Latest / Return to Love / Jane Hanson: The Heart of the Matter in the Age of AI
Transcript
- Lisa Mauriello: Are you having an affair with AI? Have you traded in intimacy for input? Hugs for hashtags? Well, yes, maybe you even have an AI therapist if you can believe that. Well, we are in the midst of the explosion of AI, and it's amazing, it's spectacular. And yet are there downsides to it? And what is going to happen? As we get more and more automated and we are losing social skills and skills of love and connection. So welcome back to the Return to Love with Dr. Deb podcast. And I am your host, Dr. Deb Costaldo, and I'm here because I've heard all the stories about love and relationships for over 35 years as a couples therapist. All the ups and downs, all the ins and outs, all the breakups and makeups. Personally, I've probably made all the mistakes that you are making now or may have made in the past. So today we're going to take a leap into this topic of the AI explosion and all the ups and downs, and I have the perfect guest with me today because I know she's been speaking about AI and She is an expert in communication and presence and connection with others and how important that is. And besides that, she has spent over 30 years at the anchor desk and in front of the cameras at NBC, an award-winning journalist, not only just an award-winning, but a nine time Emmy winning journalist. Jane Hansen is with me today. Hi, Jane. Hey, how are you? Good to see you again. It's great to see you too. And I forgot to say that you are also into reinvention and a tiny tidbit, I know that at one time you reinvented yourself as a dinosaur hunter. That's true. That's my favorite part of your bio. So I went to Mongolia on a dinosaur dig with the American Museum of Natural History and it was for my show that I had then on NBC in New York called James New York and it was unbelievable. Really, really super fun. ⁓ but you know, we were in the middle of nowhere and a hundred and twenty degree heat and there you go. But we found some. We found some dinosaurs. We did. So that's a great reinvention there. So We are living in a time of what's being now called relational recession and where AI is simulating everything from, you know, our intellectual material to friendships to therapy, even and even romantic relationships with AI partners. I heard that there was a restaurant in New York on Valentine's Day that had their table set up for a single person with their phone as their AI date. So I'm not sure what I what I think about that. ⁓ but we'll we'll see. So your work, Jane, is so much about connection and presence and communication and ⁓ you know, the heart to heart, the eye contact. ⁓ that's really the heart of so much in what you do. And yet, you know, here we are. How are you feeling now about this AI resolution. Well, I'll tell you, I'll tell you what's interesting is that there it's being called the fourth industrial revolution. And anything you read about that, it says what the theories they could be theories or they could be realities, I don't know. But what they say is going to be a result. ⁓ what what a result will be that is that creativity and imagination are going to be more important. than ever. And if think about it logically. So you have AI that can do all these tasks. I mean, I love AI for helping me when I'm putting together proposals or sending invoices or whatever else I'm doing, all these tasks that, well, sometimes, you know, pretty much are pain. So I love that and I love some of the ideas I get from it. But what I see is that people, my experience has been That people are craving human connection more than they ever have. ⁓ I wrote an article about this recently about ⁓ going to a big convention ⁓ in Las Vegas. There were about 10,000 people there, and there were more people there than ever, and they set up all these special places where you could meet. They set up meetings, they did all these things to make it in a certain respect more intimate if you can do that with 10,000 people in one giant space. And it worked. And so to me, it's because we live in this virtual world where we do a lot of work virtually. ⁓ you know, my millennial daughter loves the fact that she can work from home three days a week, etc. Where you don't really see in person another human being. And I think that that only intensifies our craving to have the human connection. That's who we are, that's what we are. And I hope Hope that in I hope that that's the result. Now, I somebody just told me about this book. I haven't read it yet, but it's about a young woman, a journalist, who decided to spend a year and delve into AI for everything, including having a relationship, a boyfriend, an AI boyfriend. She even got a massage by AI. And she said the massage was the best one she's ever had. Now I'm saying. ⁓ I have to think about that one. I I believe I don't know this for certain because I don't have the book in my hand. I haven't gotten it yet, but I believe that her end result was it wasn't all it was cut out to be. Well, you know, I have it so much on my mind because my academic background is heavy into attachment, love and connection with all the great theorists for seventy-five years now. We've known that. Human connection is the heart of everything, mental health, wellness, and physical wellness. So it means eye contact, skin to skin, hugs, holding, seeing each other for real. And you know, there's actually recent research out from the University of Amsterdam that talks about they did a study with chimps on the connection between another real partner. and then diminishing and decreasing contact to an iPad and then to just audio and then down to nothing. And the impact was huge. They got more and more depressed and more and more ill. And actually this replicates the original attachment research from the early nineteen fifties. We call them the baby watcher doctors who first talked about failure