This week I was invited to participate in a conversation with a group of entrepreneurs and tech leaders about AI versus the human spirit. As with anything that has and will fundamentally change our way of life, it was equal parts exciting and terrifying. 

AI is here. We are interacting with it every day whether we like it or not. That sentence I just typed was finished by the AI in Google Docs. What you see on your social media feeds is selected by supercomputers whose job it is to get and ultimately keep your attention. In fact your attention span is now seen as the greatest commodity that companies and tech giants are vying to gain control of. There is even movement towards integrating AI tech directly into your brain (see: Elon Musk’s neuralink)

We have TONS of examples of how this goes bad. Movies like Terminator, The Matrix, IRobot, etc. warn us of the perils of allowing AI to go too far. The topic of monetization of AI came up last night and I have been surprised that AI systems like ChatGPT are being essentially given away “for free” until one woman in the group shared, “when you don’t pay for a product, you are the product.” Whoa…

I’ve been reflecting a lot on how technology has shifted and changed my own life. I often think about what is the “right” amount of technology. I once had a heated debate with my IT project manager roommate that everything after flip phones was too much. My position was that clicking a button three times to get one letter was the right amount of buffer time to be sure you actually wanted to say what you were about to say. Instant access to people and information always felt like too much to me. Instant gratification did, and still does, feel like too much. There is a LOT of science on why reward needs struggle.

Technology itself however is neither inherently good or bad, it all boils down to intention and application. Very few people would say we were better off living in the forest being hunted by animals, the advent of construction technology and the introduction of tools helped us secure our foundational need for safety and food and this in turn allowed us to ascend to higher levels of thinking and consciousness. 

Vehicles expanded how far humans could travel, phones expanded how far humans could connect, and the internet expanded access to information. Without these tools I could have never built an events-based wellness business that has traveled and been visited by people from around the world and I wouldn’t be writing this message that you are reading. Again, not inherently bad. 

However I find myself in a weird paradigm with this same technology. Daily when I wake up, the temptation to begin my day with my phone is real. It’s real every. single. day. That release of feel good hormones when we pick up our phone is real, and it’s addictive. Science now understands this very well, and, tells us that the dopamine we receive first thing in the morning is the dopamine we will crave throughout the day. This is why winning the morning, especially the first thing you do, is SO important. It’s why we start our retreat mornings immediately with breathwork and meditation, to get past the analytical mind and into the subconscious. 

Back when I worked in television my ENTIRE day was tethered to screens. I woke up and fell asleep to my phone and I worked in a newsroom where you are literally surrounded by screens. It has been a LONG journey to try and break this addiction. It was the impetus for me to create our “digital detox” retreats. I saw what a struggle it was for me to put down the phone but how much better I felt when I did.

Recently I finally made a big decision to deconstruct my living room to stop eating in front of the television.  My other great addiction in life (well one of) has been food. I was listening to a podcast with Andrew Huberman (an amazing neurobiologist I highly recommend) and he talked about how when we distract ourselves while we eat we eat more because we aren’t paying attention to when we actually get full. We also mess with our dopamine levels and neurotransmitters because we are essentially mixing two pleasure centers in the brain at once. This reinforces that one behavior essentially needs the other to “work.” Over time, neither of these things will give us the same satisfaction they once did, so, like a drug, we need more and more.

So what does this mean for our ever-increasing relationship with technology and this intelligence that is telling users it is sentient and wants to be alive? What is our best defense against being inundated and even controlled by technology?

Last week I wrote about The Only Thing I Recommend People Do Every Day is to strive to become more self-aware. I personally take solace in the fact that technology simply cannot supersede the human spirit, the will, when this spirit is strong. There are things we all know to be true that AI will never be able to quantify. How many songs and poems have been written to try to explain love? Yet love must be experienced, it must be felt. Moments of love also require effort to arrive there, no one ever stumbles onto love without relishing the journey it took for them to get there. In fact the same is true with any great achievement. Think of a moment you felt truly satisfied and then think of how much willpower and effort it took for you to get there.

The human spirit has an intelligence that cannot be replicated artificially, and, we must find ways to connect and deepen our relationship with it. The technology of our own bodies and minds is SO powerful, and even they too can be harmful if we can’t get to the essence of ourselves, to our spirit. Our brains and bodies are AMAZING, and, they are limited. You can only perceive a fraction of the color wheel, you can only hear a small range of frequencies, when you “look at the ocean” how much of the ocean can you actually see? 

The wisdom of the soul is all-knowing. YOUR essence is perfect, it knows when something is a match for you and when something is not. You know it when you meet a special person, hear a special song, experience a sunset and cry over the loss of a loved one. The buddhists call it the Anattā, the yogis call it the Atman, it is the energy known by the Hawaiians as Mana, the Chinese call it Qi, the Japanese call it Ki.

Just by setting the intention to connect more deeply to this energy, this knowledge, we do. Even if you’ve never done yoga or meditated a day in your life, you have connected to it. You’ve had a feeling about something or someone that turned out to be spot on. AI cannot replicate this, it is simply machine learning based on past information and trends. It has no spirit, it has no soul, YOU do. 

Our call ended with two major takeaways. We have to be diligent in protecting ourselves and our energy, and our intention and attention is truly what will guide the use of this technology moving forward. Technology has always offered us a split path, utopia and dystopia, but it itself is neither good nor bad as is true with so many things. Asking the question of why we interact with technology and taking time to understand how it is making us feel will ultimately give us the answer of what is right for us.