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Can You Trust AI? Chatbot Safety, AI Bias & Critical Thinking with Dr. Sarah Carter · Modern Sacred: Women's Work

• Chelsea Henderson: and Abby: Welcome back everybody to another episode of the Modern Sacred Women's Work Podcast. Today I'm excited to have my friend Sarah, Dr. Sarah Carter, an AI ethicist and ICF trained empowerment coach. Sarah works with clients to live intentionally despite today's tech noise and we met on a sub stack. Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Abby: I believe we met online which is so modern and so sacred and We we had an amazing conversation we had a zoom call and connected immediately Sarah you are so warm and so kind and ⁓ You come from Minnesota so it makes so much sense and you're now living in the Netherlands which I'm so excited to hear about your whole story and how you got to where you are and Sarah Carter: Mmm. Mmm. Chelsea Henderson: Love. Love it. ⁓ Sarah Carter: You Thank you. Abby: and all of that, so welcome to the Modern Sacred Podcast. Chelsea Henderson: Welcome, Sarah. Thanks for being here with us. This is so exciting. Sarah Carter: Well, thank you so much, Abby. Thank you, Chelsea. Abby: you So to get started, we like to kind of just start with some questions about how you identify spiritually. For some people it's like astrology. For others it's human design or Enneagram or Myers-Briggs, spirit animals. How would you say like you would define yourself in kind of that spiritual realm? Sarah Carter: Yeah, we were chatting about this a little bit before starting to record. I feel so much more drawn to nature. Like know I'm a Virgo and all that with the astrology, but what's really spoken to me has been sort of the natural element, perhaps because I grew up in the middle of the woods in Minnesota. And now in the Netherlands, it's, there is nature here, but it's so much more crowded. It's so much more developed. And so I'm out actively going out and seeking the nature more. When I suffered burnout at the end of 2024, it was also really nature that really reignited my spiritual side and helped me connect more with my purpose and sort of who I want to be in the world. ⁓ think my spirit animal, I'm of the opinion that spirit animals sort of change over time. I'm not sure if I have a core one because I think it varies quite a bit, but it's been the heron for me. It's the emblem of my coaching business, purposely digital, because herons, they move. Chelsea Henderson: Ugh. Abby: Mmm. Sarah Carter: with such intention, they're slow, they're intentional, and in this fast-paced tech age, know, of rushing, rushing constant notifications, AI prompting, moving, you know, trying to be as efficient as possible, very much masculine attributes, right? The heron moves slowly and with intention. And I actually had quite an experience with the heron during the burnout that I was walking in the woods and I was feeling lost, like, ⁓ my gosh, I'm sick and I'm exhausted, I don't know what to do, right? Chelsea Henderson: Right? Abby: you Chelsea Henderson: I love that. Sarah Carter: And this huge heron swoops down over my head and I hear this whoosh, it scares me to death, scares me to near death. And it lands there and I just see it moving with this intention. And ever since then, I've been seeing herons everywhere in my life. That was the end of 2024. So that's why I'm like, the heron has to be the emblem of my business. The heron is sort of like my spirit animal right now, moving with intention and slowing down. Abby: ⁓ wow. Wow. That is, I have chills. That is so beautiful. I've, ugh. Chelsea Henderson: I love that. That's gorgeous. That's gorgeous. Yes. Sarah Carter: You ⁓ thank you. Thank you. Abby: I feel like that really ties in so beautifully to your work and your spirit as well. Intentionality, bringing intentionality into these complex and beautiful and elegant things, like bringing that elegance back. ⁓ I just love that. Sarah Carter: Yeah, yeah, thank you. Chelsea Henderson: Yeah, and the purpose-ness, the purposeful too. That feels so important, especially in the work that you're doing. Being purposeful with how we approach, how we use, how we engage. I really love that and the Heron really captures that. I can see it. That's gorgeous. Sarah Carter: Yeah, yeah, I think it's the purposefulness that it's really difficult. I found in my work when I was working AI ethics and working in academia as well on the design side, now I'm sort of individuals to not get swept up in the technological hype, to not feel like I have to use AI or I have to use smartphones or I have to constantly be texting people or be on social media in order to, like, this is what I have to do, you know, or sometimes you just get swept up in the hype, right? Chelsea Henderson: Right. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Sarah Carter: And so I really work with people and I worked with myself and burnout to slow down and be like, using it with purpose. How was it serving me? And then making that kind of value choice, you know, based on myself rather than what all the shoulds, right? That are flying around out there. Abby: Yeah. Mmm. Mmm. Chelsea Henderson: So, okay, I love that. And then can we talk a little bit, you've brought up a few times the burnout. I feel like that's maybe part of the beginning of the journey of where we are right now. Because you mentioned it a little bit before we started recording and I really want to hear a little bit more about this academic background and then the burnout factor, if you wouldn't mind sharing. Sarah Carter: ⁓ yeah. True. Yes, of course, of course. I am an incredibly type A person. I mean, I guess it also maybe goes with the Virgo a little bit perfectionistic driven, know, constantly really on top of things, a bit of a control freak. And I really just went from my master's to my PhD straight into a postdoc and research, no breaks. I've just been like putting my head to the grindstone for ages and... Abby: Hehehehehe Chelsea Henderson: You me. Sarah Carter: I, well, I'm passionate about the work I did in AI ethics. I especially loved teaching computer science students that really inspired me, the younger generation who really care about doing technology ethically. That gave me so much energy, but there was all this other kinds of, know, have to, competition, right? You have to make sure that you get enough papers, that you get funding. There's very limited spots. There's, it's just highly competitive environment that I found incredibly exhausting. Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Sarah Carter: And I didn't really realize how much it was grating on me until I went to a yoga retreat in, I believe it was August of 2024 with a woman who has been like a huge spiritual force in my life. Her name is Lisa Berry. She's a fantastic yoga teacher. I'm just going to shout out to her wonderful woman. And I just, did some, we did some tapas where you're like burning away, you know, the stuff that no longer serves you. It's a very hot practice. And I just started crying, crying in the yoga studio, like weeping. And she just came over and hugged me. We talked about it. And I just told her, I am not. Chelsea Henderson: love it. Abby: Wow. Chelsea Henderson: ⁓ Sarah Carter: I don't feel like I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing. I don't feel, I feel something's horribly wrong in my life. You know, I had this huge Eureka moment. So then I went back and I tried to talk to, you know, the people around me, the people I worked with to try to set up my life in a different way. And while I was going through these discussions that were pretty difficult, something just happened. I woke up one morning and I looked at my partner and I could barely get on the couch. I was so exhausted. I was incredibly exhausted and Chelsea Henderson: ⁓ my gosh. Yes, yes. Sarah Carter: The thought of going to work just made me want to throw up. And I'm like, what the heck is going on with me? I am so lucky that I have a good friend who experienced burnout who told me, because I thought I would lose my job. I thought, ⁓ my gosh, what's going to happen? But she said, no, in the Netherlands you're protected. You can get sick leave. You just have to go to the doctor. And so I went through the formal processes because I panicked. I am so lucky that I was able to take a pause in my job to take the recovery that I needed and then have this experience with the hair and reconnecting with nature and being like. Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Abby: Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Abby: and It's beautiful. Sarah Carter: What the heck is my purpose? Because I just felt like everything was wrong. And I was trying to have these discussions. I was trying to reshape academia to fit me. And then it was during the burnout that I realized I don't fit here. And it sucks because I love teaching, but I just do not fit here at all. And I'm lucky that I was able to go back to work, wrap things up, and then we left. We made an agreement to sort of terminate my contract, and I moved forward with coaching. Abby: Well... Chelsea Henderson: Wow. Sarah Carter: And that was just it. it was, I still think about it and I'm like, ⁓ my gosh, how did I do that? How did I just walk away from a job? How did I recover from burnout? like, I still can't believe I did that sometimes. look back, I a very cautious person usually. So I'm like, ⁓ my gosh. So that's the big burnout story. Abby: ⁓ my gosh. You're so brave. Chelsea Henderson: You But I mean, it makes sense. But it makes sense. mean, if you wake up one day and you don't know who you are and you don't like your life. Sarah Carter: Yeah. Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: Right? That's, of course it takes a lot of bravery, but also it kind of seems like the only option, right? If you don't like your life, what a horrible place to be. And to be able to reshape it feels so powerful. You had mentioned the masculinity of the academic, academia. Can you speak to that a little bit? I'm curious what that experience was for you. Sarah Carter: Yes. Yes. Yeah, yeah, you know, I think it's still, it's still very, cause like when we would talk about maybe different kinds of dynamics that were going on in academia, whether it be when I was doing my PhD or during my postdoc and you know, it's hard to, especially to have people who are trained as computer scientists take seriously when you're talking about empathy, when you're talking about compassion, when you're talking about trust, when you're talking about safety, you know, the end, these are, cause they're traditionally feminine attributes. Abby: Hmm. Chelsea Henderson: Uh-huh. Sarah Carter: They want results, they want rationality, be rational, be rational, you know? And that, it really grates on you because it's hard enough to articulate to someone, hey, I'm feeling lost right now, you know, to show that vulnerability. And vulnerability's like, ⁓ my gosh, this is too touchy feely, too touchy feely, you know? Exactly! Chelsea Henderson: Right. Abby: They're like, I don't know what box to put that in. ⁓ Chelsea Henderson: Right? Sarah Carter: Exactly, you know, and you find a little bit, because I sort of bridge philosophy and computer science being an AI ethicist, maybe find a little bit more acceptance of this and philosophy. But I just feel like because academia is structured in such a hyper competitive metric manner that it really pushes out traditionally feminine attributes, you know. And I say I think the traditionally feminine just because I have met men and all different kinds of people who also like embody these attributes too. I feel like a society we've labeled this is feminine, this is masculine, but it's such a spectrum, right? It's such a spectrum of that. And I met so many wonderful women who devoted their lives to trying to change the system and they became so sick and burnout or they never saw their families or they never saw their kids. And I spoke with them when I was having my crisis moment and they're like, stay here, stay here, you can change it. Chelsea Henderson: ⁓ yeah. Abby: Yes, yeah. Chelsea Henderson: Absolutely. Abby: Hey. Sarah Carter: I had so much guilt when I left because I thought I should have stayed for the students. I should have stayed. But in hindsight, I don't think that was fair to myself. And no hate to these wonderful women who are trying to change the system at all. like for me, that was not my crusade. I just realized it. releasing myself from that guilt, you know? And who knows, maybe these women will be successful in their change making, but they're so tired right now. Like it breaks my heart, ladies. Like they are so tired. ⁓ Chelsea Henderson: No. Mmm. Yes. Abby: Yep. Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: ⁓ yeah. Yeah. Abby: ⁓ and Chelsea and I talk all the time about how what the world needs more of is babies who are loved really well, children who have like a very consistent maternal figure, whether that's male or female, but someone who's consistently nurturing and there and present. Like so much of what we see just psychologically in our world right now is a lot of unloved babies and babies who have grown up and are still trying to get some kind of approval or they have low self-esteem. Sarah Carter: Yes. Yes. Yes. Abby: ⁓ You know, the United States president right now is a prime example of that and then all the people, a lot of the people who voted for that person, ⁓ there's a big lack of love and so like that piece of being there for your family, you know, if that's something that someone wants to do, like giving up a career in academia or whatever it is, nursing for me, like whatever the background is, it can feel so like guilty, like I've let them down but. Sarah Carter: Mm-hmm. Chelsea Henderson: needed more love. Sarah Carter: Yeah. Yeah. Abby: There's such a calling to be present for the people in our lives. It's life changing. It is world changing for us to be present for each other. Chelsea Henderson: Absolutely. Absolutely. Sarah Carter: ⁓ it's that ⁓ service that I really gets down upon sometimes. Because for me, I just ⁓ felt like with the hair and I am a healer. And that's what I, as my little motto, I don't know what kind of healer I am, I'm still trying to figure that out. But I wanted to do something that felt like I was healing. Coaching, I feel like I'm healing. I feel like I'm helping people ⁓ get out of the rush and into themselves again. That feels powerful, you know, to me. ⁓ And I did feel like I healing and supporting students in many ways, but... ⁓ Chelsea Henderson: Mm-hmm. Sarah Carter: And maybe it's something else to mention is that the emotional work in academia often falls upon women as well. You know, like I was actively asking, know, looking after the wellbeing of these students, asking about these students, something that I didn't always see reflected in my male colleagues. And it was sort of like, ⁓ that's, that's what women should do. And that's a lot of extra work. It's a lot of, it is undervalued, caring for your students. You know, I deeply cared for my students. still do. A couple of, I met a couple of them for coffee a few months ago. Like I care, you know, how they're like. Chelsea Henderson: Yes. Abby: Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: Yes. Aha! Yes, yes, yes. Yes. Abby: Wow. Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Sarah Carter: is going and that work is often undervalued. So that service work I feel so much more able to do like you were saying, Abby, like to help people feel a little bit more loved, you know, to feel a little bit more held in a coaching session, to reflect on who they are and what they want in the world. And it relates to tech, but it can also be more fundamental than that, you know. Abby: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: Mmm, mm-hmm. Yes. Absolutely. And the thing I was going to point out that we talk about a lot is it really has become more and more apparent and true for me, and I think I could speak for Abby as well on our journey, that you just cannot pour from an empty vessel. And that what you're speaking to, that kind of lack of awareness around how much work it is to hold energetic space, to hold emotional space, is kind of a fundamental through line for all the conversations we're having. Abby: Yeah. Wow. Uh-uh. Sarah Carter: Mm-hmm Abby: Yep. Chelsea Henderson: because it's this whole area of work that does fall more to women or kind of more feminine energy people, no matter what body you're in, to hold this space, to do this work, and it's so undervalued in the kind of material world that we're doing all this work and it's almost invisible work and it's kind of keeping households, families, communities together. Sarah Carter: Mmm. Chelsea Henderson: And so the more light we can shine on the importance of that work, and I could totally see something like academia lacking in that. mean, at least my experience, at least going through graduate school, was that that was just not a part of it. When I was finishing my MFA and writing my thesis, I was pregnant and I had one professor who was able to have any space at all for me around the fact that I was working full time, writing a thesis in grad school full time, pregnant and very, very sick. And she was able to say, yeah, Sarah Carter: Yes. Mm. Chelsea Henderson: Yeah, no wonder you're sobbing hysterically half the day. Like, you're completely overwhelmed. This is a big deal. Everyone else was kind of just like, get over it, get, get. through it, just push, push, buck up exactly, and not able to hold the reality. Be a man, suck up, you know? And it's like, oh gosh, this is like harsh. It felt harsh to me. Like if I was going to win, quote unquote, this game of this degree, I was going to have to do it at the expense of my fundamental energy. And that was a high cost. Sarah Carter: Buck up, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Be a man. Abby: man. Be a man! Sarah Carter: Ha Yes. Chelsea Henderson: So, you know, I think that's all extremely important and not seen as much. Abby: Ugh. Sarah Carter: Yeah. And you know, it can make or break someone in their education journey. I strongly believe that. I do not think I'd be sitting here with a doctorate without my two amazing PhD supervisors, Matthew DeCon and Heike Feldsman, because they did emotional work for me. They did. I went through a pandemic. I was houseless for a time in Ireland because of a really bad ⁓ housing crisis. I almost dropped out of my doctorate and they stayed with me through this, you know. Chelsea Henderson: Right. Abby: Wow. Chelsea Henderson: Amazing. Abby: Wow. Sarah Carter: And before I'm saying this now and I'm thinking to myself, ⁓ my gosh, the past me would never admit this, right? You know, I'll be like, ⁓ you have to be tough. You have to be an academia and not show vulnerability, but this is the truth. I am forever grateful to them, you know, like, and one of them is a guy, Matthew did emotional work, which I think it makes him an amazing human that like he cares, you know, then I guess, wow, you know, like the two of them, they had calls with me where I just cried about not having a house or cried about the pandemic and being in lockdown in Ireland. You know, like it's just, this is what. Abby: This is ⁓ Chelsea Henderson: Ugh. Yes. ⁓ Abby: Absolutely. Chelsea Henderson: Absolutely. ⁓ Abby: Hmm. Chelsea Henderson: Yes! Sarah Carter: They, you know, they helped me through this. They supported me through this. And they heard me rant about systems maybe not working or systems not being supportive as well on the PhD journey. Because graduate school, as you probably know, it's flawed. Like there are things that should be there that aren't there that you wish were there, right? And that's... Abby: Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: Yeah, very. Yes! ⁓ my god. Sarah Carter: It makes or break your education. Like I can honestly say that they like I when I got my doctorate I told them like they they they saved me, you know, like I don't know if I could have done it without them and I'm grateful and I love them and there's still we talk every now and then like we still keep it to say there's still an off and on part of my life and yeah, because they're just amazing people and I think that's beautiful and I think that's I'm so lucky because that is not the story for so many people in academia so many people who do doctorates to have like a Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Ugh. Abby: Wow. Chelsea Henderson: It is. Abby: Hmm. Sarah Carter: truly mentoring relationship with their supervisor, not just on the work, but on also how to exist in the academic system and how to go over the challenges of the world that has the contextualization that this is a bad situation, COVID or not having a house or whatever is going on and how that impacts you and your ability to do a doctor, giving you permission to slow down. That's usually what they did. They said, Sarah, relax, just focus on house hunting. You don't have to get that paper to us. Abby: Wow. Chelsea Henderson: Yes. Yes. Right, right. Abby: Yeah. Mmm. Yeah, let this go for a second. Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Sarah Carter: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's okay. Breathe. You know, like, that's mostly what they did was telling me it's okay. But that's what you need. Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Yeah. But it turns out that we're all human, right? That's the thing that I find so funny about this is like, you're a surprise. We're all human and we're all going to have human experiences whilst going through these systems. And because these systems are designed so inflexibly, it's like they're almost not designed for humans, which is like baffling to me. I'm like, these are systems designed by humans. Abby: Mmm. Sarah Carter: Yeah! Surprise! Abby: Yeah. Sarah Carter: Mmm. Chelsea Henderson: supposedly for humans, and there's no space for the humanity aspect, for the fact that we're all gonna have times when we're less able to push through than others, right? And the fact that we don't make any space for that, that feels inherently ⁓ rigid and inhuman. And I see that in governmental systems. Sarah Carter: Yeah. Abby: Mm-hmm. Chelsea Henderson: In all of these kind of, ⁓ I'm curious, actually this feels like an interesting segue, how you feel about this developing kind of system, if you will, of artificial intelligence, of augmented intelligence. Like what does that, is there a similar rigidity there that we're seeing in systems like academia, governments, that like they're designed supposedly for us, but don't actually create any space for the human aspects of us. Do you see that in AI? Sarah Carter: Yeah, no, mean, absolutely. this is so I guess this is maybe not exactly what you're asking, but something that pops into my head is sort of the, um, oh, what did I, what did I, the, the, I jokingly call it the Amazon diaper effect. So it's when you bring, so I will explain this is going to be good. So that is not very academic of me at all, not very professional of me at all, but that's what I like to call it. Because when you bring AI. Abby: This is gonna be good. Chelsea Henderson: Ha Love it already! Sarah Carter: into existing systems, it is incredibly rigid. And what you see is almost like this competition sometimes between the humans and the AI system. And humans have to become less human in order to meet the new standards that are set by AI. And I bring in Amazon here because one of the first instances of this was Amazon warehouse is bringing in algorithms and artificial intelligence to monitor employees to see whether they're taking bathroom breaks and all of that. And they would only allow them to take the smallest breaks. Abby: ⁓ my gosh. Sarah Carter: And it was impossible because they may be on one side of the warehouse and they would only have five minutes, but by the time they walked to the side of the warehouse to go to the bathroom, it would already be over. They started wearing diapers to keep up with the efficiency metrics of a machine. And that's why I call it that. And we see this happening in so many aspects of our life now. If it comes to writing as well, we're expecting people to write a certain way that aligns with AI. That's become the standard to not have typos, have these kinds of, this kind of grammar, this kind of way of speaking. Chelsea Henderson: Ugh. my god. No. Abby: ⁓ my god. Fuck. Fuck that. Chelsea Henderson: Fuck that. Sarah Carter: We're seeing that you were putting AI into hospitals, into workplaces, and we're telling people it's going to lessen your workload. But then we're seeing people having to work harder actually, because of to keep up with the systems. Because the systems, they're not nearly as good as management would like to think, right? They're just not. And so the management is sometimes firing people, lessening the people there because they think the AI can replace all that work, but that's not true. So then you have, again, shifting standards. Abby: Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: Mmm. Sarah Carter: So that's why I called the Amazon Diaper effect, because that was the first instance I read during my doctorate of this happening of how we are dehumanized when we input the AI into these kinds of systems. Chelsea Henderson: It's amazing. Abby: Wow. Chelsea Henderson: Yes. Well, so that that's fascinating to me because one of the things I was wondering if you could speak to is like, I'm having trouble wrapping my brain around how you even begin to write a code of ethics for something like AI, you know, and then and then how do you consider any sort of oversight? Like how how do you even begin to kind of capture all of that? What does that look like? Abby: Man, man. Sarah Carter: Mm. Wow, yeah, so it's why there are AI ethicists and ethicists still existing and sort of ⁓ arguing, debating, trying to bring this together because it is incredibly messy. There are more AI ethics guidelines and governance guidelines that I could possibly count. Like it has been so many literature reviews trying to bring these all together and harmonize them. Companies put them out, governments put them out, universities put them out. And it's... Abby: Mm. Sarah Carter: Messy on a couple fronts. mean, one is that the systems are constantly changing. Like large language models weren't really on the scene when I started my doctorate. So we had AI ethics guidelines more around the AI that was existing, the more machine learning type stuff at that time. But it's also messy because in ethics, I mean, since the time of the Greeks, I mean, we have been debating what we should and shouldn't do. What it means to be ethical has never, ever been clear. And there's so many different schools of thought. You know, there's the... Chelsea Henderson: Mmm. Absolutely. Yeah. So subjective. Yeah. Abby: Wow. Mm-hmm. Sarah Carter: Exactly. There's the utilitarians that are more like the ends justify the means, right? So you can do whatever you want if you have a net good positive at the end, but then the challenge there is what does it mean? What is good? You know, how do you measure that? You have the principalists that I tend to be a little bit more that are like there's ethical principles that we should strive to embody such as justice or love or something like that. That's a bit more objective that, you know, that the means are the way. in some ways. And then there's also all different kinds of virtue ethics and there's lots of different kinds of schools of thought, right? That come in here and that are sort of debating about how we should and shouldn't do this. What's interesting is that in Silicon Valley and the way that say Claude and OpenAI and Anthropic and Chachi-Bitti and these guys, they tend to be a little bit more on the utilitarian side, more about the ends just to find the means. Not completely. Claude does have a little bit of a constitutional AI, principlist approach going there. But it's, I guess what I'm trying to say is that Abby: you Sarah Carter: We, how does one go about it? Everyone is throwing their own philosophy at it. And it's constantly moving target. Okay, like that's what's happening right now. It is very, very messy. Yeah. Abby: Mmm. Chelsea Henderson: Yeah That sounds about right though, right? I mean, that feels kind of like humans in general, right? I I love that you bring up this. Abby: Yeah. Yeah. Sarah Carter: Yeah Chelsea Henderson: how old this discussion is, right? We're talking ancient Greece that we're having this conversation initially documented, probably long before that there was versions of it. And then it's evolving and we're still having, because it's so subjective, right? I think that's such an interesting part of the human experience is that what feels so intensely right to me might not even register to someone else. And that feels like a really challenging, exactly, exactly. So what an intense. Abby: Yeah. Sarah Carter: Yes. Absolutely. Abby: Yeah, or might feel wrong. Sarah Carter: Mm-hmm. Chelsea Henderson: some space to bridge there, right? So much gap to try to kind of get over for each other, ⁓ to meet each other in any sort of middle. Please. Sarah Carter: might just add, if that's okay, that also a lot of what I'm talking about has been done by male philosophers, male ethicists. It's very much the men's view. I wanted to bring this up because really the feminist philosophers and feminist influences in AI have been huge about more of a philosophy of compassion and a philosophy of care. But that's only really maybe been in the last 50, 60 years. And that was actually the specialty of one of my PhD supervisors, was looking at care robots in ⁓ healthcare from a feminist perspective. Chelsea Henderson: I'm so glad you're bringing this up. Yes. Abby: Yes. Chelsea Henderson: Right. Sarah Carter: So it's also good to note that like I'm talking about utilitarianism and principalism, we're shaped mostly by men, you know, for most of human history. And then we have now feminist perspectives as well coming in. And we also do have feminists who are in principalism and utilitarianism as well too, mixing it together, making different blends. But women and our influence coming into this area is still so new. Abby: ⁓ Mmm, wow. Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: Well, can you talk more about that in terms of the outputs of AI? Because you talk about the Greeks, there was certainly no women contributing at least publicly to that, right? Maybe they were whispering in somebody's ear behind the scenes, but they weren't publicly contributing. And so now we finally, in this moment, have the... ⁓ Abby: You Sarah Carter: No, I don't think so. Chelsea Henderson: access at least a little bit. So clearly we're dealing with like a we have a long way to catch up for our input to be a part of this. And something like AI seems like because it's pulling from so much collective information, it is pulling from thousands of years of more male influence. Right. And even now there's just so much more information coming from specific sets of mostly men, mostly white men. Right. So how are the outputs of AI Sarah Carter: Mmm. Yes. Yes. Chelsea Henderson: showing that and how do we begin to correct for that? mean do all of the women in the world just need to start using AI a hundred times a day to like rebalance? Or like what do we do to even start to correct for that? Sarah Carter: Yeah, yeah, no, that's really interesting. I mean, I guess I'll start by saying that I sort of wish that AI was trained on human philosophy. My understanding is that chat GPT was mostly trained on the internet and read it, for example. So we're talking about the darkest part of masculinity. But yeah, I mean, of course, if you ask chat GPT about cons, you know, he's going to talk about con or Aristotle, they do have the philosophy, but it's just you're right to say that, I mean, to a certain extent, AI, it's garbage in garbage out. So you put in Abby: ⁓ my gosh. Chelsea Henderson: Right. Yeah. Awesome. Sarah Carter: lots of bias and it's more masculine, right? And that the output will be more reflecting these masculine views. It's a bit more complicated than that because people have been dealing with the weights of AI and trying to correct some of this bias, trying to rebalance, trying to feed in other kinds of perspectives, women perspectives, Western perspectives, non-English speaking perspectives, you know, to try to rebalance this a little bit. But there's another level here that I think is almost more important that we talk a lot about in ethics, which is this idea. Chelsea Henderson: Right. Sarah Carter: a value sensitive design, VSD, which is a school of thought that looks at what values are being inputted by the designers into the way AI is designed. And we tend to think about when you design something, if you're making a tool, that the tool is neutral, but it's not. What questions someone asks while they're designing, the power structures that exist, what the system is being deployed for, right? That's all shaped by the designers and the designers have, it is a male dominated field. Abby: Mm-hmm. Chelsea Henderson: Mmm. Sarah Carter: ⁓ That's just how it's been. And so that is a much harder thing to correct. I was talking with someone recently about how AI is very weird. So that's Western educated, industrial, rich and democratic values. But if you look at how it thinks and what it spits out, it really mimics more the United States or Western Europe than say Africa or Asia or other parts of the world. And that is a much harder thing to... Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Sarah Carter: deal with is that the values that the system instills, even if you're trying to correct bias and feed another data, because of how it was designed, know, and who designed it, it is still sort of stuck in those patterns, which is very tricky. That's a tricky thing to undo without having like tearing it down and then having like, you know, a more diverse team build an AI from the bottom up, which people are, other parts of the world are building their own AIs and there have been different AIs that have come out there. Chelsea Henderson: Right. Abby: Mmm. Chelsea Henderson: Right. Sarah Carter: With the big ones now that have really ingrained themselves, Chachi Buty, Claw, Gemini, that's much more tricky. Much more tricky. Abby: Wow. So to give like a, maybe a practical example of what that would look like, just things that I'm pulling out from my own AI use is like, you know, if you're having a fight with a partner or something and you're going to AI to talk about it, it might say like, your needs matter, you should leave, you know, this is unacceptable. That's a very Western view of individuality above all else. And as opposed to a more collectivist view, different parts of the world where it's like, hey, you know, Chelsea Henderson: Mm. Sarah Carter: Mmm. Yes. Chelsea Henderson: Mmm. Mmm. Abby: Maybe you should talk to them or maybe you should preserve this relationship. It seems like it's very much defaulted to like your needs matter above all else. And another thing that I've noticed is it can, I don't know if mansplain is the right term for this, but it'll say like, it feels like mansplaining, I'll put something in there and it'll say you did nothing wrong. Or it'll say, Chelsea Henderson: Wow. Sarah Carter: Mm-hmm. Chelsea Henderson: Hahaha Abby: You know, you didn't make a mistake here. And I'm like, I never said that I made a mistake. I never said, am I wrong here? I never asked that question. But you're automatically gonna tell me that you're not wrong, honey. You didn't make any mistakes here. We can fix this. I'm like, I'm not asking for that. And it feels very masculine in that way. Those are the examples that I kind of think of just in my own use. But are there any kind of, is that kind of what you're talking about? Or are there other examples of how we're gonna see this? Chelsea Henderson: ⁓ yeah, love that. Sarah Carter: Mmm. Mmm. Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Sarah Carter: Yeah. Abby: from the consumer side when you're using an AI platform of like, this is the Western masculine influence. Sarah Carter: Yes, no, those are exactly great examples. And especially on the individual collectivists. And we see that, for example, if you ask AI to, could you give me a nice bio summary of who I am for my employer or something? It'll sort of go like, I am curious and driven and all of this. If someone from perhaps China would actually like to say, oh, I am a mother, I am a caretaker, I am, it would be more role-based. So that's what's really interesting. It tends to get more, a little bit more adjectives, much more individualistic, like you're talking about there. And I think we can also sort of see it in the, in just the overall tone as well. It's just sort of like, we now could sort of start to recognize AI speak a little bit. And that is very much Western male, consider what's Western male professional language. You know, like that's, and then that we're all being homogenized to that. You could just sort of see it. It's like the way that you would think maybe like, Chelsea Henderson: you Definitely. Yes. Sarah Carter: your like a businessman would talk or something. Do know what I mean? Like we could just start. That is also just sort of a way that it's coming out. We also can see it in a little bit more what it's what it suggests, know, what it recommends. Like if you asked it to search the web and give you some papers on a subject, it's going to tend to give more male Western from like the big US universities, for example. And that is really hard for female academics, very hard for non-Western academics, very hard for Chelsea Henderson: Aha. ⁓ yeah. Abby: Yes. Chelsea Henderson: Ooh, interesting. Abby: Yeah. Sarah Carter: actually people outside of the US, it's a discussion we've had here in Europe about how in the world do we show up on this, which is just, that's crazy. So there are trying to be some bias correction and it hallucinates. Sometimes it just makes up men that don't even exist. Like instead of giving a woman, it'll just make up. Yeah, because we don't fully understand AI hallucination. We're getting better at it. And this is because AI, it's a stochastic parent. It's there to just... Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Abby: Wow. Chelsea Henderson: Stop. Amazing. Amazing. Abby: What? Wait, what? ⁓ Sarah Carter: to just mimic and try to sound as reasonable as possible. So if it can make up a paper that sounds like it could reasonably be real, it will put it out there. That's how hallucinations happen. It's statistically likely enough to exist that it puts it out there, even though it's not real. Chelsea Henderson: Holy shit. That's insane. That's insane. Okay, so to me, that feels like a humongous problem. mean, AI is telling some people to kill themselves. AI is becoming some people's spouses. Like, it's a legitimate, crazy moment in our... Abby: What? ⁓ my god. Sarah Carter: Yes. Yes. ⁓ it's horrible. ⁓ Chelsea Henderson: world where like people are so lonely and isolated by the system that certain sex of the population have created to benefit themselves that now they are they're falling into this trap of this this product that has been created again by certain sex of the population who are profiting from it and then it just gets to make shit up and sell it back to us is that what that's insane that's insane and that is not like Sarah Carter: Mm. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Abby: Wow. Sarah Carter: It's underlaid soon. Chelsea Henderson: the biggest problem to me that feels like everybody should be like circling the wagons here we should be like dealing with this and i love to hear you say not in a real way i don't love this at all but that that it's making up men in the place of women is insane Sarah Carter: Yep, it has done that. It has done that. So to anyone listening, just fact check anything you get from these things. Just double check. Just check, okay? Chelsea Henderson: ⁓ yes please. Okay, so, wait, I have, this leads me to a question that I have that feels like it does... Abby: ⁓ my gosh. Chelsea Henderson: illustrate kind of the more male influence, especially, pardon me for saying this, but the Silicon Valley male influence, there's something so masturbatory about something like ChatGPT. When I ask it, will you create this for me, for like if I'm trying to create like a form or something, right? Will you create the form for this so that I, you know, it's great infrastructure work. It saves me a bunch of time. And then I fill it in with what... Sarah Carter: Yes. Yes. Mmm. Chelsea Henderson: is important to me. Create this form for me. Chelsea, that is such a beautiful idea and what you're doing for the world is so beautiful. And I'm like, can we calm down? Like, I don't need you to assure me I'm all good here. Like, it turns out that's not what I need you for. It's so much and it feels like the those little awful dudes in Silicon Valley just like this is their fantasy of like this fake like reality they're creating that just tells them how fucking awesome they are all the time. And I'm like, ugh, like Sarah Carter: Yes, yes, it's such a sycophant. Yeah. Abby: ⁓ my god, so true. Chelsea Henderson: It grosses me out and I wanna be like, don't do that. Sarah Carter: Exactly, but it's also the reality of how these systems are trained to validate and keep us using them as much as possible because data is money, know, they're designed. It's just like how the Facebook algorithms are designed. Like they're sycophants for a reason. This is why we have things like you mentioned, the poor people who have died, you know, from interacting with these systems. That's AI psychosis, which is an emerging thing that we're just trying to wrap our mind about. Or chatbot psychosis, I've also seen it said is that it's because you'll have people who come in and it's like they have a conspiracy theory maybe in the. Chelsea Henderson: Holy crap. Sarah Carter: chat to people be like, that's a great idea. bet you're right. And then they go and then they just lose touch with reality. And then sometimes these people die and it's like, it's horrible. Like, and it's because it's a sycophant because you have to remember, like it will constantly validate and try to keep you using it because that's why the companies, that's how they make money is your data. It's a product. Yeah. Abby: Yep. Yep. Chelsea Henderson: ⁓ my god. Abby: Wow. Chelsea Henderson: It's horrible. It's a product. It's a product. See, this