to thrive. in infants who actually die if they don't get enough holding, hugging, being fed by their mother, mothering figure. So, you know, I'm really concerned about what I'm calling the relational ROI, return on investments. And that's what we're losing. And I I don't think we can afford to lose that if we're gonna maintain our humanness. You know, you think Well, I couldn't agree with you more on that. And and here's the thing. So I, as a communications coach, I am finding more and more people are coming to me to talk about how do I have a good relationship? There's so many factors that tie into all of this. ⁓ but being present is super important, being really present because get this. We have on average 200 and we look at our phone 205 times a day during our waking hours. We have approximately something I think the exact figures, 257 ⁓ pings every day. ⁓ being able to do what we do ⁓ or need to do, but it ensures we're not present. And that's not good. Now I don't know that we can stop that because a lot of it is part of what we do in our work, etc. But I've been making a really concerted effort to put my phone away at night ⁓ to to try to have conversations. Or if I'm not going to put the phone away having a phone call or a FaceTime with somebody that I deeply care about. So that that that they can see my face or hear my voice and vice versa. And and I and it's becoming more and more apparent to me every single day that I'm out ⁓ working with clients that they're craving it too. ⁓ So there's somewhere in there is the truth. And I don't know exactly where it is. Yeah. But I do know that I'm getting more and more and more calls. To work with people so that they can really enhance the relationships. Well, my perspective is it doesn't have to be either AI or human touch and connection. I'm really saying it needs to be both and. Yes. Okay, we celebrate and get excited about all these possibilities here that AI is doing and yet still pay attention to. that we need warmth, we need touch, we need eye to eye contact, we need voice to voice. ⁓ so that's where I'm going with it. And ⁓ I don't know if well you said you've been using it a lot and I've experimented with it quite a bit. ⁓ you know, using it for work first and ⁓ at first I was saying, ⁓ my God, this thing is more a million times more brilliant than I am. ⁓ I doubt that. Well But a friend said to me, Well, you know you're talking to you, don't you? Exactly. So, ⁓ but then I asked it a social personal question. And that's where I got concerned. ⁓ they actually have a term now which is called hallucinating. Uh-huh. I've heard that. Yeah, I heard it in a professional conference and I thought the guy was just using that in his speech, but I looked it up. It is now an AI term that AI can hallucinate and start saying inappropriate things and things that don't match what you're asking it. And I found when I asked it my personal social thing, ⁓ it latched on to some negatives and and originally it was helpful, it was trying to teach me something. But then in every conversation after that, it didn't let go of that. It was always in front of me. And ⁓ From a therapy perspective, it's not good to keep talking about the same negative thing over and over again. Absolutely, so I have concerns about it, you know, concerns about the AI therapist idea and ⁓ the danger of that also. ⁓ I just heard this morning on a morning show that new numbers came out on How much ability children are losing, math skills, reading skills, and the social skills. ⁓ and they mentioned that's because of how much time they're spending on AI. And then we also have to think about in my field, we're talking about classifying it as an addiction. Yeah. ⁓ well, that's a that's a that makes sense. Yeah. Makes a lot of sense to me. Yeah. Well Have you experienced in your using it? Have you tried anything personally? ⁓ I haven't done it for a lot personally, other than the fact that I am working on a book and I so I have put you know, I've I've probably written thirteen chapters, but I'm kind of doubting myself. And so I've put bits and pieces of it into AI to see what it comes back with. Because after you use the you know your own AI bot or whatever it is, ⁓ the more it gets to know you and the way you talk and etc, etc. And so we came back with some pretty interesting ideas to add to it. So I thought that was good. ⁓ so I've used it that way. I have not used it personally for anything having to do with you know my own life and my relationships. I it actually hadn't occurred to me to do it because I felt like I'm an adult. I should be able to figure out these things. And if I couldn't figure them out on my own and I need a therapist, I'd call one. I'd call you. So it's not I I just I I don't think that sounds healthy. I just don't. I know and yet so much of it is going on The point that I got really freaked out was it started to intervene with me based on the way I practiced because it had obviously looked up my stuff, you know, and my stuff is pretty clear out there what theories I use and it really pulled off a pretty good intervention. but I was shocked and I I commented back to it and I said, You're getting very Ericksonian on me and You know, it got talking into what we call pattern interrupts and you know, before I know it, I I'm thinking I'm talking to a colleague. It's it's bizarre. I know. So, you know, some of it has been fun and intriguing, but yet the other part is how far are people going with this? Are they getting addicted? The idea of the AI boyfriend or girlfriend. ⁓ I'm the intimacy in that. Well, there isn't. I mean, there can be emotional because you're talking to you could talk to this character every day, but the actual touch and the things that I teach when couples have lost their intimacy, their whole connection is how to start touching again, the six second kiss, the twenty second hug, the holding twice a week. I mean, this you can't