Thought Shrapnel

We live in the midst of a loneliness epidemic, especially for men. A recent Harvard Business Review article showed the difference between what people said they were using AI for this year, and compared to 2025.

“Generating ideas” has gone from first to sixth place, and “Therapy/companionship” has moved from second to first place. “Finding purpose” is a new use case coming straight in at third. There’s a paywall on the HBR article, so you can find the report here. Note that this was, in the words of the author, Marc Zao-Sanders, “a rigorous, expert-driven curation of public discourse, sourced primarily from Reddit forums.” No methodology is provided.

That being said, I’m using the report by way of introduction to the following extract from an article by Jay Springett, who reckons soon everybody will be talking to their car. I mean, I already talk to my Polestart 2 as it has Google Assistant built in, but he means talking in a deep and meaningful way.

For me, this is a case of not if, but when. It’s going to challenge notions of privacy, but also intimacy, infidelity, and loss (when providers inevitably shut down a service).

Consider the average American commuter: 60 minutes a day, mostly alone, in the car. The vehicle as liminal space. Neither home nor work. Private and intimate. I’m 100% positive people are going to talk to their cars. First for fun. Then for directions. Then about their lives. Their feelings. Their grief, their divorce.

And now that OpenAI has also introduced Memory (at least in the US) the car might remember everything you’ve ever told it. 😬

There’s a meaning crisis going on, which means there is a gaping emotional void waiting to be filled by a good listener that’s found in the safety of a car. Some people, especially men, already love their cars. What happens when the car appears to care for them back?

Her becomes a lot more plausible when the AI you fall in love with is also a car.

Source: thejaymo

Image: (shared by various people on LinkedIn)