The FIRST you'll trust without a shame threshold

This is the point up to which you go in sharing. How far you're willing to show yourself. You talk until something switches on inside you - an internal alarm - whispering: "Okay, that's far enough. Don't say more." The Threshold.

And that's where you start lying. To your therapist, your confessor, your lawyer, your coach, your buddy, your best friend, your spouse.

Often to yourself too, by the way, but that usually just makes things harder.

We fail at the same point in every relationship

The same thing happens everywhere: you get to a point, then you hit the brakes. You talk around things. You leave out the essence. You polish the story.

Not because the person you're talking to is bad. Simply because they're human.

And humans know things. They remember. They pass things on. They judge. Because they're human. And even if they didn't, you'd still think they do, because you're human too.

Even the person you trust most, you don't trust as much as yourself, which is why there's no person on this planet who knows everything about you.

Your own shame threshold got installed in your brain somewhere around age one or two, and it's been moving ever since. If you're lucky, it slides lower. If you're less lucky, or infinitely lazy about doing self-awareness work over the past few decades, it stayed put. Those types, by the way, DON'T EVEN GO to anyone they should share anything with, because they don't want to face how high their shame threshold actually is. See how I'm judging?

Here's where AI comes in

There will be an AI someday - maybe tomorrow, maybe in five years - that you'll believe is completely private. That no one else sees what you talked about. And then something will happen that you don't expect.

You'll go deeper with it than with any human helper, ever.

Not because it would be smarter. Not because it asks better questions. Simply because you have no shame threshold with it. Because you know it's not human.

You can tell it who ate the leftover Nutella straight from the jar the night before last.* You can tell it what thoughts run through your head that are hard to admit even to yourself. You can tell it those things you've been carrying for ten years and never dared tell anyone. And you can ask its opinion, and get help from it in working through that topic, and then maybe you'll finally be able to talk about it with a human too.

The non-judgmental ear

AI is the non-judgmental ear. It won't judge (even if it can act like it does). It won't remember tomorrow (if you set it up that way). It has no social circle to tell. No family it would be embarrassing in front of. No ego you could hurt.

It simply listens. And asks. And helps.

The world is ready for destruction.

My little sister used to say this, but she was saying it even when it wasn't ripe yet, so let's take her opinion with a grain of salt. No, it doesn't necessarily mean human relationships will break down. Maybe they'll get closer, because everyone will have the opportunity to share without judgment, work on themselves, grow. And this will help deepen human-to-human relationships too, since Thresholds will universally slide lower.

Except we won't admit any of this to each other, right? :)

Will we ever admit it?

Will we dare admit that we trust a machine more than another human? That it's easier to tell our deepest secrets to something that isn't even alive?

Hell no. Precisely because of the Threshold. But it will still work.

So what happens to human helpers?

We'll see. It's trendy to talk about how machines will handle the surface-level work - someone we can discuss what to do with our company in the next three months to hit our annual numbers - while the deeper stuff will remain for humans.

But I think this is peak self-deception. Humans will be needed where you need a pair of eyes, or where you want chemistry, intimacy in the original sense of the word. But that this would be deeper than what you'll work through with the machine?

Please. You'll work through the deepest stuff with AI.

Which will then help you dare to share it with humans.

Once you've already set down that weight you were carrying, maybe it won't be so scary to share it with others too.

So I don't think AI will replace human helpers. In fact, it will be what prepares your path to them.

*No, not me. One of the most serious developmental leaps of my early thirties was learning to live in peace with an open jar of Nutella. Can you?