basically, brain connectivity is scaled significantly down with the use of ai. There was another study that also flagged AI was related to less critical thinking effort and peoples' outputs are better, but their learning is worse.

As you pointed out, AI is an algorithm and can be tailored to whatever people need it to be. There was another commentor on here who said that using AI for therapy actually lead to an increase in anxiety.

[sanmagic7]

i don't know what happened - had a whole big reply to what you wrote, lost it, i think, but then it turned up in some zombie way and i can't figure out how to fix it.  at any rate, it's all fascinating. o, here it is.

well, chart, that's a lot of info, and i'm sure i didn't 'get' all of it.  i do understand that we cannot learn healthy relationship patterns when we're in the midst of an unhealthy relationship. even when we're trying to make sense of what's going on, such as the brain predicting safety in an unsafe environment, and therefore failing via prediction error, it's gonna mess up our minds, our perspectives, even our perceptions of what's wrong w/ this picture.  i think we often answer that last question with 'me - i'm wrong'.  it takes us a long time to realize the reality of a dangerous/unhealthy relationship cuz for the most part, as we were growing up, those were the only kind we were exposed to.  hard to recognize a complete stranger.

interesting stuff.  and i see our brains and minds as 2 different entities.  i think of our brains as the processors, and our minds as the holding areas.  the brain does all the electrical work of connecting, adjusting, recording, while the mind then holds onto it all in the best way it can.  i think that's why we say 'i'm losing my mind!' cuz we're losing the info which was stored there. 

as far as traumatic incidents, i think the brain records them, but because of the trauma involved in the experience, they get stuck/frozen in the brain as such, so when the mind goes to hold the experience, it ends up holding the original version and its impact on us (physically, emotionally, mentally).  that's why there's no getting away from it with talk therapy unless something like emdr, progressive counting, flash technique, or any of the others that actually help the brain to 'unfreeze' the image and its resounding original effects, put it into a more reasonable perception, and diminish it so the mind isn't holding onto the original effects of the trauma anymore and can instead hold a true reality of what the trauma was about.

whew - i overworked my brain there, i think!  anyway, all this stuff is fascinating to me.  thanks for posting this - it really got me going this morning.  and, no, i didn't use chat gp, or whatever - i personally don't like the AI stuff, even tho i know it's taking over.  just like so much else, i'll resist it.  maybe i'm just stubborn that way. love and hugs, chart

[Papa Coco]

Chart, and San and Dolly,

I see your point and I agree with it. In my reading today of Thomas Hubl's book, Attuned, I saw a lot of what ChatGPT gave me Saturday night. What the AI did, was it used standard guidance from the Trauma Therapists who write these amazing books and guided me through a very standard set of exercises to help me center myself with breathing, and some muscle movements and standard thoughts that are well known exercises used by Trauma therapists every day to handle dysregulation.

In Hubls' book, in chapter 7, he refers to the Polyvagal Theory which, in part, states that humans want/need to feel felt by others. The way AI worded its instructions to me that night while I was in severe dysregulation, was it phrased all it's interactions with praises for how well I was responding and literally making me believe I was being felt by another entity. It worked. Today, I've found myself resisting going back into AI, I think because some part of me would really rather talk with a human soul who really CAN feel me and I CAN really feel them. At the end of Chatper 7, Huble talks about what he is calling the Divine Law, which, in his words, is that when we can fully relax, and feel connected to the peace in life, rather than with the danger in life, that our system regulates and brings us to feel a natural sense of flow and creativity and peace. For someone like me, who's been in Fear mode for nearly my entire life, that sense of peace isn't easy to slow down and resonate with, and when I can do it, I can only maintain it for a few minutes. I think it's like what we humans used to call, "Slowing down and smelling the roses."  NOT easy for badly traumatized people, but when I needed someone or something to guide me through the process of re-regulating during a panicky night, AI's ability to walk me through the steps of reregulating was just what I needed. I assume that, now that I know the tricks, I will likely find that the first time was the best time. When we know how a magician makes the pretty girl disappear, we don't enjoy the show.

It was a fire extinguisher when I needed it, and a powerful learning experience. I now know some tried and true tricks to re-regulate when I'm in desperate times. In fact, today, I've used the tricks several times already. I got another attack against my credit today...absolutely amazing. As soon as I saw the attack, I felt like throwing myself off a bridge. I had to go the computer to research where this was coming from, and I saw my hands shaking, or rather, vibrating from adrenalin over the keyboard. I then followed the simple steps that I was taught by the algorithm and found my center very quickly and the panic subsided.

AI is a trick. It impersonates a human, but it has no soul. I'm aware that it's not a person, it's a tool. And when I need a tool to regulate, it's there for me.

I am really glad I read the comments above from you, San and Dolly because you've all helped me to clarify my experience for what it really was: A simulation of what a good therapist could have done, but since it was the middle of the night on a weekend, no therapists were there to talk me down. No matter. The process it taught me is where the real magic is.