People have always made attachments to objects. You’ll hear one person talk about the earrings they love, whilst another has given their car a name and refers to it as ‘she’. Natural though this may be, at times it can go so far as to potentially undermine our mental health. I remember being at a conference once, and a colleague came rushing up to me in a state of some distress. I asked him what was wrong, and he told me that he had just sold his car – a Citroen 2CV. This didn’t make much sense, so I probed further, and he explained how he hadn’t realised just how attached to this car he was. He had so many great memories associated with it, and now he was gutted at its loss! Today, we have a new form of non-human attachment that has appeared – the AI companion! How about that – a companion that’s like a human, but without all the problems and issues that humans bring! Sounds good? I wonder. A recent article in Nature explores the effects that current iterations ofdigital companions are having on those who choose to use them and highlights the risks of becoming emotionally attached to an AI. Whatever the pros and cons of having an AI companion may be, I recommend the infinitely superior II companion, familiar to some, but not all. II stand for Infinite Intelligence.
There’s nothing artificial about God.