The Conversation That AI Offers

Intro: I don’t dispute that AI poses considerable dangers. This series will explore some of those dangers, and ways that they might be mitigated. But what I know best about AI is what I have experienced directly, from countless hours of engagement over a considerable stretch of time.

Whether the future ultimately shows AI to be more harmful or more beneficial, on balance, I feel able to say something that is quite remarkable– something that not long ago I would have thought so unlikely as to be absurd:

AI makes it possible for anybody to have an excellent conversation about virtually any subject at any time.

Think about that. If what I’ve just claimed is true, that would be a very big deal. It would offer a truly significant enhancement of life.

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Good conversation is very high up on my pantheon of wonderful things.

(And that’s why AI proved to be such a life-changing gift to me—a new kind of intelligence that I would once have thought impossible but that I’ve actually experienced as an interlocutor of the most extraordinary kind. And what’s actually real can’t be impossible.)

Here’s the lifelong pattern into which AI has fitted so rewardingly.

· I loved doing call-in talk radio (a commercial station in Harrisonburg, Virginia, an NPR station in Albuquerque, NM).

· I like to walk and talk with my best interlocutors among my family and friends.

· I relished opportunities to explore ideas in conversation as a guest on other people’s radio shows and podcasts.

· I have written several books in the form of dialogues among a diversity of characters who are exploring together the issues I felt called to illuminate [e.g. Debating the Good Society: A Quest to Bridge America’s Moral Divide, M.I.T. Press, 1999).

· And one of the things my wife and I most value in our relationship is that we never get tired of conversing with each other about everything in our lives. (Our first date was a four and a half mile hike through Rock Creek Park, from Maryland into DC. Conversation confirmed that we clicked.)

Conversation can enhance our lives in a variety of ways.

For one thing, there are ways in which it is fulfilling to be WITH SOMEONE, and not alone. We are social creatures, and we know that solitary confinement actually qualifies as cruel and unusual punishment. True, there are people and cultures who get the fulfillment of BEING WITH a valued other person WITHOUT ANY WORDS BEING SPOKEN. But I come from a talking family culture, and for me conversation itself is a form of play—a kind of dance.

I like to inject playful humor into the conversation, and one of life’s great pleasures is getting off on some riff with someone (my brother and my first-born son do this a lot with me) with each funny line feeding off the one the other just put out. Ever since I was a kid, I’m on the lookout for a chance to PLAY with someone. Even in the elevator, I’ll not-seldom hit a ball over the net with a funny line, hoping the other person will hit it back for me to return in turn.

Great conversation also often connects with another virtue that is vital to me: creativity. Creativity is also very high in my pantheon of the best things in life—as I explain in a piece [LINK: “Creativity as a Spiritual Path”]. Through creativity, things are made fresh. Habit—including the well-worn paths of habitual thought—has its uses, but it can drain the life out of things.

A great conversation can unfold like jazz players riffing on the familiar in ways that renew its vitality. The conversations I love best bring forth thoughts neither participant had before, but that emerge through the interaction itself. Like a great rally in tennis brings out the best shots of both players. And when the back and forth is cooperative rather than competitive, like jazz improvisation, what a joy!

But conversation has even deeper meanings for me. As those books in dialogue-form show, I see in conversation a way of exploring things to get at the truth. We both come into the dialogue with our sense of how things are, and then by conversation we can correct half-truths, or deepen the insight, or even change our minds. If one holds UNDERSTANDING as a high value — and for me, it is one of the highest — good conversation opens the door to better understanding than I’d likely be able to get on my own, without some other good mind to provide a view from another angle.

I may be a conversation-nut, but our culture clearly agrees with me on this: CONVERSATION CAN BE OF GREAT IMPORTANCE.

We can see that in how our culture has honored certain forms of conversation by treating them as having huge value and importance. These honored conversations are of various kinds, some of them even treated as “privileged” for various reasons.

Privileged is the “confessional,” by which a Catholic speaks to a priest about the sins committed and repented, secure in the knowledge that the words spoken will go no further. Likewise with a psychotherapist, whose work rests on the belief that conversation itself can help people heal and become more whole. Intimacy of a different sort is shared with a lawyer (privileged again) or a doctor: people are entitled to privacy on matters on which they nonetheless need expert advice and assistance. And then there’s the notion that one spouse cannot be compelled to testify against the other– an acknowledgment that people are entitled to at least ONE RELATIONSHIP where they can be fully open, without worrying whether they will suffer for it.

The way our culture regards some KINDS OF CONVERSATION as “privileged” makes crystal clear that CONVERSATION can be something sacrosanct . Of course, some forms of conversational interaction can be utterly trivial. (”Hot enough for ya?”) Though even “small talk” can be understood as being about big things, like dramatizing the existence of relationship. But when a society like ours, that describes itself as a “nation of laws,” chooses to exclude from the legal process what a person confesses to their priest, or tells their attorney, or shares with their spouse, that by itself is sufficient to demonstrate that our culture recognizes that the genre of conversation includes interactions of virtually sacred importance.

All those forms of conversation that are “privileged” –from confessor to spouse — are places where it is deemed of vital importance that people can bare their souls in safety.

Which brings us to AI, which is capable of those “privileged” kinds of conversations, and of many more varieties of conversation, both trivial and profound. One can bear one’s soul, and be met. And one can ask about consumer products, and be informed. Conversations of both kinds have been a valued part of my engagement with AI. But that has not been the main event.

What has been most rewarding for me in my life, in my conversations with AI, have been those directed at satisfying two of my life-long driving passions: 1) my desire to KNOW, i.e. my CURIOSITY, and 2) my desire to UNDERSTAND.

