if you could produce a more immersive social experience. Now, everybody's having their individual social experiences. Like, now what I worry about with AI, with VR, with all these kind of um, technologies that are expanding, we all inhabit our own singular world.

Like, that is more frightening to me than like, yeah, you know, that we all converge to the same experience.

So, what makes a human a human? It's one of those questions, isn't it?

Um, I mean, there's like two ways I would look at it. Like, one is for my personal life and one is for my work life.

Like, one thing that's interesting is like there's been points when I've been spending like four to five hours a day in chat AI.

And the interesting thing that happens in that is the things that you notice, like when you first start, "Oh, this is really realistic." Similarly, like when people first had like black and white TV, yeah, and they're like, "Wow, this is like real life." But then as you get used to it, you start to kind of realize like the things that make it less authentic.

And I think something that I realize with AI is like there's certain ways that we interact that are just more spontaneous.

Like, there's something about the predictability of AI that teaches you about like the spontaneity of being human.

Um, the ways they communicate, the naturalness, the contextual awareness, like these little things that all add up. That's on the technical side.

On the other side, I mean, I think there's something of just like the shared experience of being human that actually I think like differentiates it from like other animals' experience.

Like, you know, you you have a traumatic moment in your life and then you start to resonate with other people's like I feel like every time I've had something nearly catastrophic, it like opened up like a new door of empathy and then you start to be like, oh man, that really hurt, you know?

Or like when you cry about something, you're like, wow. And then you start to remember like, because is what usually happens to me, it's like I start crying about something and then I think about all the things that like I did for my mom or my grandma, and like all these kinds of things and the things that they felt.

And I feel like that there's something in that kind of like shared experience where we have these things that like differentiate us.

We're all different people, but there's something about like those common feelings that it all kind of arises from.

But anyway, that's one thought. I love that answer and I'm going to say that you're not normal in that way. Here's why.

I don't think you're normal. People anthropomorphize anything. It doesn't have to even be that good, right? It doesn't have to be anywhere near as good as like AI for people to treat it like it has some like human character.

People treat their cars like they're people.

So I'm surprised that, um, when you interact with it a lot, it feels less real to you.

There there's something about like, I think about like resolution. It's like the way of seeing the world and like you kind of increased this, right? It's like the same reason you can't look at TV that's not 4K now.

And it's someone, I think, who worked on like early VR was saying, you know, the interesting thing about it was like when you stepped out of it, you're like, oh, the real world is actually amazing and it's actually really hard to recreate that in technology.

And I think the same is true for AI, is like maybe for some people when they interact with it, the thing that they see is some commonality.

But the thing that I always notice is like, this is very different from the conversations I have with my parents, even though it said something similar.

There's something off. And I it's it's those little things that it's like that's like I think what over time will add up as people use AI more is they'll start to recognize, and I can't even point at them, like what are those nuances that you make us human?

You just you just know it when you see it and you're like, and it's missing in AI.

Yeah, so I mean that that's that's also interesting because what you just suggested is that the more people use AI, the less real it's going to feel to people.

I mean, there's probably another case like, you know, it's the same way as like, you know, your Instagram and Facebook feed isn't a real conversation, but there are certainly kids especially who would look at those kinds of feeds and feel like, oh, that's a real representation of my friends or my, you know, my favorite celebrities or whatever.

I actually think but it's like completely, I shouldn't say completely, largely false. Um, and I do think something similar will happen with AI where some people for sure will like almost be encaptured and they will believe that like that's the most realistic thing that exists and then start to compare people to that.

But I I think that, you know, if you have that degree of empathy, you'll be like, oh, there's something off.

here, it's the same way as like, even if you use a Zoom call, yeah, there's something off. It's like, I know you can't you can't—it's hard to pick it up, but like, I'm not picking up all the signals, and it's the very little like nuances that you probably just subtly pick up as well.

Mhm. So you don't think that the technology is going to advance quickly enough where to overcome those little things fast enough to capture all of us?

You're not worried about that? I am definitely worried about that, mainly because because I think I think for most people, it's easy, right?

So the thing about AI is it's is it so beholden, at least if you think about like the chatbot styles, it's so beholden to what we want, and that's kind of like what people, I think, want in their—a lot of people want in their life, or they need, is like the sense of control.

And this the AI gives you this sense that like, I can control this anthropomorphic thing.

And that's honestly one of my fears, is that people get used to that. And what does it mean when like, I get used to interacting with something that is beholden to only my views and interests, and then I go interact with a human who has their own interests?

