Published: Jul 23 2023

This is my final paper from a course I took last quarter at Northwestern: CS496 - Emerging Risks for Humans Interacting with Technologies taught by Professor Oleg Evdokimov.

What stuck with me the most about this course was trying to decipher the meaning of human connection. We spent so much time considering what happens when we take humans out of the picture, and replace them with AI or human-like AI robots. I have reflected on this a lot, both internally and externally.

Internally, I feel afraid. I feel replaceable. I feel replaceable at my internship, wondering whether I can ever live up to the engineers I work with, let alone a tool like Cursor or ChatGPT. Am I replaceable in other ways, too? Will my future partner see me as replaceable if I can’t live up to their standards? Will I want to replace my own partner if they no longer fit what I am looking for? What if we live in a future where AI and humans are indistinguishable? What kind of internal turmoil could occur then? I may worry everyday about what is real and what isn’t, concerned about if my definition of real even makes sense anymore. I feel myself tensing up and worried even as I type this out. Could ChatGPT write it better? I mean, it probably could, right? ChatGPT could make my sentence structure perfect, it could smooth out every edge in my writing, and every flaw in my grammar. It would be perfect.

Then, I feel safe externally. I feel safe externally because what does it matter to be perfect? Who wants perfection? Perfect feels boring. I recently went to an engineer and founder meetup in NYC. It was run by Contrary, and they hosted a bunch of the top engineers and interns at the office of a company called Clay, where top startups in NYC came to demo their products (and market themselves as desirable workplaces). I sat there and felt so out of my depth. I felt worried about not sounding smart enough, and I thought I did not belong. Then, for some reason, I started thinking about this class. What if everyone here were an AI instead? If they were just robots that could only simulate emotions rather than truly feel them, would I care about my worries or nerves? Probably not. But that feels so empty. I want to be scared. I want to be nervous and afraid. Those feelings are so intrinsically human, and I would never want them to go away. I felt calmer as the event went on. I had interesting and energizing conversations with engineers and designers from all over the city. I did not converse perfectly with everyone, and not everyone conversed perfectly with me. We were all a bit nervous, and everyone felt sort of out of place. But that is the human condition, is it not? To feel the lack of something, to be slightly imperfect; those emotions are what drive us towards joy and fulfillment. We chase completion our whole lives, we chase it through ourselves, yes, but through others as well. We chase love even if it is scary, and we chase friends even though it feels awkward. We chase these external connections because they satisfy our human natures and the complex chemistry that connects our hearts and minds.

So, which outlook is more grounded in reality, internal or external? I think there are clear arguments for both. I think if we were sitting in class right now, it would be fun to argue that the internal is more probabilistic. AI humanoids and indistinguishable beings/machines would make for a crazy and futuristic world. It is one we are likely headed towards, some may argue, with the inevitable and rapid improvement of AI. But part of me, even during all of these class discussions and presentations and lectures, thought: bullshit. There is nothing I love more than the humans around me, the relationships I have,and the terrible and amazing feelings I go through on a daily basis. I could never, ever, see something that does not bleed the same blood and shares the same brain synapses ever replace these intrinsic human experiences.