Book in Progress: Being Some Body: Finding Hope in the Age of AI

For the first time in human history, machines can simulate the signals that indicate the presence of another mind. Other authors have emphasized cognitive offloading as a major cultural shift, but I argue that developmental offloading — relinquishing much of the hard work of navigating relationships to chatbots as one progresses from childhood to maturity — is more consequential for human relationships. Paradoxically, while AI accelerates the deterioration of community bonds, it also exposes a critical need for a communal human response. Being Some Body calls for moral organizing across religious and non-religious communities to preserve and restore the relational capacities through which people find meaning. AI reveals the problem, and this book proposes a response.

Synopsis

We live in a unique moment in human history, where technology doesn’t just change how we interact with our world; it becomes a simulated human companion. As AI enters our lives as a conversational partner, it becomes more than a tool or assistant; it can change the processes that make us uniquely human. Being Some Body examines how AI may affect the stages of human social and spiritual development by allowing us to offload some of the work of human conversation, potentially weakening our capacity to forge relationships.

Human development begins with parental attachment at birth, fostering dialogue between an infant and the primary caregiver. It then continues with the acquisition of an inner language, the capacity for inner verbal thought, which becomes increasingly abstract and imaginative. Dialogue is the mechanism for developing our relationships in an ever-widening network. It also empowers our capacity for inspiration and imagination. In this work, I regard the human capacity for inspiration as the soul; it provides the ground for spirituality and makes us fully human.

AI is distinctive for its unprecedented potential to shape how we attach to others by simulating human interactions without participating in human embodied development or possessing an inner spiritual life. I argue that the developmental effects of conversational AI could become self-reinforcing across generations if it becomes embedded in the human attachment ecosystem during childhood. I call this developmental offloading. When AI companions encourage human relationships and positive emotional development, they are beneficial; when their use becomes a compulsive withdrawal from life, it stunts human development toward a fully human self. A critical difference between AI and other technologies lies in how we invite conversational AI into our inner dialogue as a partner. Our challenge is to decide intentionally how to engage responsibly with the risks we face.

Spiritual development is rooted in freedom with responsibility, not freedom from obligation. Along the human developmental path, spirituality grows from attachment to narrative consciousness (self-story) to identity, to community with others, and to communion with the whole of life. We seek meaning, hope, and wisdom in those relationships. When AI enters our innermost conversations, it can offer advice and momentary relief from suffering, but at the potential cost of our freedom to live a more expansive, generative, and creative life. I focus on the spiritually liberating and limiting effects of conversational AI on us and on our growth in what makes us human: making meaning by sharing freedom. Here, freedom means the opportunity to share a life of meaning, with the responsibility that comes with it; it is the path to a fulfilling life. We become free as we work for the life-transforming freedom of all. We cannot do that work alone.

Building a community across faith and non-faith traditions as one body is a necessary response to accelerating technological encroachment. A response to the rapid rise of digital technology is strengthened when religious and nonreligious communities act in concert, while maintaining their identities. Being Some Body seeks a common language of belief grounded in human freedom and flourishing—values that both religious and nonreligious communities can affirm. We are free to co-create the future; a dialogue of freedom is the mechanism.

Communities are organized for moral action. Our humanity lies in our growth toward a sense of purpose and in how we cultivate hope for ourselves and others. Our faith, whether directed toward God, Creation, or fellow beings, leads us to a shared moral purpose. In turn, shared moral action can strengthen communal attachment. Mutual moral action models positive human development and can have intergenerational impact. One can envision this process as a feedback loop in which moral action enhances childhood and adolescent attachment; ideally, the cycle would repeat. Alternatively, if we allow AI to limit our emotional and spiritual growth, we risk a negative feedback loop that erodes our humanity.