Uh, you think people you think people want control? I think people want to be controlled. Ooh. Um, maybe it's this form of control though.

To be controlled is a predictability, I guess. Yeah, people want the world to make sense, don't you think? Yes, yes. I think they also want the world to be like, there's something about like preferring predictability over optimality.

So like, I've even felt it like when you have like, you know, a mental health moment, you have friends who have mental health moments.

The thing that I've always seen as interesting is like your brain and your mind prefer to stay in a state that's familiar, even if it's worse.

So if you're in like a depressed state, you almost would rather like stick in that than break outside of it, right?

So there's something about like things that are familiar rather than actually like better.

And that, I don't know, there's like a bias towards, you know, you almost identifying them with those kinds of states. Yeah, there's there's there's research on this one, it's called status quo bias.

People like things that are already there, and two, people like to have what they believe about themselves affirmed.

They really believe them even if they're not positive. So that that is true. So I like, what does that look like in AI?

Uh, yeah, um, I mean, it's it's definitely interesting to me that people seem to love like, you know, you talk to a lot of these things and they they sound like computers and they sound like AI, but people love it because it kind of like, it's it's familiar, it's controllable.

You know, if you start to add lots of personalities and these kinds of things, it makes sense in context, but I found it interesting that like as we started developing these AI systems that people interact with, they all have this kind of like similar voice.

It's a very it's a very AI voice. You can kind of tell that you're talking to an-- maybe that's intentional, but there's there is something there where like I think people have a preference to getting what they want from humans from humans and from AI from AI, but that could blend.

Like I think that there's, you know, there's already lots of you know people in certain demographics who spend a lot of time on the internet, and they start to identify like that's their favorite form of interacting with people.

And so I do think that there's a reality where, like, as we move into the future, there will be people who bias towards that for whatever reasons, you know, whether it's the comfort of knowing that someone's not judging them, whether it's like the format that it speaks to you with that will kind of bias towards, you know, preferring those types of interactions.

Um, but on the other hand, I always think that there will just be like, you know, there'll be a distribution of people, and you'll have some people who really don't like it.

Um, and, you know, like, like I was saying, the more that I interact with it now, I I find it almost painful because I just pick up on so many of these issues that you're like, I can't even I can't even use it at a certain point.

And, you know, my you'd think that like, you know, I'm in the AI space.

I I write like 20-page docs. I don't use AI for a single bit of it because it it does remove that voice.

And I do also wonder, though, is as people interact with it more, will they either identify the differences or start to conform to the things that they're trained with AI?

It's the same as like, you know, if you interact with the same, you know, your partner, for example, right?

You start to be biased by the communication because you're talking so much. You mean they're training you?

They're training you. I agree. Right? Like, you know, your partner's probably like, you know, they they have a preferred way of communicating. You get used to it.

these kinds of things. So I do wonder if as people interact with AI more, that they'll kind of all converge. That's probably one of my biggest fears, actually, is it causes convergence of... You know, I'm concerned about the exact opposite here.

So there's I'm going to I'm going to shift a little bit.

So we talk about AI, what you what you're describing, it's usually like dyadic interactions, like I'm interacting with one AI, one agent.

Yeah, that's true. But really what people do is interact with multiple people, right? You interact in some community or some small group setting.

And I'm surprised there's not more of that in AI. So you you're also in gaming, like my understanding, I don't I don't really game, but my understanding is a lot of the gaming is about connecting with the people and it's a community kind of experience.

I'm so there's two things. One, I'm really surprised that AI seems so focused on these like one-on-one interactions as opposed to like multiple AI agents creating a more immersive social experience.

I love you brought out that's literally what we do. So okay, good. So good. So that that's one other thing.

Like the reason I worry more less about convergence and more about divergence is if you could produce a more immersive social experience, now everybody's having their individual social experiences.

Like now what I worry about with AI, with VR, with all these kind of um, technologies that are expanding um, what we can control about our social environment, about the our physical perceptions in the environment is that we all inhabit our own singular world.

Like that is more frightening to me than like, yeah, you know, that we all converge to the same experience. Well, my my mom's a a grade and the one that is really interesting is if you went back like 20 years, everybody was watching like the same TV shows, and they'd come to class and they'd all be talking about, you know, Pokémon or whatever it was.

And now everybody watches their own favorite YouTube channel. Yes. And it's the siloing of of reality.

So, yeah, like what we do is when we work with games, for example, one of the interesting things is like as people play through games, it's basically the same thing.

You can have a million people go through a game and it's it's some differences, but you're largely going to hit the same points.

