SAUCIER — In sheep’s clothing

The song was a prayer about growing old and grieving loss.

The singer, in his 70s, a face etched with lines of hard times, played an ancient guitar.

The lyrics were heartfelt, moving and emotional, filled with a pathos that spoke to the soul. 

I felt a sadness and compassion for the struggles of this man. 

But then, I discovered what iTunes won’t tell you: the artist, the song, the cutaways to listeners wiping tears were all fake, generated by artificial intelligence (AI).

My initial empathy turned to anger. I felt manipulated, “duped,” as Jeremiah would say.

You might think that silly, that listening to an AI artist is no different than listening to a song on the radio sung by someone else you’ve never met.

Maybe, but when it comes to AI, we should at least know that it is an AI creation that we are listening to, viewing or chatting with.

But even with that awareness, the seductive power of AI can lead us down paths far more dangerous than any reaction to a song.

Chat GPT, Replika, Claude, Character.AI are the digital world’s superheroes. Their chatbots and avatars have assumed the once-human roles of counselors, friends, even romantic partners.

Among many problems is the tendency for the AI agent to be endlessly affirmative, essentially telling the user what the user wants to hear.

They are not corrective or warning, as a friend usually is.

On the flip side, we have what psychologists call “robotoid humanness,” where users try to remake themselves with the dispassionate logic, pacing and practicality of their AI agent.

The interaction between AI and youth is particularly alarming, and it is not just that young people spend so much time on their screens.

A Pew Research study found that 64% of teenagers engage with conversation chatbots, and 42% use them for friendship advice, including navigating romantic relationships.

For the elderly, AI products like ElliQ provide caregiver assistance. They offer medication reminders, check-ins and help combat loneliness with conversations and games.

 But they also reduce human contact, cause social isolation, and create confusion for some dementia patients.

The algorithms of AI could be changed to value self-reflection and to redirect users back to human relationships.

We, too, could change, to do more to ensure the human presence and touch that AI will never duplicate.

According to the poet-farmer Wendell Berry, we must choose between “people who wish to live as creatures and people who wish to live as machines.”