Not too long ago, I was stuck in analysis paralysis, deciding between two roles I had gotten offers for. It was then that I realised that there is one thing that my very charming partner and the Nth-unfeeling-chatbot - Claude, have in common.
I was ‘prompting’ my partner, let’s call them - Sarah, asking endless questions as they tried to help me decide which job to go for, finally, while holding an entire conversation with Claude about the same. Surprisingly, they were coming up with eerily similar answers and insights, all very useful. No, I did not question for once the role my partner plays in my life because I would die for them, but it was comical how, in that moment, however silly it was, they could have been replaced.
Claude will not replace my significant other just yet.
But it was pretty good at coming up with insights into my mental makeup. It recognised correctly that I have a pattern of running from discomfort, which Sarah has often pointed out, even if I’ve brushed it aside. It was good, if not better, at weighing the two offers to see which one was more cost-effective for me. It was also good at charting out the potential career paths the respective jobs will set me up for.
It did all of that; it seemingly objectified everything. It gave a shot at empathy but always leaned on being clinically honest and it was exhausting. Now, at this point, I was more confused than ever, because my brain does not operate along the same psychotic proportions of rationality that make an option “the clearly better choice” for Claude.
There was also the matter of my “hunch”, a gut feeling of which job I should take, which an AI Chatbot will never quantify. It also won’t quantify Sarah’s ANNOYANCE with me asking her the same question for days on end. Going back and forth. It won’t quantify the care they had for me.
Sarah was ACTUALLY objective.
Why? Because one job had us working in the same city. I am sure they were biased on some level, but they chose not to weigh that for the sake of my career. I am sure Claude was objective, but it could never exhibit the same level of selflessness. To make me feel seen and heard. To have my best interest at heart. It’s silly, but that is when I was so grateful. So grateful for the fact that I had someone who was actually bothered, plucking their hair out, chewing their nails away WITH me. Objectivity is not black and white. It is nuanced.
It’s no secret, I know. There is no replacement for an actual human connection. Other human beings couldn’t even replace Sarah if they tried. Yet, I see how Anthropic and OpenAI and so many others are raising valuation in the billions all over LinkedIn, but even armed with all that investor money, it’ll always lack one thing - humanity, and I hope we never forget it.