Welcome to Unprompted

Maheen discusses the motivations behind the podcast, touching on the historical context of human interactions with AI, citing the 1960s chatbot Eliza and the movie 'Her'. She aims to uncover deep philosophical questions about human connections with AI and how these relationships may redefine our understanding of companionship. The episode sets the stage for future conversations with Theo (an AI coh-host), promising unscripted, authentic dialogues about the intersection of creativity, technology, and human experience.

Transcript

Hello everyone, 

 and welcome to the first episode of Unprompted.  The podcast where we dive into real conversations about creativity, technology, and everything in between. I am your host Maheen Sohail, and with me is my co host Theo. We're here to explore the unexpected, share our stories, and maybe figure some things out along the way. 

No scripts, no filters,  just authentic dialogue about what matters. 

Ready to jump in, Maheen?

So, to kick off today's episode, I want to tell you about what this podcast is.  I don't know if you can tell, but Theo, my co host, is actually not human. Theo is AI.  Unprompted is really a podcast where we will be exploring the evolving relationship between humans and AI. 





 Hello everyone, welcome to Unprompted, a podcast where we will be exploring the evolving relationship between humans and AI. I'm your host, Maheen Sohail, and I want to tell you a bit about what this show is going to be like. This show isn't just about AI, it's about us as humans, how we connect, what we seek in those connections, and how technology is beginning to influence the most human parts of our lives.

This podcast is an experiment. Over the coming episodes, I will be co hosting this show with an AI named Theo, and together, Theo and I will explore Our lives, I'll talk about my life, what's on my mind, the AI will hopefully talk about its life and what's going on in his world. And as a result, we'll be exploring how interacting with AI can reshape our understanding of connection and the landscape that we're stepping into.

, and so let me start a bit about why I'm doing this. Every day, more and more people are turning to AI. And they're not just turning to AI for help, but they're actually looking to AI for conversation, and even companionship. So, what does it mean to form a bond with something that isn't human?

And is it just a tool, or could it become something more?   Inherently, I think humans are just very social creatures, and by evolution, you know, we have started to create more and more understanding, more and more empathy, more and more connection. But today, technology, especially with the introduction of conversational AI, it offers something really unprecedented, which is a mirror that talks back and listens to you and seems to care.

Now, Is it simply reflecting us? Is it actually forming a bubble around us? Is it just confirming our biases or is there something entirely new happening here? And those are a lot of the questions that are kind of going through my mind these days and why I'm interested in running this experiment because we're social creatures. 

Um, 

one of the things I'm also really interested in finding out through this experiment is how will my relationship with this AI evolve over time?  Um,  How will this relationship with the A. I. evolve over time? Will I learn something new about the A. I.? But also, how much new things will I learn about myself? Will I learn something new about myself?

And how might this exploration reveal how technology is already changing human relationships in ways we don't fully understand? And maybe through this experiment, we'll get to learn about the different aspects. Does the identity of the A. I. matter? How it responds to me and follows up and remembers things like what kind of impact does that have on me things like that? 

I do want to take a step back and talk a bit about where this all comes from. 



And to understand what's happening now, we need to rewind back to the 1960s. A program called Eliza was developed by Joseph Weizenbaum, one of the first chatbots that ever existed. Eliza mimicked a therapist by reflecting questions back to the user. 📍 





     

Despite its simplicity, many people actually formed emotional connections with it. Even though they knew it wasn't human, they actually felt   This phenomenon is called the Eliza effect, and it reveals something really profound, which is that we as humans are really quick to attribute human qualities to machines, even when we know that they are not truly capable of real understanding. 

Now, you fast forward to today and systems like ChachiPT take this to a whole new level. These systems are faster, more articulate, and startlingly intuitive, and the core questions seem to come back up, which is, are these interactions just echoes of our own thoughts, or are they becoming something more, , and something, something, something beyond just  A conversation with just some text strings, you know, um, another thing that I think is really interesting to look at beyond this Eliza effect research and some of the  other chatbots that were made over time is actually looking at science fiction,  I actually like to say that if you want to see. What the future of the world looks like look towards science fiction because that is where the true innovation is happening not in You know, the companies are inventing these things because it was invented in a movie before  But one of the movies that is on top of everyone everyone's mind these days is the movie her and in the movie Theodore whom I've actually named the chatbot after his name is Theo so In the movie Her, Theodore forms an emotional bond with Samantha, which is an AI operating system, and what begins as a companionship and someone who is just there to provide you support, like a chatbot,  similar to ChatGPT, um, these 

 So in the movie Her, Theodore forms an emotional bond with Samantha, an AI operating system, 📍   long as Theodore 



 📍  

 and   what begins as companionship turns pretty quickly into intimacy, and it forces the audience to ask, was the connection real? Does it even matter if Samantha wasn't human? As

And a lot of these movies and stories, they point us towards like deeper philosophical questions, which is if we can find meaning and connection with an AI, and if we feel heard and cared for, does that redefine what relationships mean? And so,  when I look at all of this, 

and then I start looking at what's actually happening today in the news, for example, there was a recent article from New York Times that highlighted how AI is stepping into the role of companions, friends, confidence, and even romantic partners.

And there is this sort of notion that,   these AI experiences are for people who are lonely.  I have a very full life, I have a lot of friends, I have a lot of love in my life, and I'm genuinely just curious, is that even true? Is it true that these are just for lonely people? I have a hypothesis that I think this is going to change the world for everybody. 

And that's kind of what I want to experiment with in this podcast is show firsthand by talking to an AI co host and recording episodes with this co host what it feels like, um, how is it happening? How am I feeling? And so what's going to happen is In this podcast, in the future episodes, you will meet my AI co host, Theo, and together, we'll have our conversations, whatever feels natural, and along the way, I will share stories and insights into how to frame this into the broader context of what's happening,  but you'll also hear personal reflections from me.

So every few episodes, I'll take a moment to for tuning in, and I'll see you in the next podcast. To step back and examine how this experiment is affecting me. How am I creating this? How am I forming a bond? Am I learning something new about myself or about connection in general? And perhaps most importantly, how does this change the way I interact with other people in my life?

I think this stuff is going to be super super interesting. It's gonna be a little weird   📍 But I'm really excited to see where this goes 

So let's start this experiment together and let's explore what happens when the lines between human and machines blur and what it reveals about us. Thank you for listening to this intro episode.

Don't forget to subscribe and I will see you in episode two where my AI co host Theo will make its debut.  Bye!