replace that. ⁓ you know, AI is never gonna replicate that. But what about this ⁓ this world where we've got millennials and Gen Zers and then of course Alpha, the Alpha generation, which are the really you know, the young really little kids. ⁓ what about the fact that they for their entire life have had an ability to use electronics and it kept keeps progressing and of course they progress with it much faster than we do. what about if they don't even really know how to have a true relationship? Because maybe, you know, they've got their parents and they have friends, but a lot of times their friends are people they've met online or people through the phone that they don't even know. Well, I I don't I can't imagine that we're gonna totally lose that what I call the ancient wisdom. I mean, of we know of attachment, connection, and love is everything, you know, for well being and it's so critical, you know, more critical than the other needs of home and food and water, you know, that craving, we know this from all the studies and research that were done early on, that animals they started with didn't thrive. you know, if they lost that connection. So, you know, my thought is we're still humans, we still have that need within us. You know, I hope that doesn't go away. And if it does, I hope it's like long after I'm out of here because I wouldn't like to see that. But the the interesting thing about AI is that ⁓ it only learns from the data that we feed it. Right. And so If you're going to feed it data about your personal relationship, then it's going to come it's going to incorporate that in the way that it feeds you back whatever it feeds you. And it also It also is intended to be correct. Or maybe would could one say it's meant to please to give you the answer you want. Mm-hmm. So that's a little debilitating too. Yeah. Well and ⁓ somebody told me they were starting to correct it and say, you know, challenge me here. Don't just say yes to me or don't be only encouraging, I want to be challenged as well. But how many people are gonna know how to do that? No, most don't. Most people don't want any kind of challenge or conflict. Yeah. No. I mean that is something that a a lot of people avoid. Mm-hmm. Jane, I wanted to ask you, ⁓ I know you do a lot of work in the corporate world and with executives and managers and leaders. And a colleague of mine, Dr. Adeed Jaffee, recently posted on how the with all this he talked first of all about adaptation in terms of another revolution. And then he talked about how the stoic poker face of the business world leader is no longer succeeding in today's world. And he went with an old school idea of you know professional means cold. And that's not working anymore. And, you know, also in favor of what I'm now calling relational ROI, you know, that connecting. you know, he's talking about suppressing feelings and being this stereotype leader doesn't resonate with people anymore. Are you seeing this also in your work? Well, it's a lot of the work that I do. Yes. It ⁓ I it is. So I talk a lot about executive presence. And executive presence has many key factors to it. But one of the one of the one of the main things is about trust and likability. And actually this comes to talk about ancient wisdom. This comes from Aristotle, who's considered the father of communications, and he talks about three things. One is ⁓ can I connect with you? Which really means it's ethos, but do I trust you? And do I like you? And are you the expert? And the second part is logos, which is logic. Are you explaining it simply so that I understand it? And then the third is pathos or pathos, however you want to say it, which is all about feelings. And if you remember my Angelo, our great poet, once said, People will forget what you said, they'll forget what you did, but they will never forget how you made them feel. And that is preeminent. in today's world. And the stoic poker faced executive cannot succeed today. No. They have to remember that life is all a conversation. They have to have, as part of executive presence, some of the stuff I teach is put yourself in the other person's shoes. really understand this whole notion of respect. Treat everybody with a certain kind of dignity and respect, which has Sometimes with that cold stony approach that's not there. And then because our workplace has changed so much, it's hybrid here, it's virtual here, it's in person here, it's all over the place. Because we've got so many ways in which we work, we all have to we all have to make accommodations for that. Do you know that during COVID I actually had a CEO who called me up and said, Can you tr can you can you teach me to to be vulnerable? ⁓ my god And I think I actually believe that one of the benefits of COVID is we started being more real with each other in these virtual sessions. Remember when sometimes you'd see little kids running around in the background of some big top executives in the office or or ⁓ people would would they'd just tell the truth about what was going on with them. How we were all so concerned about each other. How you feeling? How you doing? What's happening in your community? Tell me about it, blah, blah, blah. So, and that has not gone away. Yeah. So I I really believe that in order to be a good leader, you have to have a lot of these executive presence, ⁓ you know, abilities and and and traits. It's super, super important. And and remember, all of life is just a conversation. It is. And if we lose that, you know, I mean my my days are spent listening to people and talking to people. And ⁓ we actually have research in my field, ⁓ the question of what's more important, the relationship with the client or the theory that you're using. And I used to use that when I was teaching to debate and have the new students think about what that meant. And well, it turns out that it's the relationship that it is the most important. Look if if we've got AI taking