Wise Companionship with Artificial Minds
A playful 2-hr sense-making workshop around the future of human relationships with artificial minds.
Description
How might we relate to a new category of beings: AIs?
We're all forming dependency and bonds with ChatGPT, Claude, and other AI assistants and companions, yet have no social script for what ‘healthy relationships’ look like with them. Marshall McLuhan observed that "every extension of man is [also] an amputation". As these ever-evolving artificial minds extend our cognition and creativity, what parts of our humanity might we be atrophying?
Maybe you’ve found yourself thinking:
"I'm not sure where my ideas end and ChatGPT’s begin.”
“Am I still a creative if AI does half the work?”
“Is it weird that I use ChatGPT for therapy advice?”
”I’m curious what would happen if I trained an AI on my voice and thoughts, but that feels really weird.”
Bring an appetite for the cyborgian as we explore the future of human-AI relationships in a playful, speculative research workshop. We'll dive into present and future instantiations of human-AI interfaces and the relational patterns that may emerge. We’ll also draw on behavioral and cognitive science to understand what's happening in our nervous systems when we blend with artificial minds. We'll explore our own network of AI relationships through embodied exercises, discussion, and collective imagination. You'll leave with new practices and insights for intentional AI collaboration and companionship.
Learning Outcomes
Self-awareness of one’s own behavior using personal AI
Deeper understanding of the complexity, range, and implications of human x AI relationships
Ability to invite others into inquiry around this topic using new conceptual frames
Program
Introduction: Talk on the state of human x AI relationships and emerging societal implications.
Group Play: Games, discussion, and roleplay around how to show up wisely to these cyborg futures.
Practice: Draft a plan to bring these insights into your daily life.
Instructor Bio
Olivia Tai designs playful, embodied spaces exploring the relationships between man, machine, and monkey. Currently, she stewards the Chimeras Collective (@chimerascollective) with her friend, Kyle, bringing whimsical interspecies classes to NYC about rats, cyborgs, and beetles. Previously, she worked at biodesign innovation lab OXMAN in strategy & project management after graduating from Harvard with a focus on psychology and design. Once a month, you can find her covered in dirt hosting monthly roughhousing meet-ups. Her current work explores how we stay grounded, wise, and agential as our world becomes increasingly cyborg.