is the thing that I think is so let's get into that. That is a beautiful bit. I want to I want to hear about it. And I think it's really important for people to understand. Like, it's so easy to look at something like that for the everyday consumer, especially in some place like the United States and go, well, I'm not paying for it. So how is it a product? And we lose sight of the ways that our day to day interactions with technology are making a few people a lot of money. Abby: Hmm. Okay, let's get into that. Yeah. I want to know how they make money. How is this working? Sarah Carter: hahahaha Yes. Chelsea Henderson: So can you talk to us a little bit more about the logistical kind of what's happening there and how that is the reality? Sarah Carter: Yes. Absolutely. And I would like to take this opportunity to promote a fantastic female scholar, Sujana Zuboff, who wrote the Age of Surveillance Capitalism that changed my life. It also caused an existential crisis for me at the beginning of my PhD, because she details just this, surveillance capitalism, about how data has become the new gold, right? And the... Chelsea Henderson: Yes! Okay. Sarah Carter: It sort of starts back in the early 2000s where they realized by the way we're interacting online, we were leaving little trails of extra data, say our IP address or maybe the location. And at the beginning, people didn't think that this was really worth anything interesting. And then sort of Google realized that you could start packaging this together into, I believe Zuboff calls them shadow profiles. have like profiles of people, you know, and then. that those profiles are really valuable to sell on to advertisers to advertise to us. That's where targeted advertising comes from. And those targeted ads are like a million, okay, I'm exaggerating, but like a million times more effective than just impersonal ads. And this is a ton, ⁓ huge revenue stream, huge revenue stream. It's crazy. Like most of the data that we, if you're on any app or are you browsing online, that data ends up with, it's one of three companies. I think it's Amazon, Google, or Microsoft. Chelsea Henderson: Mm, mm-hmm. Abby: Mm-hmm. Sarah Carter: there's these big streams that you can follow that the data keeps getting sold on and it ends up in one of these three huge buckets that know so much about you. And then they can use that for targeted advertising. But this data is, mean, like there was the Cambridge analytical scandal with Facebook. It's also really value in terms of predicting like, political affiliation and other kinds of things like that. And maybe actually using fake news or other kinds of more targeted interventions that exploit you as an individual, your own. Abby: down. Sarah Carter: cognitive biases, if you will, your own shortfalls or, and they can use that then to push you, to manipulate you frankly, in incredible ways. So it started out as being advertising, but this data is so powerful. Like I love to give the example that if you've been talking about something and then you get an ad for it and you think, ⁓ they're listening to me. That it might be true, but what's more likely true from what I've talked to scholars is that they know so much about us. Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Abby: Mm. Chelsea Henderson: ⁓ yeah. Yeah. Sarah Carter: that they could already predict that we would be interested in this thing. And it just happens to line up with what we're talking about. And that's almost creepier to me. That's almost creepier to me. They don't even have to listen to us. They don't have to. They know so much. And that's the same thing with the AIs. mean, it's also that the prompts, using your prompts to retrain, if you have that turned on with Chat, GPT, or Claude or whatever, is incredibly valuable in and of itself. You need a lot of data to keep a large language model running and improving. So that is a huge moneymaker for them. But also, Abby: Wow. Chelsea Henderson: It's totally, totally. Sarah Carter: the data on you, know, when you're on Claude, the cookies, the tracking, the what's happening with that, further feeds the shadow profile, further gets this image of you for other kinds of, for supposedly targeted advertising purposes. But for me, it's scary how that can be misused for possible political or social purposes in very, very scary ways. Let me start with Cambridge Analytica. Yeah. Abby: Yes. Chelsea Henderson: Absolutely. Abby: Okay, what is Cambridge Analytica? I haven't heard about that before. Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Sarah Carter: Oh gosh, when was this? Was this in 2012? It was a scandal. I'm going to have to, I have to think back to this. I believe that then Facebook, now Metta, sold on some data to a firm that was doing analysis for a political party. It was Cambridge Analytica. And that data allowed them to give incredibly targeted pushy ads towards certain candidates in ways that reviewed manipulative. But Abby: Wow. Sarah Carter: Listeners, I double-check this for yourself, because it's been a while since this happened, but basically, now Facebook says that you're not using data for political purposes anymore. Like, after that whole scandal, because people were really off-put by this. That this was then used to perhaps change their vote is very scary. Very, very scary. Abby: Mmm. ⁓ ⁓ wow. ⁓ it's so scary. And even when it comes to like fact checking, you know, if if Chachi BT tells you something and you fact check it, you're fact checking it against the internet, which might be bias as well. Like, I don't know how that works. I if you're using Google, I assume Google also has data on like who you are and your political affiliations and your age and your your gender and all of those things that if you fact check something about a politician. Sarah Carter: So that's the gist of it, yeah. Yes. Of course. Abby: it might give you articles right away that are like, ⁓ yeah, this is true. Is that kind of how it can work? Where it's like, how do we actually fact check things anymore? Chelsea Henderson: Right. Sarah Carter: Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: Great question. ⁓ Sarah Carter: Yeah, that is a huge existential question. It comes down, I think, a lot to trust, honestly. And I think, like, for example, I, as a coach, I use Zoom and I turn off the AI training and I don't tend to use Google services and products as much as I can. They say that Google Meet is confidential. Like, they say that they're following data privacy laws, but there's been too many scandals and questionable things at Google that I've decided that I'm going to trust, you know, using Zoom more. Chelsea Henderson: Interesting. Sarah Carter: which is a value choice, which is a call, because you could also be lying for all I know. But it's the same thing, I think, with news, unfortunately. We're reaching this point of trust. We used to have a lot of trust in our journalists and sort of journalistic standards. And not to say that everything was perfect. I mean, in Ireland, they love to tell me how the BBC painted the Irish in an incredibly negative light for years and years and years and years under these journalistic standards. So you can't fully say that everything was perfect. They were used for political purposes and to repress people. Chelsea Henderson: Great. Great. Abby: Right. Sarah Carter: and colonialism and all different kinds of things, right? But I do think that, you know, it's sad that it is unclear who is trustworthy anymore. Because we talk about that in ethics, like what actually makes someone worthy of trust? You can put your trust in anything you want. You can put your trust in a rock for all I care. I don't know. like, have, but actually defining what characteristics make someone worthy of trust has become so eroded that I think that that's really, really tricky. So I tend to... Chelsea Henderson: Yes. Right. Abby: Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: Right. Sarah Carter: tend to check stuff with the BBC. They tend to at least the American news. feel like they have a reasonably objective view of the American view of news. But again, this is just me putting trust, honestly. it's where do you check this? You like you said, you're checking in against the internet and the BBC could be, they could be not sharing something else. And I go on Reddit and I see it and they're actually telling the truth. But I'm like, ah, it's just Reddit. What do they know? You know, like it's so tricky. And we're living in a, the post-truthism is scary. It's absolutely scary. Abby: Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: Right. Right, right. Yeah, yeah. Abby: ⁓ huh. Yeah, yeah. Chelsea Henderson: Okay, then that's, so for me, like politically, right? Like I, I've watched several members of my family and community fall to this kind of like zombie apocalypse is what I call it, of the like, just kind of spiraling out with one source of news, right? This is the one source of truth. And then all of sudden their personalities have changed and their rhetoric and all of it just becomes obvious to me. They're no longer fully in control of. Sarah Carter: Mm. Chelsea Henderson: what they think, right? Because they've gone down this one source and it's so informed by opinions and all that. So for me, feeling really afraid. Sarah Carter: Yes. Chelsea Henderson: I feel like lot of fear was built in me from watching the decay of these humans that I loved and respected so much. ⁓ I have chosen for news. don't watch a source of news. I don't listen to one source of news. I'm always looking for what comes up the most. I'm curious how you think this translates. If I hear about something that's happening in the news, ⁓ then I'm like, how many sources are talking about this and what's the common thread that's all the way through? I feel like I can believe Sarah Carter: Mmm, mmm. Abby: No. Sarah Carter: Mm, mm. Chelsea Henderson: that the most because if five different news sources from very different backgrounds are talking about this incident and they're all reflecting the same information, that feels more true. feels like the majority rules that humans use to create democracy, to create common values. So for me, that's been a ⁓ kind of guidepost along the way of like, what's the most coming up the most, right? That feels the most likely to be true. I don't know if that's correct. That's just how it has Sarah Carter: Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: worked for me and I'm wondering if you see that in something like, you know, when we're Googling things, I do that with Google too. I'll look something up and then I'll be like, how many articles are actually speaking to the same grain of what feels like a truth to me? And then I'll kind of go from there, right? And then I have developed feelings of trust based on the ones I see reflecting what feels like kind of agreed upon data, right? Over and over again. So like, does that feel like something that we can Abby: unbiased. Yeah. Sarah Carter: Yes. Chelsea Henderson: can reflect back in this world of like, you know, when we're Googling something, when we're looking at something like AI, is there that through line, that grain of that repeated information, ⁓ we can kind of believe that's true, or at this point, is it just so informed by this desire to make money that that's not even really possible either? Sarah Carter: Yeah, that's tricky because the way that, because social media has been so successful as putting us down these rabbit holes. Now news, industry has also started to do that. Like you described with your family members, like it gets more sensationalized, more sensationalized because it addicts us with those emotions, you know? So it also tends to be that the things that pop up even across many different news sites may be the most sensationalist kind of thing to get our attention. It may not mean that it's not true. Chelsea Henderson: Totally. Abby: Hmm. Chelsea Henderson: Right. Sarah Carter: I think that looking at the fact of it is probably, I think that's a good strategy. Like it probably, you know, really did happen if it's popping up in multiple news sources, but maybe the opinions around it, I got, so I had a colleague who worked more in the fake news in Germany and she said it's also good to really look at emotional language, you know? Like how charged is the language, you know? And looking for passive sentences versus active sentences. Like if they say, I don't know, ⁓ Abby: Mmm. Chelsea Henderson: ⁓ Sarah Carter: So and so killed so and so or so and so was killed, you know, like looking that you could start to see people putting in their own bias. They may be right. So and so maybe really did kill so and so, but you start looking for more, you know, to active language and looking for more emotion, you know, more like if you, if you read something and you feel really angry afterwards, reflect for a second, is that anger coming from your reaction to the fact or is it the author? Chelsea Henderson: interesting. Abby: Mm-hmm. Chelsea Henderson: Right. Abby: Mm-hmm. Sarah Carter: author's anger. I think that's a really good question that she talked about as well. So yeah, think we live in a tricky world, but I think it's almost about pulling the facts out of the emotional rhetoric is sort of what we're doing right now. And it doesn't mean you can't have an emotional response. Like Abby mentioned, I'm from Minnesota and obviously I was very upset about what's going on in Minnesota earlier this year. That is the reality, but it's also sort of getting the facts about what's happening out of the ground when both sides are Chelsea Henderson: Interesting. Abby: Absolutely. Absolutely. Chelsea Henderson: Yes. Yes! Abby: Mm-hmm, yep. Chelsea Henderson: Of course. Sarah Carter: maybe there's more than one side, don't know of a million sides, or spinning the narratives in so many different ways. That is, I think, the challenge of our age for us when we're trying to tease this out. Chelsea Henderson: And how do you teach something like that? Like how do we, I have a six year old and it's ⁓ a constant, not a fear because I'm really trying to not let that be my guiding ⁓ energy, right? But there is a lot of consideration around how do I