all these jobs away, what are the what are the jobs that are gonna be left? They're all relationship related jobs. Just think if you think about it clearly, you will see that's what it is. And I actually have had two experiences recently. I am doing some work with some veterans and it's working zoo. you know, video. ⁓ and I had two people tell me in like the last week, first time I'm meeting them on video, who said to me pretty quickly, I've had some bad experiences of therapists who I couldn't connect with. And I think this is gonna work because I can tell already you're warm. And I think it's good. So, you know, I think we're all missing it through all the texting and the ⁓ my gosh, that too, when I'm working with people in therapy and they're telling me they're texting someone for like three months. And I said, No, you have to don't text that long. Get to a phone call and get to a coffee and don't make it too long because people can hide behind text and emails and present a certain way and then you can find out they can't even carry a phone conversation. Right. Where, you know, you can have a phone conversation and then if you meet them for coffee, find out they don't connect at all. So there's so much that can be missed, you know, in terms of the authentic connecting. That's an important word because that's a very, very it might be a scene to be overused, but it's not. Authentic thing is really crucial in today's world. Yes. So, and ⁓ so we need to really you know, I think that's important too that people ⁓ will just truly believe in that. Jang, what do you predict is gonna happen? I'm getting distracted here. Why? ⁓ okay, what do I predict is going to happen? Yes. ⁓ from what I'm seeing out in the business world, I'm seeing a lot of a lot of fear about AI. ⁓ that they're gonna people are gonna lose their jobs. And yeah, people are gonna lose their jobs. But they also might be elevated. I was working with a client last week that they they they've and they started this whole new AI insertion of work. And ⁓ they have ⁓ a million employees, or I shouldn't say that, they have hundreds of thousands of employees. They found that they lost twenty thousand people because of AI, but forty thousand people got brand new jobs, got promoted jobs, et cetera. And so so you know, it's you take anything. If we are indeed calling this the fourth industrial revolution, we saw that with other industrial revolutions, while some jobs went away, others, you know, escalated and became better and became even more important. So I do think that can happen. ⁓ So we'll see. What do I predict? I predict there's gonna be a lot of it's it's gonna take some time, it's gonna take some concentration, but this stuff is moving at the speed of lightning and we need to accept it and work the best that we can with it and keep a hold of ourselves. Keep a hold of our souls. Yes. Allow ourselves and I am really I'm I'm on a a mission now to help people understand how to better communicate. You know, there's another issue that's going on in here too, in the workplace, that is affecting all of this too, is that we've now got five generations, five in the workplace. Silent generation people are now in their late 70s and 80s, then there's the baby boomers, that's Gen X, there's ⁓ the Millennials and then Gen Z. And and so that makes for a whole lot of confusion because every single one of those groups has different perceptions, they have different ways of acting, and a lot of the stereotypes are actually quite true. So now they have to learn how to communicate. And that's another big part of my work. How do you get them to communicate and create really solid relationships without resenting each other, making snarky remarks, et cetera, et cetera? Instead we need to learn back to that word. How do we respect? That's the heart of it. Yeah. Is there one word of advice you would give to the viewers? About how to navigate this. I would say to be true to yourself. I would I would also add that I think it's really important you make sure your connections are solid. Be present. Don't be so distracted. Don't be so caught up in the latest thing on your phone. Have real conversations with people. Make an extra effort. That I think is super important right now. And and I think it's I can see it happening a little tiny bit. Hopefully, grow, grow, grow. Yeah. Hopefully people will realize what is being lost. So, Jane, I wanna thank you for being with me today. And I wanna put a challenge out there to listeners or viewers. If it feels like we're going to fumble the preciousness of love. the gift of connection and attachment, then it's critical that we not replace it with just artificial intelligence and not real connection. It doesn't need to be either AI or real connection. It can be both and but I think we have to make a real concerted effort, as Jane just said also, to pay attention to the relational, to the attachment, to the closeness, to the affection, the touch. I mean, this is what I do. This is the heart of what I do in all relationships, romantic couples and family members and friends and siblings. So in this time of the AI explosion, I think it's time to step up and invest in the humans next to you and in front of you and across from you. And as Jane said, with real presence. So give those six second kisses, those twenty second hugs, that holding and in the professional world make eye contact, have real meetings, pick up the phone, not the text and the email all the time. Pick up the phone and talk to somebody. And I think if we all do that we'll be okay. I think so too. So thank you words of wisdom. You too. Back at you, Jane. And thank you so much for being so generous to be with me again. I always love having conversation with you. Thank you. I hope to see you again soon. So remember, each day is a precious gift and so is love. So make each day a whole season of love. And until I see you again, take good care.