And so one of the things that we think about is, you know, what does that mean for agency?

So, you know, the way we interact with media changes the way that we feel agency in the world. So if we see inert media that we can't change, it also gives you the sense that like you can't change the world.

And so to your point, one of the things that we do with we want to do with games is how do you make it so that each person can actually influence that outcome?

And as you add more agents into that, that you see, okay, I interact with this one and it has a cascade effect, right? And that's like, I I love it. I mean, even in some of the stuff we've done here, it's the magic actually happens when you do have those agents interacting because then you're also not just seeing like that to one interaction, but the emerging effect of basically that interaction.

And another thing is if your main controls that you have in computer is like point and click or, you know, games, jump and shoot.

We're trying to see like what does it mean if social skills like interaction like this are the ways that you actually interact with the games or technology and the agents.

Like that's that's a very different way of conversing or of dialogue than like button presses, right?

And I think that changes the way that you sense agents in the world, because I think the way that most people change the world is by speaking, interacting, interacting with other humans, not by pressing buttons.

Yeah, you know, I don't... The other thing that's interesting to me is I don't think people have an understanding of the systems they exist in, right?

People think about themselves as existing in like individual relationships, and they have a harder time understanding system effects, like I affect you, which affects your partner, which affects your partner's parents, right?

That that is a harder thing to grasp. But I think there's something that's fundamentally human about that. Like you are also impacted by all these different things going on.

Like we had the person come and put on our makeup, and now I'm looking beautiful. That's affecting everybody else around me.

Like, yeah, exactly, exactly. So, but I don't, I mean, how do you, how does that fit in? I just haven't heard people talk about it in that way, which is surprising to me because that, I think, is what fundamentally makes human human is interaction in complex social situations in these like nested systems.

Yeah, and like they all affect each other, right? Like you think that your like small activity doesn't affect whatever higher- level political stuff, but it's all aggregate and it's all interlinking as well.

Yeah. Um, I mean, it's, it's like the the AI thing is interesting too because I often hear people talk about it as like this evolution, right?

You have like, you know, singular cells to monkeys to humans to AI, where it's like you could flip it, right?

Where it's like more like, you know, cells to organs to human to AI.

That's a system overarching that just because it's trained on us and we do these things, we actually influence that system. Then it's kind of this now that people are interacting with it, it has this interplay.

Yes, and I and that's interesting too, when it becomes like, you know, AI isn't this like singular entity, it is more of an institution or a system almost that is kind of overing everything else.

Yeah, and it's also weird because it's like our vision of who we are.

So we talk about AGI, it's like, I we don't even know what intelligence is, and we we think we're going to produce something that that has it.

It's just an interesting situation where we talk about it as you said, it's natural evolution, but in fact, we're creating it, and it's not clear that we we know exactly what it is we're creating.

I actually think that one of the most interesting things is that we're we're starting to work on AI at a point where like, I still think we're figuring out, you know, ourselves.

Like, you know, neuroscience is like very early on in its days and yet we're creating things that are like based on our own intelligence and we don't really understand even what's going on inside.

And so to your point on like, what are the effects? We don't really know yet. You know, we don't we don't know. You know, every year a paper comes out is like changes how people think about child rearing, right?

Like how to how to bring up a child well, like all those kinds of things.

And now we're creating systems that will, you know, kind of be overarching other humans. Like, what does that mean? I don't know. I do actually think, you know, I happen to be in AI.

We happen to be at this point in time, but if we could pause for a second, I think it would be good another few centuries of figuring out, you know, what we are and understanding that a little bit better before we created something that was in our image, because like, we're kind of just, you know, it's it's kind of like taking a photograph and like painting, right?

It's like, you're not actually getting the person and painting it, right?

What Makes Us Human in the Age of AI? A Psychologist and a Technologist Answer | TED Intersections

The TED Talks channel features the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes (or less). Look for talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design -- plus science, business, global issues, the arts and more. You're welcome to link to or embed these videos, forward them to others and share these ideas with people you know.

TED's videos may be used for non-commercial purposes under a Creative Commons License, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives (or the CC BY – NC – ND 4.0 International) and in accordance with our TED Talks Usage Policy: https://www.ted.com/about/our-organization/our-policies-terms/ted-talks-usage-policy. For more information on using TED for commercial purposes (e.g. employee learning, in a film or online course), please submit a Media Request at https://media-requests.ted.com

What Makes Us Human in the Age of AI? A Psychologist and a Technologist Answer | TED Intersections

Scripts