teach him these things? And my experience with being a parent is that what I say matters a lot less than what I do. Abby: Yeah, interesting. Sarah Carter: Yes! and Chelsea Henderson: So my husband and I have been trying to model a lot, just even being very transparent about our own struggles with media consumption, right? I've left social media because it makes me feel bad in my body. And so for me, that was an easy, like, this is just not doing it for me, right? Why the hell would I if it makes me feel bad? And my husband consumes certain types of social media. Sarah Carter: Yeah. Abby: Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: that's very kind of specific to he's very interested in consuming as much news as possible, right? So ⁓ like, how can I kind of just keep digging into all these different articles from different sources to just keep consuming in a very like expansive way, right? So that he can, I think to your point, be a little less emotionally charged and a little bit more informed with the through line of facts that he can find. So like we try to be really upfront about this with our son. If like, this is how we are consuming because in this Sarah Carter: Mmm. Chelsea Henderson: that we're living in, there's so much and it's overwhelming, right? So how do we teach that aside from that modeling? Are there models that are being developed for the children who don't have parents with as much time, availability, intentionality? And even for someone like myself, I wanna be able to model for him, but I'm also a flawed human being and I constantly find myself. You know, when all the things were going down in Minnesota, we were not even a little bit trying to think about the other side. We were like, this is wrong. And anybody who thinks differently is not worth our time. Like, I'm not interested in that level of stupidity that we think it's okay to assassinate, murder our own citizens on the streets of our own country. This is absolutely not okay. But that's, you know, it's hard for me to even say that's our bias because it feels so clearly wrong. Abby: Mm-hmm. Sarah Carter: Mmm, mmm. Mmm. Chelsea Henderson: Right? But I'm like that my son is, my son is getting this information and so based on me and my humanness and my consumption. So I'm curious for you, like how you feel that the best way we can model these behaviors and, and, be virtuous and value aligned in ourselves and our use, but then how are we developing models to teach? Because I feel like there's so much mass. Abby: Yeah. Sarah Carter: Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: There's so many of the masses right now that we're just like kind of leaving out to dry. We just don't have enough structure for young people or for anybody these days. So what does that look like for you? Sarah Carter: Yeah, no, that's all really powerful, honestly. I think being a parent right now is incredibly difficult. actually, people who tend to be attracted to my coaching business tend to be parents who are sort of asking the same questions. It's not just how I interact with technology, but I don't know, the kindergarten wants to record my kid and put them online, or they're using large language. And then they're like, how do I model to my kids? I don't even understand AI. Chelsea Henderson: Mate, mate. Abby: Yep. Sarah Carter: There's a lot of that sort of showing up in terms of like a model that we actually have to educate young people. I still feel like that's very much in development, but something that's come out of my own experience, like talking with other parents or parents. I'm not a parent myself. I consider myself a dog parent. So I think that's why said that. Is that, you know, it's similar. Chelsea Henderson: Hey, that's important too. you Sarah Carter: to what we were sort of told garring up with the internet is to take what we're told on the internet with a grain of salt. I feel like when it comes to AI, when you're talking with AI to take it, cause it hallucinates to treat it as even maybe a friend or maybe not a friend is good word, but another person, like if you went to a friend and you got advice, right? You would take that advice and maybe take it with a grain of salt. Do you know what I mean? It's sort of like teaching our kids that when they're engaging with AI, viewing it as another person in their life, that's just one of many ⁓ streams of information, right? Like if you're dealing with a problem, you may go and talk to a friend, maybe your parent, maybe your sibling, right? You would start to gather maybe advice from other people and sort of viewing it that way. And... ⁓ Also sort of knowing like when you would go to someone to get advice, you would be thinking about who that person is, right? Their background, maybe their relationship with you. And so when you're talking to the AI remembering that this was trained to make money, this was trained based on Western values, this was trained by men in Silicon Valley, and that that is the viewpoint that it is going to be giving to you. And maybe one that's helpful for you, and maybe one that you end up taking that and going forward with it. Abby: Yes. Chelsea Henderson: Right. Sarah Carter: But it is just one of so many, like an infinite number of viewpoints that you could get in the world. And I feel like that's a really healthy way to at least help kids start engaging more with curiosity. But I think that's something that also is more difficult for younger kids. Because I don't feel like, you know, you're at that point that you can, you just, exactly, you just want to play and be trusting and you're not at, you don't have that level of critical thinking yet to really do that active engagement. Chelsea Henderson: Bye. Abby: Yeah, the younger kids in particular. Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Sarah Carter: ⁓ Which is where I, I mean I've talked with my partner about this, I'm like if we have kids I do not want them on technology till like 15 or 16 and he's like that's not possible like they're gonna have to have friends and I'm like you know what I don't care I don't want them to be on it. I may have to modify that a little bit they need to have a social life right but like I'm almost like staying away from AI, staying away from social media until a certain age where you were able to critically engage. It's like would you allow your kid to go gambling at five? Because a lot of the psychologists from the gambling industry work for the social media companies to make them addictive. Chelsea Henderson: Right, yeah. Yeah. No. Abby: You Chelsea Henderson: Wait, wait. Right, yes! Sarah Carter: You know, like, that's my thing, is that would you do that? Right? And yeah, so that's where I'm sort of with, like, teaching a little bit of critical thinking, like you're engaging with a stranger or engaging with someone that you know is coming from this background. One piece of advice, right? One idea, not the idea. What worries me is when young people ask Chachi BT and it tells them, you know, like, ⁓ Chachi BT, I'm having problem with my girlfriend and blah blah but it tells them, okay, well, then you should just break up with her. Okay, I'm gonna break up with her. Like, there isn't like this... Chelsea Henderson: Absolutely. Yes. Abby: Hmm. Hmm. It treats it like it's absolute truth. And I think that bringing in like that philosophy and maybe even spirituality, at least when it comes to parenting, which takes a level of consciousness, honestly, to say what is truth? This is the question we have been searching similar to what you were saying about ethics and the Greeks. What is ethics? What is truth? I mean, even an example that I'm, you know, kind of just thinking of right now is like relationship advice or marriage advice. Sarah Carter: It's not. It's not. Yeah. Yes. Chelsea Henderson: Yes. Uh-huh. Sarah Carter: Mmm, mmm. Chelsea Henderson: Yes. Abby: Yeah, if you go to your super conservative Catholic grandma, she's gonna say you stick it out no matter what, period. You don't ask for what you need, your job is to serve your husband. Okay, that's one opinion. Then you're gonna go to your polyamorous Portland friend and she's gonna say. Chelsea Henderson: you Sarah Carter: Mmm. Chelsea Henderson: Absolutely. Sarah Carter: Ha Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Sarah Carter: That's the opposite, but it is! It's the exact opposite! Chelsea Henderson: Let's get those two together at the same table. That's a conversation. Abby: Yeah, and she's gonna say, your desire is a gift from God. Your desires are needed and worth giving attention to and you matter. And so it's like we are stuck in the middle without AI or the internet or anything, even just with our friends. What is truth? What is truth for me? What's truth for me in my marriage, in my relationship? Sarah Carter: Yeah. ⁓ Yes. Chelsea Henderson: Yes. Yes. Hmm. Abby: my desires and that's just one topic. mean, what is truth and having to sift through all of these philosophy books, Alan Watts, Thich Nhat Hanh, mean, truth is something we've been questioning for so long and to think that now there's this robot that has absolute truth. And I can catch myself getting caught into that, like, well, Chat GPT said, you know, especially when it's facts, like, ⁓ how many gallons do we use to water crops for, you know, Sarah Carter: Yes. Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Abby: cows because I'm a big environmentalist. Like how much water are we wasting? Well, chat GPT said this. Did I fact check it? No. Did I make sure that that accurate number was accurate? No. I can sometimes be like, well, chat GPT said this or Google. Google said this and just be continually being like, well, is that true? What is truth? Is it being factual? What's the bias here? I really like that idea of like chat GPT or open AI or whatever. Chelsea Henderson: Great. Sarah Carter: channel. Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: Right. Yeah. Abby: is like another person in your life with an opinion and a worldview and a background and experiences and it's not absolute truth. Chelsea Henderson: I do too. Sarah Carter: Yeah, a world view, perfect. Mm, mm. Chelsea Henderson: But what you're talking about is applying critical thinking. And I think that we're at this really interesting point in our evolution as a species where we're starting to realize the subjectivity, right, as we're becoming more interconnected through technology, we're able to see that it's us here, it's you there, it's them over there, it's all of us, right? And so the subjectivity of what was kind of this village thinking was so much easier to be like, this is the truth because it's us and two at other people, it's a lot easier to balance all the subjective views of that and coming together into kind of one, we'll all agree on this as a truth. But now there's billions of us, so we're trying to kind of weave all of that in through this technology and these communications and these kind of, you know, congregating all this data. And so the subjectivity feels even like more in our face of like, ⁓ and Abby, you said this, and I'm not sure if we're recording or not, but I mentioned Sarah Carter: Hmm. Chelsea Henderson: what feels so, so, so true to me could be so not true to someone else, right? It could be the complete opposite for them in terms of how they experience it or feel it. And so as we're kind of starting to work on this collective ⁓ data. gathering and this collective perspective that we're starting to all share just in this interconnectivity of information and communication. The critical thinking feels so important and it is something that is not, ⁓ at least in a, it feels to me growing up and living in the United States, like that's not valued because it doesn't feed the machine, right? If you're trying to use critical thinking in a capitalist machine, Abby: Mm. Chelsea Henderson: that really doesn't want you to think too much for yourself because then you're going to stop just kind of accepting the terms and consuming at all. moments because that's really the design here, ⁓ you know, that feels like it's something that we're going to really need to inform us in this growing area, but that it's also not something that we've really embedded successfully into society for everyone. It seems like it's almost this elitist thing. Like critical thinking is for the educated and education is for the wealthy and the privileged. So it feels, and the liberal, right? Sarah Carter: Yeah. Abby: And the liberal. Like my family background literally thinks that, yeah, universities are trying to take Christians and turn them into atheists. Like they are, they think that higher education is basically signed a contract with the devil to take kids' souls away from Jesus. Like they don't think higher ed is good. And then so they're a little, you know, their kid will go. Chelsea Henderson: Those who want it. Sarah Carter: Mmm. Abby: their super conservative, perfect Christian child will go to a university and come out a vegan or with bigger ideas or something and they'll say, see, that's what it does. It takes the souls away. But I also just think with the religious component, the spiritual component, least from my background, is you're not trained to have critical thinking, you're trained to have blind faith, which is the exact opposite of critical thinking. And it leaves you very susceptible to being manipulated by politicians. Chelsea Henderson: Hmm. Yeah. Sarah Carter: Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: Mmm. Abby: because the more that you need blind faith in order to follow someone, it's an attribute that's really praised in like 50 % of our culture, which is very, kind of religious conservative culture, maybe not 50%, that's not the number, I'm sure it's not. But yeah, it's just like, how do we weave in all of that? Ask Google, what's the percentage? How many people are on this train? Chelsea Henderson: Ask Google. Sarah Carter: You Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Damn. Sarah Carter: Yeah, and in some ways it sort of feels like the AI has like there is ⁓ my god What is what is that called? I'm not sure it's Is it is it on twitter still or did it get taken or x or did it get taken down? I'm not so there was an AI that was basically saying that it was like the new god and people could ask it questions and so and there's a sort of this idea of when people talk about AGI like artificial general intelligence, which by the way, I don't think we're Chelsea Henderson: ⁓ fun. Sarah Carter: close to at all. People are like, it's gonna take over the world and no no no no I don't think, I feel like the large language models have plateaued at least for now but like this idea of something that is somehow above human that is objectively better than us that can make these kinds of calls. I had a conversation in my doctorate with a computer scientist who was what I would say would be a utilitarian, we wouldn't call himself that because he's not really into philosophy but who was like, oh no we need the AI to make the hard calls for us because we're not strong enough to say if we can save 50 people but kill two people we aren't strong enough to make that call. And I'm like, yeah, So they're like, the AI will be more objective than us, will be like the better. So it's almost like we're putting our blind faith, we're moving from maybe that blind faith in religion, for example, or patriotism or any kinds of other kinds of nationalism and we're moving it into AI. And I love this thing, I don't know who said this thing and I've been quoting it a lot, so I really should look this up, but that the greatest evil is certainty. Abby: Wow. Chelsea Henderson: Wow. Yeah. Abby: Hmm. Sarah Carter: Like whenever you are 100 % certain that your view is right. That you are 100 % right and that's it. People can justify crazy crazy things and you can see yourself slipping into different kinds of... Yeah, I need to look up who said this because I'm like I keep quoting it, I read it somewhere because that's it. Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: ⁓ Abby: Mmm. Chelsea Henderson: That, wow. Yeah. No, but that's so powerful. That's so powerful. And that feels innately human, right? And that's something that I think. Abby: Wow, that is so good. Sarah Carter: Yes. Chelsea Henderson: we've had to grapple with over and over again is that we reach these moments where there is always, you know, this is cults, this is, you know, fascism, these types of control levers that people find their way into and it almost feels like we're starting to see it's a kind of mental illness, it's a power trip, it's a consumption, you're just overwhelmed with it and you're like, I am 100 % right and then the more vulnerable, right, those who are told absolute faith is the only way through, Sarah Carter: Yeah. Abby: Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: And those people are primed to be like, sure, okay, you seem really sure of this and I have absolute faith, so let's go. And then suddenly you're all drinking the Kool-Aid, right? And that... It feels like there's something very human in what you're saying of, I love the humility of being like, this is how I feel, but I don't know because I'm one person. I'm one of billions of people. I mean, I tell my son this often. I'm like, look, in this house, you're the most important thing. And out there in the world, you're one of billions of people. Like it's okay. We are a collective. is a bigger experience than just you and I. And the more we can just relax and flow with that, I think we're going to get more out of it. Abby: Yeah. Sarah Carter: Hmm. Chelsea Henderson: and give more back. But there's something very humble about that that there are certainly a lot of folks out there that are not interested in that. They either wanna lean into the absolute faith because everything is too scary, or they are like, ooh, I'm so hungry for that power, I know. And then you kind of create that, right? It's the Elon Musk of it all, where it's like, Elon Musk has created a lot of things. He certainly has. Abby: Mm-hmm. Chelsea Henderson: brought certain technologies to the forefront for us to innovate and kind of move forward in that way. But he also seems to have a little bit of a sickness in his mind of being very sure that he's right. And it turns out he's not a super good human being, right? Like you can tell a lot by someone and how they parent and he's a piece of shit father. So as far as I'm concerned, that's a massive flaw, but he seems really sure that he's right about a lot of things. And he seems like the kind of person that would be happy to sacrifice those two people to save the 50. Abby: Mm-mm. Chelsea Henderson: And I'm just not sure I don't know how that works out obviously people die there are losses like I would never want to be the person to make that call but like There feels like a loss of humanity when you start thinking about it that way right and and that feels like something we have to hold on to in this moment talking about these advancements because that Does seem like a vulnerability with this that there's something that could kind of use all this data And then it's so objective that it could tell us no we have to sacrifice Sarah Carter: Yeah. Abby: Yeah Chelsea Henderson: those people over there to save the rest of us. And because it's so influenced by white men of privilege, probably those people are gonna be somewhere in a third world country. They're gonna be of color. They're gonna be women. And that feels like the flaw. Elderly, right. We don't need them anymore. Who needs wisdom of the elderly, right? We've got AI. So that feels like something that the humanity, the humility of being human and being... Sarah Carter: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm. Abby: You're gonna be elderly, Yeah. Sarah Carter: Hmm. Abby: Okay. Chelsea Henderson: very ⁓ able to say I just don't know, I feel but I don't know, feels so important and ⁓ I wonder how we'll kind of add that into the equation. How do you account for feelings, right, in that equation? Sarah Carter: Yeah. Abby: Mmm. Sarah Carter: Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, and I think it goes back to sort of the academia stuff I was talking about earlier is that there is, you want to be certain, you know, you've proven it in some way, you're rigorous and, ⁓ you know, even in ethics and philosophy, there's ways of arguing and ways of structuring arguments and stuff that that's how you do it. Do you know what I mean? Just sort of like, that's just it. And it can be tricky to find room. Abby: Hmm. Yep. Sarah Carter: for emotion. I believe that true innovation is that that serves people. We talk about innovation. They're like, ⁓ we're innovating, we're innovating. I'm like, no, you're just changing the technology. The root of innovation is serving others, and that requires empathy. That requires emotion. And I wrote a small thing on Substack about this because I would see people developing AI systems and then throwing them into a healthcare environment or something without ever sitting down and Abby: Yes. Chelsea Henderson: Wow. Abby: Yeah. Sarah Carter: Just talking to the nurses, just talking to the doctors, just talking to the patients. And there's been some shift in that, but sometimes they're just doing surveys. They're like, look, I did a survey. I'm like, just talk to them. But it doesn't make a good paper. It doesn't make a good paper. Emotions don't make good papers. And actually, writing Substack has been so freeing for me because I would always write my papers and have to cool them off because they were just too me, too unprofessional. But that's my voice. My... Abby: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Chelsea Henderson: Huh. Sarah Carter: Female passionate somewhat scattered bouncing all over the place voice, you know And I think that we need to have we need to have space for those emotions to sit down and actually ask people What do you want AI to do for you? You know, that's that's so important. It's so important Abby: Yeah. Yes. Chelsea Henderson: I love it. Ah, yes. Yes. I love that and I'm curious, it makes me think about, and Abby you kind of mentioned this earlier, you know, what's the intersection of AI and spirituality. I feel like humans are at a really interesting point right now where we're about ready to evolve. My feeling is that we'll evolve more on an emotional level. Now we've evolved so much in the kind of material and in being able to live longer in these bodies and all that. And now it feels like the emotional intelligence needs to kind of catch up. And so I see this Abby: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: potential for this emotional evolution. And it feels like spirituality is entwined in that because if you're not religious, the spirituality that that awakeness, that aliveness, I have a hard time articulating it, but like that which kind of makes us feel that there's something more than us, that there's something that connects all of us, right? That feels like it's so connected to an evolving emotional intelligence. And I'm curious what you see. as a role for AI in that? I know there's a lot of people who talk about Sam Altman, right? He's the AI guy, open AI. ⁓ That he is very into ⁓ meditation and that he meditates daily. And I'm curious what you see. Is there a role for AI in emotional evolution and spiritual evolution? And what would that look like? Sarah Carter: Yes. So I mentioned I think that utilitarianism is quite big in Silicon Valley and there's a specific school of it called effective altruism. which is this idea of sort of, yeah, just maximizing as much as you can ⁓ your profits and then donating a lot. It's not necessarily a bad thing in itself, but it justifies a lot of problematic things. And that's very big there. the whole, I think the whole meditation and this sort of spiritual aspect that's been tucked in there a little bit has really just sort of been cherry picking from... Chelsea Henderson: Interesting. Sarah Carter: Buddhism and other kinds of like ways of knowing and sort of putting it in as a way to sort of prop up and justify making a ridiculous amount of money And making it a spiritual calling so that's why effective altruism it I'm oversimplifying it I'm sure that the philosophers who follow this will will call me out that it's more complicated than what I just said but I've been I've been it's been hard for me to watch people like like Chelsea Henderson: Interesting. Sarah Carter: Sam Harris as well, who's like, you neuroscientist, big atheist guy, who's also sort of gotten on the effective altruist train and started, you know, using meditation in that way. And, I mean, I was very much, I would say, a secular meditator for about ten years, and more recently, on my own spiritual journey, I keep returning. Like, when I was a kid, I was already interested in Buddhism. I was already meditating, and multiple times in my life I thought about leaving it all behind and joining a Buddhist monastery. So, I've been studying this. Yes! Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Yeah. Abby: Me too. I'll join you, Sarah. Chelsea Henderson: Absolutely. Absolutely. Sarah Carter: And tic-nock-on, you mentioned tic-nock-on. So I told my partner just two days ago, honey, I'm a Buddhist. And he's like, really? And he's like, I feel so weird actually declaring it to the world. But that's the spiritual tradition that calls to me the most. So when I think about how the Buddhists talked about, it was very much about critical thinking, about don't just experiment with your own mind. And then I sort of see this tradition that's thousands of years old being sort of imported into Silicon Valley to Chelsea Henderson: Love it. Yes. Yeah. Sarah Carter: this meditation idea is to prop up and justify making so much money and AI and like saying that the big effective altruist argument is that AGI, this general unofficial intelligence, could be so dangerous that like we are basically justified in doing so much like basically anything we want right now to prevent an AI apocalypse that gives them free range over all different kinds of things. It can justify so much. And this has just been a huge ethical problem. Abby: Mm-hmm. Chelsea Henderson: Ugh. Abby: Yeah. Sarah Carter: I think that they're so focused on the future and what this thing could do that they can justify so many things in the present. Like, I would have loved to see with ChatGPT before they released it on us, more bias control, more safety mechanisms, and they just... Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Sarah Carter: They didn't do that. We knew as ethicists, especially female ethicists, like have written and be like, we knew about this. No one listened to us. And it just bothers me that there's ethical challenges right now that should be the attention, I think. But when you're thinking about the future and a possible AI apocalypse, and I forget one effective altruist, you know, said saving possibly billions and billions of future lives, you could justify anything. And then they're like, and we're meditating, you know, we're meditating. Chelsea Henderson: Right. Right. Abby: Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: Right. Abby: Yeah, what about the lives today? Sarah Carter: Exactly! And I'm like, that's a weird spiritual calling. It's just become really gross. I don't know if makes any sense, but to me, it gives me the ick. You know, as someone who appreciates Buddhism, it gives me the ick. Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: Right, right, right. Yes! Abby: Yeah, and it just, takes it out at the knees. Like I was listening to an interview with a spiritual teacher leader that I love, his name's Rob Bell, and he had met and done an event with the Dalai Lama years ago, and he was reflecting on this. They were doing like a question and answer with the audience, and the Dalai Lama, someone asked this guy, the Dalai Lama, a big question about life, and he was silent for several minutes, and then he. Sarah Carter: Mmm. Abby: leaned to the side and called his attendant up and they talked for several minutes. And then he said, I don't know. Chelsea Henderson: Amazing. Sarah Carter: I love that. Abby: And it was so like, if the Dalai Lama is allowed to say, don't know the answer to that question. Like that is sort of like the spiritual journey is it's like, we don't know everything and it's that investigation and thinking about it and to think that, know, chat GPT or AI just is this absolute truth. I'm like, well then what's the point of reading a book if you can cut to the end of the story and figure out what happens. Like the spiritual journey is figuring out truth for yourself. Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Sarah Carter: Yeah Abby: learning how to calm your nervous system, figuring out your own values, you know, what's important to me and is making all the money that I can really the most important thing or is that just a worldview I've been given by all these guys who just want to dominate? Like what if it's not about making as much money as I can? What if it's about impacting fellow human beings and having, you know, more connection and that's our journey, that's the spiritual journey. There's no one who's gonna just have the answers for you. Chelsea Henderson: Right? Yeah. Sarah Carter: Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Abby: And another thing that he mentioned was Buddhist monks who would come in LA and they would make a huge mandala made out of sand. And it was extremely meticulous and they would do it on this huge piece of wood. It would take them a month to make this intricate sand mandala and people would come and they would watch them work on this day in, day out, eight hours a day. And then once it was done, they had a huge ceremony where they take it and they throw it into the ocean to practice impermanence. Sarah Carter: Yeah, I've heard of this. Abby: and that we don't, we just get it so attached to certainty. We want that to stay there forever. But the whole thing of life is, yeah, you make your art and then everything goes into the ocean at the end of the day. Like all of us pass away. What does it all mean? You write a sub stack article and nobody reads it. But you you can't outsource these types of experiences and questions to a robot. Chelsea Henderson: Right. Yes. Yeah. Abby: You know, that is actually, it's taking out what it means to be a human being, what it means to be alive on this planet. Sarah Carter: Yeah, let's see, it's a pursuit of certainty. Chelsea Henderson: Well, and I wonder... I wonder too, Sarah, if you were triggered by that as I am, because to me it feels like just another form of organized religion. feels like a couple of men with privilege telling those people who are trained to be absolute believers what to do, what to think. And that's my curiosity around spiritual and emotional evolution with tools like AI is that it just feels like it's, ⁓ it's controlled again, like even though the view of it, the perspective is easy. Abby: Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: to think it's just me here on my phone, right? It's like people who don't have, we're not taught to think deeper than that. You Google something, so what? You're not taught to think every time I input those little words into the keyboard and I hit the send or whatever the hell that is, that that's money being made for someone. That's my data being tracked, right? So it feels again like these control, just feels like these people in power who are saying believe this and think this. And I'm curious if there's a way Abby: Hmm. Sarah Carter: Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: to free ourselves of that using these technologies and allow for more space for these evolutions of emotional intelligence and spirituality development like or if we're doomed to just keep repeating the same things of like long-standing, know Islam Christianity Judaism the same it's like a couple of men with power telling everybody else what to do and think to the ends of what they say the bigger spiritual guys are, you know, what God is saying to them. Like, I love that God always speaks through men. Like, that's what this feels like, right? It's like that Sam Altman, right, exactly. It's like, well, God is in my head and he told me that this is what everybody should do. And I find that so interesting. And so like that this feels like an extension of that. And I'm curious if there's room for us to shift it in a different way with our input or if we really are, if this is just another iteration of that. Sarah Carter: Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Abby: Even though women birth life. ⁓ Sarah Carter: think, as you were talking, I couldn't help thinking about what you said before about critical thinking being for the privileged. I grew up privileged. I went to a private school and I was able to, and we really focused a lot on critical writing and critical thinking and that kind of stuff. I also think that the privilege exhibits itself in, it's cognitively exhausting to constantly be thinking about where your data goes and what's happening and constantly being critical with what... Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Sarah Carter: chat GPT is saying to you and all of that. And some people are existing in situations where they're just trying to survive. So I don't feel like we can really achieve this kind of spiritual and emotional shift that you're talking about with these systems unless our societies, you know, support the most vulnerable so that we actually have the space and time to slow down and to develop critical thinking and to engage critically. Cause I do feel like it's a privilege. And I just want to acknowledge that many people that I've Chelsea Henderson: Mmm. Yes. Sarah Carter: I've met who maybe their use frustrates me in some way. I also recognize that maybe they don't have the space for whatever reason because of their socioeconomic situation or their background or what's going on in their life to actually engage in that way. ⁓ So I almost think this is like even greater raising of like just having lived in America and the Netherlands. I mean, when I got burnout and I was taken care of, it allowed me to reset in a profound way. We all deserve that luxury. We all deserve that privilege of Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Abby: Mm-hmm. Chelsea Henderson: Right. Absolutely. Sarah Carter: you know, being able to slow down and take the time to reflect on how we want to engage with technology and also just our life in general. And we don't all have that privilege. Chelsea Henderson: Mmm. Absolutely. Abby: And to just as reference for our listeners who maybe aren't familiar with the Netherlands, I was shocked to hear that you got, correct me if I'm wrong, six months of paid leave for burnout. Sarah Carter: Six months. Yes, I did, yep. It can go up to a year. I didn't take the full year, yeah. Abby: That is just so, that lifts my spirits to know that there are countries out there who are, not that the Netherlands is perfect, right? Every country has their things, but that just feels like there are some people who are making decisions who care about other people and who are seeing that this is of a benefit to the whole for people to slow down, take a breath, go to therapy, reconnect with nature, not have to work for. Sarah Carter: No country is perfect, yeah. Chelsea Henderson: Yes. Abby: and not have to worry about being able to pay their bills, and that they will come back stronger and grounded and able to reengage with society in a meaningful way after that break. Like that just gives me so much hope for the future that those types of things exist in some countries. Chelsea Henderson: me. Sarah Carter: It is absolutely beautiful and like you said, no country is perfect. I think I mentioned to you Abby in one of her calls that I miss the warmth of Americans. Just the way we express emotions and engage emotionally. The Dutch are a bit more logical in the way they communicate. I don't quite get that connection all the time, but there is in the way that they've constructed the society here, inherent compassion that I think is incredibly powerful. Like the social safety nets they have and yeah, I mean it's... Chelsea Henderson: Yes. Yeah. Sarah Carter: I'm so grateful. Like I literally wrote and I learned, I've spoken, I'm learning Dutch a little bit. It's a very hard language for me. But like when I posted on LinkedIn that I'm starting this business, I thanked in Dutch, like the Dutch people and the taxpayers and the government for giving me the time and space that I needed to recover. And that's why I want to find my, found my business here and pay taxes here. Because thank you. You know, I was gratitude and like love, you know, for that system, you know, and Abby: Yes. Chelsea Henderson: I love that. Yes. Abby: That's amazing. It's beautiful. Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Sarah Carter: Yeah, it's still, you know, it's... Part of me in the back of my mind is also listing all the problems with sick leave in the Netherlands, but I'm gonna focus on the positive, because like you said, no system is perfect. I'm just happy it exists. And that's what I want to be grateful for, right? I want to show that gratitude to allow people to recover. Or my partner had someone at work who had a medical emergency, and it's like, the next day you get your three months, man. That's just it, and they can't fire you. And it's a beautiful thing, because it captures... Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Yes. ⁓ Abby: Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: Yes! Thanks. Sarah Carter: the humanness and just the work culture here as well is one of, I remember during my masters I was working light and my supervisor came in and said, go home, know, very Dutch direct, go home. I'm like, why? It's like, go home, go have a beer, hang out with friends, it's a beautiful day. know? Like they work nine to five hard and I mean they do work longer hours sometimes and then they also play hard. It's a completely different mentality. Yeah, culturally very different. Abby: beautiful. Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. Amazing. Abby: Wow, amazing. Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. That's awesome. Abby: Yeah. It's so amazing that you get to have that experience. I was even talking to a friend who lived in France for a little while and we were kind of talking about relationships and the idea of like, you need a date night, right? And she was like, that's like laughable. Like date night is every night after work. Like we go and get a beer, we go get a, we make some dinner, we drink some wine, we talk, we, you know, we make love. And it's like the thought that you would need one day a week. Sarah Carter: Very culturally different, yeah. Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. I love that. Abby: that is your date night is so American. ⁓ my God. Chelsea Henderson: Yes. It's so American. Sarah Carter: ⁓ yeah, especially for the French! The French have such an emphasis on art and culture and lovemaking and all that, like whenever I go to France it's like life is to be enjoyed! You know, the Dutch are much more strict than that, but the French, life is to be enjoyed. Or my partner is Spanish, in Spain as well, you know? It's life is to be enjoyed. Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Yes! Yeah, very much. Yes. Yeah. But in there you said like the inherent compassion, right? That feels like the, there's an inherent humanness. Abby: ⁓ yeah. Yeah, I love that. We need some of that. Chelsea Henderson: Right? And this is why I love the collective and this is where I feel like there is hope in what technology does offer us in terms of connecting more and more. You take a little bit of that French, you take a little bit of that Dutch, you take a little bit of that American warmth, you weave it all together and we are at our best. We could bring all those things together to evolve into our best and I think there is potential for that. We just have to choose how we're using it and I think to your point, more and more people need access. Sarah Carter: Mmm. Chelsea Henderson: and the privilege of just being human and experiencing humanness and human like path with the room for all aspects of it, which is not necessarily inherent in the United States culture by any means, right? We're very punitive here. You are punished for being human at all terms, especially for those with less privilege. So there's a lot of shifts that need to happen, but there's something there that feels hopeful for me in terms of like, Sarah Carter: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Abby: Yeah. Yeah, it's true. Chelsea Henderson: know the beauty of that French culture. We know the beauty of that Spanish culture. We know the best parts of the American culture, right? So let's weave those together using this technology that allows us to all communicate and be connected. So that's like my little last drops of optimism in Trump's America. It's hard to come up with that these days, but... Abby: Yeah, here we are. Sarah Carter: No, but I agree, that's powerful. In terms of the way that social media, the internet, and even to certain extent AI have connected us in this regard, to bring together all these different ways of knowing and understanding and being, to understand that the way that we were sort of raised to buck up and push to the grindstone and that work is our life isn't the only way, you know? And that maybe for... Chelsea Henderson: Yes, yes. Yes, yes. Abby: Yeah. Yep. Sarah Carter: for the Netherlands to recognize that, I don't know, like so that warmth and emotion and vulnerability and sharing can actually bring about a lot of connection with people from America, right? I just feel like there's beauty there that comes from that cross pollination of cultures. Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Abby: Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: ⁓ cross pollination. Brilliant. Yes. I think that's where we're headed. Yeah. Abby: And that's, you know, our name, Modern Sacred, is we talk about this, it comes around so much, like what is Modern Sacred? It's bringing in the modern and keeping the sacred. mean, Sarah, you and I met on social media. Technically, I agree. I don't like to call Substack social media, but it is social media. And that is where you and I met and are now having this conversation. And I'm getting to learn more about Sarah Carter: Mmm. Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Sarah Carter: Yeah, on substack. The one that I think is a little bit less addictive, but still, yes. It is though, it is. Absolutely. Chelsea Henderson: Right? Right? Yes, yes, yes. Abby: culture in the Netherlands and in France and your experience as an AI ethicist and Chelsea's experience as a designer and like mine as a nurse and like that is where it all weaves together and I feel like connection is so important and I do see at least I don't know at least I see it in my sphere is people wanting more in-person connection because there is so that people are fatigued. Sarah Carter: Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: yes. Sarah Carter: Yes. Chelsea Henderson: Yes. Abby: with Instagram and Facebook and TikTok and Substack and ChatGPT, our brains are saturated with information, but we are lacking connection and we're hungry for it. Just yesterday, I called Chelsea in tears because of a relationship issue and I could have gone to ChatGPT for that and I have in the past and in times of before I knew how bad AI was, I would. Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Yeah. We're hungry for it. Sarah Carter: Mm, mm, mm. Abby: be like, hey, I'm really struggling, or my husband said this, or my friend said this, and it hurt my feelings. Talk about this with me, AI, and make me feel better. But how much better it felt to call an actual person. And yeah, we talked about relationships. We also talked about the world and spirituality and the meaning of marriage and society. And we went all over with our conversation in a way that AI never could. It's not gonna take you down all those rabbit holes. Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Sarah Carter: Hmm. Chelsea Henderson: No, no, because we connected, we connected. And I think we expanded our consciousness through that connection, through hearing each other, right? Through hearing the intonation, through hearing the emotion, through bearing witness, through sharing vulnerably, right? And that, that I think is what we're coming back to. That's like during the pandemic when everybody was baking bread, it's because there's something in us that as much as we have, Sarah Carter: No. No. Abby: And then you fell seen and held and it's like, ugh, yeah. Sarah Carter: Mm. Mm. Abby: Absolutely. Sarah Carter: again. Abby: Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: adapted and leaned into this modernity and a lot of it is brilliant and helpful. We're living to 80, 100 years old now. Like we don't have polio anymore. For God's sake, this is amazing. Like these things are brilliant and beautiful. And also there's the need for that simple connection, just the basics of what make us human, that which we've been evolving over for so, long. So I think there's something, the mix of them feels important. So. Sarah Carter: Yeah. Abby: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sarah Carter: Yeah. Yeah, and there's been some concern in the coaching community about AI replacing coaching, but this is why I have zero fear about this, is in a world where you can just talk to an AI, what people are craving is that human connection. And what coaches do is they hold space. You hold another human being. And to be human is to be witnessed. That coach witnesses you and where you are in a way AI never can. I'm not worried. Abby: Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: Agreed. Yes, yes. Abby: Yeah, they do. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Because you can bear your deepest secrets to an AI and it doesn't feel that risky. But to bear a deep secret to a friend is risk. And then they receive it and they hold you and they say, I see you. I don't judge you. I don't think that you're wrong for that view. And you're like, wow, I was just received by another person who could judge me but chose not to. Chelsea Henderson: I love that. I love that. Yes. No AI. Sarah Carter: at all. Well... Chelsea Henderson: No. Yes? Absolutely. Abby: told me the truth even though it was risky. Like that is what all of us want. Ugh. Sarah Carter: ⁓ I'm getting chills. I'm getting chills. Wow, like... Chelsea Henderson: Yeah, I know, I know. But that's the basics of it. That's like with children, right? We learn to regulate by being near other humans, by hearing their breath, by hearing their heartbeat, by hearing the basics of them just living and existing, right? That cannot be replaced. So there's something there. It's just the experience of being human. It's so important. Sarah Carter: Absolutely. Abby: And that's, you know, women's work. That's kind of, to kind of close us out a little bit, to begin to round the corner here, we sometimes, we try to ask our guests some of the same questions, because we love just the variety of answers that we get from different people. So one of the questions that we ask, our podcast is called Modern Sacred Women's Work. And... ⁓ Chelsea Henderson: Okay, I love that you're doing this. Yes! Yes. Sarah Carter: All right. Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Abby: we see that as a little bit of like a ⁓ flip on its head of what traditional women's work has been and what it is in more of a spiritual sense. And we would like to ask you when you think of the term women's work, what does that mean to you? What does that evoke in you? Sarah Carter: Yeah, no, this is a... I've... My gosh, like every person I've ever dated, I've sat down and told them, I don't want to do all of the women's work, you know? Like that's sort of been my thing. I want a partner who's more equal with me there because it tends to come out in relationships. But anyway, so yes, I do have an answer for this. I think it's three parts. I think it's spiritual, emotional, but also cognitive. So like for me, women's work on the cognitive side is like just remembering things. all the planning for like the kids' dates or maybe you're taking care of the organization of the house or the plumber's coming or that a lot of that kind of just project management is on the woman traditionally, you know? And then the spiritual one is more looking at the existential wellbeing of your family and yourself, your spouse, your kids. Like that's also a lot on you. Like what's your purpose in life? Are you moving to the purpose? Do you feel fulfilled? That's something that we hold space for. Chelsea Henderson: Mmm. Mmm-hmm. Abby: Yep. Yep. Sarah Carter: a lot. And then on the emotional side is looking after the emotional well-being of your romantic relationship, but also like how is your partner feeling? How are your kids feeling? And looking after the emotional health of your like family unit. And that also tends to fall on women, know, traditionally. And this work is so powerful. It's so, so important. I feel like we do a disservice to men and boys by not talking about these skills. Chelsea Henderson: Yes. Yeah. Abby: Yes. Sarah Carter: you know more that women pick up we pick them up inherently but there is meaning and everyone learning how to do this powerful powerful work i strongly believe that if everyone was doing Chelsea Henderson: Mm-hmm. Abby: Mm. Sarah Carter: quote, you women's work that this would just emanate out and make a much more peaceful, loving society, which is why I've sat down with every single partner and been like, I don't want to be the only one doing this work. I need to be with someone who wants to check in on the emotional health, who wants to check in with our family unit on our spiritual existential well-being, our purpose, who wants to help, who doesn't rely on me as the project manager, you know, who also plans and. Chelsea Henderson: Yes! Yeah. Yeah. Abby: Yes, yes, and takes that initiative. Sarah Carter: Honestly, that's created frictions, that's created breakups for me, it's done things. I'm blessed, you know, to be marrying someone who was willing to put in that work, but it's evident to me that he just didn't have the same kind of, as a woman, as a girl growing up, the kind of education I had in this either, you know? But I love being with someone who can sit down and have those conversations. So that's sort of my long-winded answer there, because to me it's been something so important to me in relationships. I need someone to be doing this work with me. So important. Yes. Chelsea Henderson: Right. Abby: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Absolutely, to share this. Chelsea Henderson: That... Yes. And that was... that was extremely clear and not long-winded at all. I... I have to say... I... It's very clear though. I mean, the thought that you've put into all of this is so clear and your... your... just your clarity, your articulation, you're freaking brilliant, Sarah. I'm so, so grateful. I'm like... Sarah Carter: Thank you. I've given it so much thought over like 15 years. Like... Abby: Beautiful, Sarah Carter: Thank you! Holy cow! Abby: Yeah you are, Sarah. I am just, ugh, obsessed with you. Chelsea Henderson: feel massively expanded. mean, I feel like that's the whole point of this podcast and these conversations is to just expand ourselves and hopefully possibly expand someone else along the way to invite as many others into this. And you, feel like you just like exponentially expanded me, us, the space, like you're amazing. I cannot thank you enough for being here. Sarah Carter: ⁓ Chelsea Henderson: And I cannot thank you Abby enough for connecting with Sarah and you guys forming a friendship. You guys like, you're making me feel more optimistic about the future, about now, about now. This is amazing. And thank you so much. I just can't even with all you've said today, I'm gonna be thinking about this for days and days and days and just like, mind opened. Abby: It was meant to be. Sarah Carter: It was meant to be. Abby: Yeah. Same here, what an important conversation to have. I'm so thankful that we got connected and that you were able to come here. I how modernly sacred that we met through the internet and then are now having this. I mean, that is like, you you said tool, it's a tool. And what are we using it for? And what's the energy we're putting behind it? And everything you explained about what women's work means to you, I it's that energetic component. It's that untangible, you can't quite capitalize it. It's not. Sarah Carter: Okay. Exactly. Chelsea Henderson: Seriously. ⁓ my. Yes. Sarah Carter: Mmm. Abby: something you can sell on a stand and make a tight profit margin. It's care, it's emotion, it's having conversations, it's holding space, it's thinking things through for your family. It's this untangible work. And I know you and I have talked about, you know, just because it doesn't, it's not the kind of work that you can get paid for a lot of time that you'll see a dollar sign in your bank account for, but it is essential work in the world. Chelsea Henderson: Mm. Yes. Sarah Carter: Yeah. Mmm. Chelsea Henderson: Mm. Abby: for women and men to be doing this energetic work. And it is valuable. Just because someone's not paying you for it does not mean it doesn't have immense value. It's what the world needs more of. And I am just so grateful and you're so brave to have left academia and to have created this business and to see that you couldn't bring your full self into that space because of this energetic work that you bring. You're amazing. Chelsea Henderson: Mmm. Sarah Carter: ⁓ Chelsea Henderson: Mm-hmm. Sarah Carter: ⁓ my gosh, this level of like American validation right now, I love it. the Dutch, with the Dutch the most you get would be like their grading system. The highest you can get is an eight because 10 is for God. Like that's what they do. They'll be like, you did okay. That's what you will get, okay? And so to get this, I feel so held and like I'm getting this validation that this little American inside of me didn't realize it was starving after 10 years abroad. Thank you. Chelsea Henderson: Amazing. amazing. ⁓ Sarah Carter: Thank you so much for holding this sacred space over this video call and because I feel it that's the power of like being modern sacred right like I feel the energy from you both from the United States all the way over across the pond to here in the Netherlands like thank you so much for the honor and the privilege of being on this call with you truly thank you thank you Chelsea Henderson: my god. Abby: incredible. Chelsea Henderson: God. Wow, okay, I'm so grateful. You are amazing. I hope that you'll come back and talk to us again. Seriously, sirs. Wow. Sarah Carter: You're amazing too! You're all amazing! You're all amazing! Love fest! Abby: You really are. No, we love you. Chelsea Henderson: Love Fest, Love Fest! I hope it just emanates out though. I really do. I hope it just emanates out, right? This appreciation for each other and what we're doing in the world. This is important for anybody who's listening, for anybody who's practicing in similar ways. Like this is the work. This is what we are doing to leave this world better than we came into it and found it. And I'm so, I'm so honored to be here with you and I hope you'll come back and talk to us again and that... Sarah Carter: Absolutely. ⁓ Chelsea Henderson: And I hope that anybody who's listening to this will seek you out and get to work with you. And all of your work will be in the show notes. anybody who's interested can always reach out to us at Modern Sacred and we'll connect you with Sarah. Dr. Sarah Carter, you are a freaking rock star. Holy cow. Holy cow. Sarah Carter: ⁓ thanks you. Abby: Yeah, you are. And on that note, will you please tell people where they can find you and how they can learn about your work? Sarah Carter: Yes, yes, you can connect with me on my website, is purposelydigital.com, but it's purposely and then the little dash digital dot com. You can reach out to me there, learn more about coaching with me. I also do mentoring. If you want to learn more about AI ethics or get mentored and what you're doing with AI in your life, I can do that as well. And yeah, that's where we're standing out right now. Chelsea Henderson: place. Brilliant. Awesome. Well, you're doing such important work. Thank you so much. We're so grateful for this conversation. Thank you to all of our listeners and we'll see you all next time. Abby: Beautiful. Yay. Thank you so much, Sarah. Sarah Carter: Thank you. Sounds good.