Artificial Intelligence for Emotional Intelligence?

This article is a bit different from the content I’ve been sharing. It’s not about transformational travel but about personal transformation. In my exploration of travel tech, I came across this very personal use of AI, which exists at the intersection of technology and wellness.

I've been seeing lots of articles lately where people are using AI as part of their journaling routine to support their process of self-inquiry. As a fan of all methods of self-inquiry, I became very curious. Could this really work?

This use case for AI reminded me of ELIZA, considered the first chatbot. Created by Joseph Weizenbaum at MIT in the 60s, Eliza was a kind of call-and-response tool where you could type in how you were feeling and it would ask you simple questions, typically calling back the words you used in a text-based "conversation".

By utilizing pattern matching and scripted responses, ELIZA created the illusion of understanding and empathy, and people began sharing intimate feelings and thoughts, even though they knew they were engaging with a computer. Some users said that they could be more open with ELIZA because they knew they weren't talking to a real person who might have personal judgments or biases about what they were sharing.

I decided to start my personal experiment by going to the source and trying out ELIZA and although a very simple program, I was shocked by how quickly I got sucked into a deep dive on my relationship with my mother, through the simplest of questions.

Fast forward 60 years and now we have Rosebud, an AI-driven tool for journaling. I typed in an intention for something I wanted to improve in my life, typed in some more details about how I was doing with it, and then clicked a "Go Deeper" button. It then proceeded to ask me some surprisingly useful questions to expand on what I'd written. It will also remember how I was doing and follow up on it the next time I log in and journal.

More highly produced and with smoother languaging than ELIZA, it feels very similar in terms of the back and forth, and again, I'm surprised by the effectiveness of even very simple questions to take me deeper and deeper into myself. I discover real insights and some clarity. It works!

Also, as some said about ELIZA, with Rosebud too, there is a sense of freedom that comes from not having to look another human in the eye as you reveal your deepest, and perhaps darkest, secrets.

Having read so much about AI's use in advancing scientific research and ChatGPT's ability to pass the Medical College Admission Test, for example, it's interesting to explore using AI in such a personal way, for greater self-understanding and growth.

Although useful, it certainly is creepy too on some level. I'm not saying this is all good. It's important as humans to be able to risk revealing ourselves to safe others and like so much of technology, it's seductive to want to replace that risky path with a safer tech surrogate. But the risky path is where the big growth is, right?

If you've seen the film Her, about the man who falls in love with his version of Siri, you don't need AI tools to predict that ultimately this will not satisfy. We are physical creatures and human bonding is essential to our well-being. But in a pinch, if you can't connect with a friend or you don't have a therapist to reach out to, it's an interesting option.

Check it out and let me know what you think!