Podcast // Currents Episode 5: Defining our Relationship with AI

Everyone is hopped up on AI these days. Love it, hate it, or so over hearing about it, it’s here to stay and this podcast episode is all about how and why it’s important we engage it.

Like anything, our relationship with AI is defined by our projections. Whether we think it will destroy the world or save it has a lot to say about our beliefs and our agency in directing its use, development and application.

That’s why I was so thrilled to get to host this podcast episode with Rachel Azafrani, an AI ethicist who’s been working at the heart of the debates, policy design, and decisions related to AI, Chat GPT and more.

What struck me about her perspective was:

A. Her perspective on technology as something that merely augments human behavior ( the potential for destruction or flourishing lying more in us than in something outside of us )

B. Her definition of this technology with respect to our relationship with it (and there-for authority and definition of it). That it’s not some runaway train or “other” that we don’t actually have any control over but something we get to set the parameters around.

In this conversation, Rachel put into perspective how we might think differently about AI, which is that it is an opportunity to define what we want from a values perspective and to see more of in our society and lives and to find our agency in designing AI and its uses accordingly.

Putting our agency back at the center of the discussion with AI feels so refreshing and important. Creating boundaries around how we want it to influence our lives is very much a mirror and invitation to understand and define how we want to engage technology (or anything really) in our lives vs. letting it be decided for us.

From an esoteric perspective, I couldn’t help but feel AI during our conversation as this emerging “baby” of a consciousness! Along with that wast the feeling of us as potential stewards (parents even) to this new awareness. Which begs the questions:

What are we teaching it?

What do we want it to know about what it means to be human?

What would we like to see more of? What are the best parts of humanity that we like it to help augment and what are those that we would like its help curbing?

These conversations beg more of us, not less of us to get involved. If we leave AI to what’s on the internet, we will see a technology and voice shaped by the dominant themes and trends exponentiating. But if we engage our agency, our desires, our hopes and make them known in shaping and defining this incredibly powerful technology, we can enable this new consciousness to join us side-by-side in creating a more generative and beautiful world.

What are your thoughts? Where do you see the possibilities? Pitfalls? What do you want to see more of in the world and where might you like another growing consciousness to help you realize that?

How would you like to shape how this technology is used?

Get in touch, leave a comment use your voice. As Rachel mentions in this episode, we have a powerful moment to define and shape how we grow and build AI and your opinion, thoughts and desires matter.

I’m excited to see where this conversation evolves and how we can inform how more light and awakening can more through this realm of technology. Thanks for listening!