Slow Erosion of our Skills

The slow erosion of our bi-directional relational skills (listening, flexibility, patience) through frictionless interactions with chatbots will indeed recalibrate our capacity for connection. 

The ease is alluring, but ultimately damaging. 

Mature and well-watered relationships mean that you can be you, and I can be me, and we don't need to merge into one single identity of agreement in order to function. 

But with AI companions, there is only a perceived agency...not a true dual agency that allows for differentiation. That lack of individuation cultivates an eventual inability to withstand the inevitable reality of relational friction. 

This is why we need to design AI as a rehearsal for relationship, rather than a replacement. We want AI to help us get better at relating to one another.

It reminds me of Rilke's stunning description of relationship and the possibilities that lie between two agency-filled humans:

"Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue, a wonderful living side by side can grow, 
if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible 
for each to see the other whole against the sky".