Chatbots and charity: on anxiety and AI, during the season of thankfulness.
Beatrice: It’s good to see you again. How was your holiday?
Benedict: It came and went in a flash. There was scarcely any time to rest.
Beatrice: Where did you go?
Benedict: I stayed home, and worked and slept.
Beatrice: So there was no time to celebrate the season, then?
Benedict: What season would that be? The shopping season?
Beatrice: I meant Thanksgiving — or that of St. Martin’s Day, if you want!
Benedict: Thanksgiving is all about eating; and I have no idea who St. Martin is, or what you’re talking about.
Beatrice: He was a fourth-century soldier who is remembered for his charity, and his saint’s day often marked the end of the harvest season. So the harvest is also the time for giving thanks, as in Thanksgiving.
Benedict: This is interesting in a vague sort of way, but I don’t see how it relates to me.
Beatrice: What do you like to do then on your holiday.
Benedict: It’s a relief to feel I’m not working all the time. And I can relax, and find some peace.
Beatrice: Why are you so tired? What are you working on? It’s not as if you’re building houses or clearing paths in the forest.
Benedict: I often feel that life is simply overwhelming. I can’t focus on what I’m doing. There are nights — mornings — when I don’t want to get out of bed. I just stare at the ceiling. I feel paralyzed.
Beatrice: There is a great deal of stress in life.
Benedict: You’re not understanding me. You have no idea of the anxiety I feel. It is at times unbearable.
Beatrice: How do you cope with it? Do you talk with family or friends?
Benedict: Yes, I chat with friends. We trade texts, videos, and posts. It helps at first, but when I’m alone the anxiety wells up again. I take medication, but it always needs adjusting.
Beatrice: Have you tried listening to music?
Benedict: That helps me as well. I listen to songs that my father liked, and they bring back good memories from our time together. I miss him.
Beatrice: What about reading and writing?
Benedict: No, that reminds me too much of school.
Beatrice: How do you handle your schoolwork?
Benedict: I suppose I don’t really have a plan. I enjoy discussions in class, but don’t read in advance. Few students do.
Beatrice: So during class time you do the reading?
Benedict: Yes, unless there’s a lecture. Then I can just tune out.
Beatrice: What do you mean?
Benedict: I text with friends or watch videos on my phone.
Beatrice: And your essays?
Benedict: The deadlines weigh on me. But I find ways to finish them quickly, using Chat.
Beatrice: Is Chat helpful?
Benedict: Very helpful! It is great at finding materials and creating an analysis, even it’s a bit off topic. It writes better than I do. And the professors never notice I’m using it, or if they do, there’s nothing they can prove.
Beatrice: Do you notice a difference?
Benedict: I just said it writes better than I do.
Beatrice: Then how will you become a better writer?
Benedict: What is the need, when AI can write for me? It can even write poetry!
Beatrice: What does it mean to “write better”?
Benedict: It means to write clearly and to the point. Make information understandable to those who read it.
Beatrice: I suppose that is one definition.
Benedict: Is there another?
Beatrice: I’m thinking of a couple of things. First of all, is writing only about information, and making it clear?
Benedict: Yes! Why else would anyone write?
Beatrice: What about feelings and emotions?
Benedict: What about them?
Beatrice: Can’t we write to express feelings? Didn’t you mention poetry just a moment ago?
Benedict: I did. But that is a small part of writing, which hardly anyone does. My college essays don’t ask me to write poetry!
Beatrice: Do you read poetry or literature, or history?
Benedict: Yes, in one or two required classes. What of it? We also have to look at art from time to time.
Beatrice: So you see that in literature and history that feelings are important?
Benedict: Of course. But so are facts and data.
Beatrice: But in order to write about emotions — fears, hopes, dreams, sorrows — don’t we need to recognize their force? You were just talking about anxiety.
Benedict: My own feeling is we are getting off track. As I said, Chat will write about these emotions for me, better than I can.
Beatrice: When you say “better,” you mean more clearly: describing these states of emotion objectively, factually, as information.
Benedict: Yes! You seem to be understanding me now.
Beatrice: I am trying to. But in this “better,” isn’t something lost?
Benedict: I suppose you mean I don’t practice writing things out myself. I told you: I don’t have time for that.
Beatrice: We can return to the question of time. I’m asking about what you gain by writing these essays yourself, without Chat.
Benedict: Do you mean it is more honest to do that? Are you really going to judge me for this? Students have been cutting corners since the beginning of schooling.
Beatrice: I’m asking about something deeper. I’m wondering what writing teaches you about yourself.
Benedict: This is getting deep. What do you mean?
Beatrice: Why is writing difficult?
Benedict: It takes time. And I’m busy.
Beatrice: Are you busy or distracted?
Benedict: Both!
Beatrice: What if you spent less time being distracted, and more time writing?
Benedict: I don’t think I could do that. Spending time chatting with friends and posting helps me with my anxieties, as I told you.
Beatrice: We’re returning to where we began. Good! We began by talking about how you felt your anxieties were unbearable. And that the text and posts ultimately did not help with that.
Benedict: OK. We did. But what does that have to do with writing?
Beatrice: If these distractions take you outside your cares and anxieties for time, but only for a short while, wouldn’t it make sense to change course?
Benedict: And practice writing? I don’t follow you. As I said, using Chat is all I need. My grades are OK and I save time.
Beatrice: Time for what?
Benedict: All other things: work, sports, hanging out, posting.
Beatrice: All good things. But you still find life overwhelming.
Benedict: I do.
Beatrice: Could it be that Chat saves you time but also heightens your anxieties?
Benedict: How so?
Beatrice: By keeping you outside yourself, for giving you easy answers when harder ones are needed: these are the answers that come from yourself, from your own resources.
Benedict: But we’ll always have Chat and the internet: it’s smarter than I am!
Beatrice: How can you say that when you do not know yourself? And how can you know yourself, without challenging and drawing upon yourself, your own imagination and creativity and intuition?
Benedict: So what you’re saying is that writing is a way of self-discovery. And that Chat stands in the way. I’m connecting the dots.
Beatrice: That’s right. I’m only listening to what you’re telling me. We hear all these marvelous things about Chat, and no doubt they are marvelous. And we also hear warnings from ethicists, professional thinkers about moral principles, about the dangers of Chat and AI. These warnings are alarming, about losing control over our world at large. But I think these ethicists overlook the dangers to the smaller world, one that you are experiencing.
Benedict: Please explain this to me.
Beatrice: I think you can better explain it to yourself, in your own terms. What I’m hearing from you is a deep, intense feeling of anxiety, at the same time that you are using Chat to write for you, or should we say to avoid writing for yourself. Now logicians might say a post hoc is not therefore a propter hoc: something that precedes something else is not necessarily the cause of it. But writing for oneself is difficult — we agree upon that — and it’s difficult because it makes us draw upon and understand ourselves.
Benedict: Yes. But your point is that by drawing upon ourselves we will become less anxious. That seems a stretch.
Beatrice: Does it? What do you have to lose by trying? The ethical danger of Chat, as you describe it in your own experience, is that you give up yourself and avoid the risk of self-discovery, which we encounter through our own writing. If Socrates famously said, ‘an unexamined life is not worth living,’ or something like that, well then let’s live our lives by taking that opportunity. Then we’ll see where the anxieties go!
Benedict: I would be grateful to see them go — even though I seem to be taking on more work!
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