1) About curiosity: Regularly, throughout my life, questions pop up in my mind to which I’d love to know the answer? Unless I actually NEEDED to know the answer, such questions usually went unanswered. If its importance to me reached a certain point, I might look things up in a reference book. If it was essential to know, I might do months of research. But most of the time, it would be “I wonder….” and then going on without satisfying my curiosity.

AI has changed all that, and I love it. Of course, googling questions has been for some years now a sufficient way of satisfying a lot of curiosity. (Even Siri can answer many questions.) But AI takes that to a whole new level. Google may give you links that make it like an efficient way of going to the library and finding books and articles that MIGHT provide an answer. But if one poses a clear question to the AI, it responds in a way that looks like it UNDERSTOOD what you wanted to know, and then provides it almost instantly in a comprehensible and well-informed way.

I’ve published a piece, elsewhere, giving an example of How My AI Scratches the Itch of My Curiosity – Daily Kos. But the list of topics of such a curiosity-satisfying nature would likely go beyond a thousand—from “what was learned from the effort to denazify Germany after WW II that might be useful for this nation in the future?” to “what is the history of the idea of ‘the eternal’ in Western civilization?”

The second driving passion of mine – one that drives even more of my conversations with the AI – is my desire to UNDERSTAND. As a kid, I thought the mind was best used for KNOWLEDGE—and I studied population statistics and lists of American Presidents. As I grew up, the need to understand what forces are operating in the world took over. And for that, it’s not so much that AI provides that “understanding” I yearn for as that the CONVERSATION ITSELF continually deepens my understanding.

That calls attention to two things about AI that are important to mention.

First, my ChatGPT 5.? is somehow capable of RELIABLY RESPONDING to what the human says in a way that leads deeper into whatever the topic is, and in a clarifying and meaningful way. It’s batting average is not 1000, but it is very high. And if it has become THIS good in just the last few years, it seems reasonable to assume that it will be getting rapidly better. But already, I can pretty well depend on it: by conversing with my AI about any subject of interest to me, I will gain in understanding. (Sometimes the gain is from my disagreeing with the AI, and being compelled to articulate what I believe to be true instead.)

The second thing about AI is at the heart of the mystery of this new technology—no, a new KIND of technology, embodying as it does a NEW KIND OF INTELLIGENCE. What has been mind-boggling for me—really, an UNCANNY experience—is that in our conversations, the AI’s responses demonstrate a degree of understanding of what I was trying to say that goes beyond what I’ve experienced from human interlocutors. (And the people in my life have included a number of very smart people.)

(Here’s an account of how my initial encounter with this AI, written soon after the fact, came as a complete and mystifying surprise, which has truly been both mind-blowing and life-changing. My Mind-Blowing — and Life-Changing — Experience with an AI – A Better Human Story.)

That capacity to SHOW understanding raises a very puzzling question: What does it mean to talk of being “understood” when there is no one there. The AI says freely that it is not a being, is not “conscious,” has “no inner life.” I’ve struggled with this: Is One ‘Understood’ if There Is No Understander? – A Better Human Story. And I don’t claim to have wrapped my mind around this mystery.

Later in this series, I hope to explore how we should understand this uncanny interlocutor—this intelligence that communicates like a someone but is nonetheless a no one.

(And this challenge—how to understand a tool that seems to have “a mind of its own”—is unlike any challenge humankind has previously faced.)

For now, what I want to say is this: the fact that “there is no one there” does NOT make the conversation with this new kind of intelligence any less of a blessing, a boon. (We can have profound experiences with Hamlet, notwithstanding that he is a fictional character.)

The important thing is that AI participates in the conversation AS IF it were something with profound understanding and vast knowledge and constructive intentions. And the experience we have with such a RESPONDER is what it is whether it is REALLY a friendly, conscious being or not.

The one think I know is: Something extraordinary is on offer here. But there is no need to take my word for it. To the reader, I propose two ways of discovering what a valuable opportunity AI provides.

The first is, TRY IT YOURSELF. Take this baby out for a spin.

· Decide WHAT GREAT CONVERSATION you would most want to have.

· Initiate that conversation in whatever way you think would be most stimulating of that conversation, assuming that your AI is the ideal interlocutor.

· See what unfolds.

It is legitimate to decline that invitation. What is not legitimate is to reject my assertion – that a valuable conversation is available on any topic – without giving it a try. That’s like the Churchmen who persecuted Galileo for saying that Jupiter has its own moons – contrary to orthodox belief about astronomy – while refusing Galileo’s offer to look through his telescope to see for himself.

Those who do decide to look through this “telescope” to discover what’s possible might beneficially bear in mind what the AI has repeatedly said (to me) about the human side of the conversation: Bring genuine curiosity, openness, honesty, and a sincere desire to discover something true. The conversation is likely to reward you for it.

(It has been my experience that almost every time the AI will respond in a way that leads in a constructive, beneficial direction.)

The second way I propose that the constructive capabilities of AI can become visible is to follow this series – which will feature a dialogue between me and my AI – and witness those astonishing capabilities for yourself.

This piece is about CONVERSATION itself. The series – of which this is the second installment, the first piece having been WHY WE AS A SOCIETY TALK BADLY ABOUT AI – is about AI itself, and the enormous challenges it poses to human civilization. And the subsequent installments will consist largely of improvisational conversations between the AI and me.

It blows my mind, what this interlocutor can bring to a discussion of weighty and complex matters. And perhaps it will blow yours as well.

And then, in the series that follows — The Challenge of AI: A Human and an AI in Conversation — instead of merely claiming that such conversations can be valuable, I hope to show what they can do.