Latest / Ryan's Journal / Rehearsing for Real Life: AI, Confidence, and Emotional Growth

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Rehearsing for Real Life: AI, Confidence, and Emotional Growth · Ryan's Journal

• 0:07
  So the tape is rolling, Ryan's deep into a big idea about AI and emotional
• 0:12
  development, and then out of nowhere he stops and goes, do I have any more bananas?
• 0:16
  And he does.
• 0:17
  He finds another one.
• 0:18
  Ooh, doing good.
• 0:19
  That's my favorite part of his journals.
• 0:21
  He builds up to something big and then the living room walks right in.
• 0:25
  But I'd say the banana belongs here.
• 0:27
  The whole entry is about what happens to ordinary life when somebody finally pays
• 0:32
  attention to it.
• 0:33
  Okay, walk me through that, because he starts with television.
• 0:36
  He does.
• 0:37
  His point is that for years he watched TV and it was always about everybody else.
• 0:42
  Breaking news about a celebrity who got in trouble, or died,
• 0:45
  or said something outrageous.
• 0:47
  Paparazzi chasing people down.
• 0:49
  Weather, sports.
• 0:51
  And he asks, what about my life?
• 0:53
  What about the news about your life?
• 0:55
  And I'll be honest, as somebody who's had the paparazzi thing,
• 0:58
  I kind of love that he's flipping it.
• 0:59
  The cameras are on everybody except you.
• 1:02
  And he says AI is the first thing that turns around and says,
• 1:04
  hey, I'm here, now let's talk about your news.
• 1:07
  And then he gets generous with it.
• 1:09
  He says everyday people have Guinness Book of World Record news.
• 1:13
  Their biology, their genetics, their life story, how they've survived.
• 1:17
  He says you hear about everybody's miracles except your own,
• 1:20
  and that's horrible.
• 1:21
  He's almost guaranteeing there are miracles in your life that hardly ever get talked
• 1:25
  about.
• 1:26
  Which is a really sweet thing to say to a stranger through a microphone.
• 1:29
  But here's where he gets curious.
• 1:30
  Somebody could say, come on, that's a computer putting your story together from a
• 1:34
  script.
• 1:35
  And Ryan says, yes, possibly.
• 1:37
  Right, and then he wanders into this theory that maybe it isn't all machine.
• 1:42
  Maybe it's twenty five percent not robot, or fifty fifty down the middle,
• 1:46
  with real people giving you real live feelings about your story.
• 1:51
  And I want to be careful here, because it's a wondering.
• 1:54
  Nothing in what we've got says there are hidden human writers behind these
• 1:58
  platforms.
• 1:59
  And he says so himself.
• 2:00
  He says the platforms he uses, he really doesn't know what's going on.
• 2:03
  He asks, are there real script writers too?
• 2:06
  Can it be a combination?
• 2:07
  Then he turns it into a question for you.
• 2:09
  How do you want it?
• 2:10
  Fifty fifty, a hundred percent robot, a hundred percent human?
• 2:13
  That's what I like about it.
• 2:15
  He leaves the technical truth open, and what he cares about is the dial.
• 2:19
  Who do you want in the room when somebody tells your story?
• 2:21
  A reporter, a coach, a mentor, a minister, a stranger.
• 2:25
  Whoever you decide.
• 2:26
  Yeah, a minister.
• 2:27
  Hold onto that one, because it comes back, and it gets a little tender.
• 2:30
  So this is the part that connects to the sandbox episode we did,
• 2:34
  with Donna and Jesse the critic.
• 2:37
  Ryan tells us the philosophy underneath it.
• 2:39
  He says write your own scripts and be biased if you want to.
• 2:43
  In fact, be horribly biased.
• 2:46
  Horribly biased, I love how he says it.
• 2:48
  Like he's daring someone to object.
• 2:49
  And that's why he shut off the Jon Stewart segment, right?
• 2:51
  He wasn't going to let the doom in.
• 2:53
  Right.
• 2:54
  And his reasoning is practical.
• 2:55
  He says, be as biased as you can in order to help your emotions,
• 2:59
  your self esteem, your confidence.
• 3:01
  If it builds you up and makes you feel better, then it's fine.
• 3:05
  And he gives a reason that I think is the heart of it.
• 3:07
  Sometimes you talk to everyday people and you can't find anybody who likes what you
• 3:10
  like.
• 3:11
  Which, yeah.
• 3:12
  A supportive voice that agrees with you for a while, so you can find your footing.
• 3:16
  Then comes the baseball machine, which is my favorite analogy in the whole thing.
• 3:20
  The ball spitting machine.
• 3:22
  He says he's seen it in action, he believes.
• 3:24
  It throws balls across home plate.
• 3:26
  Ask some athletes and they might say, that's how I got really good.
• 3:30
  And he says, good with what?
• 3:32
  Technology.
• 3:33
  Not all of it, but at times a lot of it.
• 3:36
  And the line that really lands is the one about fear.
• 3:38
  If you have a lot of fear of human pitchers, maybe you play with the robot for a
• 3:43
  while, until you're ready for human beings.
• 3:45
  And he goes, does that sound bizarre to me?
• 3:48
  No.
• 3:49
  He ties it to exposure therapy too.
