By Gina Barreca Ph.D.
- Don’t ask AI anything whatsoever about your appearance. A big part of its job is to make you keep using it, so it will engage and flatter you the same way a sales associate who works on commission will tell you that you look particularly good in maroon because of your coloring. A true friend, in contrast, will help you recall that not only do you not look good in maroon, you’ve kept buying maroon clothing, furniture, pets, and then regretting it since 1993. AI will ask if you want to do a deep dive on the ways maroon has been used in fabric and whether its trending. Your friend will tell you it makes your skin look the color expired grapefruit. That’s what you need to know.
- Don’t ask AI whether somebody loves you. It’ll say that, of course, somebody does. It will ask you for examples about feelings and interactions with the feigned interest but with soulless disconnect. It doesn’t know and it doesn’t care. It doesn’t know about your crush on the cute librarian with the charming wit and side smile who suddenly appears in your wildest dreams. You didn’t tell it that. And what if you just need a sounding board so you can work it out? Great; that’s what friends, or legitimate therapists, are for. They help you understand your signature patterns and help you evaluate your actual emotional resilience. For real. And just for you.
- Don’t ask AI whether you are smart. What can it say? It’s way smarter than you. Poor AI: Don’t put it in a position where it has to fake its sincerity. Or put it this way: Asking AI if you’re smart is like asking the sun if it shines for you alone. You’ll believe what you want.
- Don’t ask AI whether you have enough money because AI will get all Old Philosopher on you: “What’s rich? Are you rich in money but poor in soul? Rich as in rich-rich, or just richer than your cousin Susan with all her cars, which are leases anyway, so why is she a big shot? Rich as in intergenerational wealth or rich in that not all your food comes in cans?” Ask an actual person trained in the arena: an accountant, a financial advisor, your cousin Susan who sounds like she’s actually done better than you, not that you’re bitter, and work with facts of your finances.
- Don’t ask AI to help you. It can’t help you cook, apart from offering recipes and kitchen tips, and it can’t help you do the dishes. It can’t pick up your father at the hospital after his tests. It can’t take your shoes to the guy who does a terrific job with soles, and it can’t iron that beautiful linen blouse with the ruffle. AI can’t pick up the kids if there’s a snow day, jump your car battery, or know exactly what it means when you give that long particular sigh. It can’t take you aside to whisper that you’ve mis-buttoned your shirt, have spinach in your teeth, or need Gas-X. It’s not your friend.
- AI doesn’t want to help you; it doesn’t desire anything because it has no connection to you except the one through your server. AI doesn’t want to undermine you either— which is why, for some of us with complex and problematic pasts, we can imagine AI as offering what “help” looks like. We can project and displace our own needs onto politicians, computer games, gambling machines, and fictional characters in order to soothe ourselves with fantasies of relationships that don’t exist in everyday life. Asking AI to tell us what we’re hoping to hear is self-seduction. Ask people you know for support, encouragement, connection, and affirmations. They know you. AI does not. AI isn’t even a version of “Mirror, mirror on the wall”; at least the mirror risked telling uncomfortable truths. Look outwards; reach out.
Gina Barreca, Ph.D., a board of trustees distinguished professor at UConn, is the author of 10 books, including the bestselling They Used to Call Me Snow White, But I Drifted.
Originally published at Psychology Today