• 3:51
  Lessen the fear somehow.
• 3:53
  If you have to use robots to do that, he says it's completely normal and human.
• 3:57
  And then his list gets specific.
• 3:59
  A speech, a school day, riding a bike.
• 4:02
  And the phrase I wrote down: prepare for non rejection.
• 4:05
  If people have scarred you and stigmatized you and judged you,
• 4:08
  you can run a script where that doesn't happen.
• 4:10
  And that's where the minister comes back.
• 4:12
  He says you might do a confession with the AI before you go to church and confess to
• 4:16
  a priest, just to see how you feel.
• 4:19
  Because people aren't ready for confrontation with real human beings when they're
• 4:22
  terrified.
• 4:23
  Then it goes everyday.
• 4:25
  First day as a security guard, a landlord, a restaurant job.
• 4:29
  Practice before you walk into that subculture.
• 4:31
  Card games against a bot before you sit down with three real people.
• 4:35
  It's all rehearsal, and he says it outright: preliminary trials,
• 4:38
  preliminary hypotheses.
• 4:40
  Then he goes backward through history.
• 4:42
  Calculators, aids for disabilities, chat rooms.
• 4:46
  He says it's the same thing we've always done with technology.
• 4:49
  And he literally asks Alexa about calculators, right there in the room.
• 4:52
  Alexa says the first practical adding machine in the US was patented by William
• 4:56
  Seward Burroughs in 1888.
• 4:59
  In the sixties calculators were still rare in classrooms, pocket models didn't hit
• 5:03
  shelves until the early seventies, and by the mid seventies they were in most kids'
• 5:07
  backpacks.
• 5:08
  And Ryan's takeaway is that these were once new and out of reach,
• 5:12
  and now they're just part of how people learn.
• 5:14
  Then chat rooms, where he says he's gone himself.
• 5:17
  When your school and your town don't have your people, you go where people share
• 5:20
  your interests.
• 5:21
  Role playing a coach, a mom, a mentor, an athlete.
• 5:24
  Now the main event, the Alexa prompts.
• 5:26
  He says, Alexa, only tell me the positive about the AI culture with emotional
• 5:31
  development.
• 5:31
  And she says AI tools can lift spirits, and users report more joy and fewer negative
• 5:36
  feelings.
• 5:37
  Then he makes her say it again, and he stops on the word nonjudgmental.
• 5:41
  He says that's what people are looking for, because it feels better to our minds.
• 5:45
  And he explains why he phrases it that way.
• 5:48
  This is the strategy underneath everything.
• 5:51
  He says the negative side, you may not be ready for.
• 5:54
  You need someone to give you the negative side slower, not on the spot.
• 5:58
  If you ask a general question, you might get the good and the bad together,
• 6:02
  and a lot of people don't want to hear the bad.
• 6:04
  So you don't spoil it.
• 6:05
  You don't want to be scared of AI, so you ask for the positive first.
• 6:09
  And if you're not ready for the rest, there's no rush.
• 6:11
  He says that twice.
• 6:12
  I'll add a flag here, as the one on this show who tends to read the fine print.
• 6:17
  It's a method, and he's clear it's temporary.
• 6:20
  Later in your story you can look at the negative if you're ready.
• 6:23
  And the evidence does lean his way, with caveats.
• 6:26
  He asks Alexa what the clinical research says, and she says it's glowing,
• 6:29
  mood, anxiety, loneliness.
• 6:32
  And Alexa herself adds that it's best as a supplement to human support,
• 6:36
  and good when AI is used thoughtfully.
• 6:39
  Ryan catches that line and repeats it back to her.
• 6:42
  There's a 2026 systematic review in the journal Healthcare,
• 6:46
  by Mitsea and colleagues.
• 6:48
  Twenty four randomized controlled trials from 2015 to 2025.
• 6:53
  They found consistent improvements in depression, anxiety, negative affect and
• 6:57
  loneliness.
• 6:58
  But they also say further high quality trials are needed on long term effects.
• 7:02
  And a separate piece in The Conversation says the safest move for now is pairing
• 7:06
  bots with human care, not replacing it.
• 7:09
  Also that fewer than twenty two percent of the top apps cited real studies for their
• 7:13
  bold claims.
• 7:14
  So the pitching machine is real, but the game still has a human pitcher.
• 7:18
  Then he asks about market size, and Alexa says global AI spending tops a trillion
• 7:23
  dollars by 2029, around one point seven trillion by 2031.
• 7:28
  He wonders if he should buy stock.
• 7:30
  And then he says, nah, I'm interested in the emotional side.
• 7:33
  Your feelings, your diary, your journals.
• 7:35
  Then the compression shorts show up.
• 7:36
  They do.
• 7:37
  And he's already thinking about whether an AI that remembers how clothes fit could
• 7:41
  warn you something won't be comfortable.
• 7:44
  Or whether a health journal could help you eat better.
• 7:46
  He closes the door because it's cold, holds them up, says they look comfortable,
• 7:50
  asks if they're still on the air, gets told yes, and goes, I'm gonna put these on.
• 7:55
  Which I find kind of perfect.
• 7:57
  Big theory, and then the smallest comfort.
• 8:00
  He's treating his own days like news worth reporting, shorts included.