126: Will your kid's best friend be a robot? With Dr. Micah Goodman

Artificial intelligence represents a fundamental shift from technology created by human intelligence to technology that generates intelligence, potentially leading to a "singularity" where traditional rules of human control break down. This transition creates a paradox: while AI offers utopian solutions to global challenges like disease and resource scarcity, it simultaneously threatens human agency through the potential for autonomous, self-preserving behavior and the erosion of cognitive and emotional capabilities. As humans increasingly outsource thinking and writing to AI, essential human skills risk atrophy, mirroring the physical decline associated with labor automation. Preserving human essence in this era requires a conscious, compensatory culture—modeled after religious traditions and rituals—that fosters face-to-face connection, deep intellectual engagement, and the cultivation of non-instrumental relationships, ensuring that human capabilities remain distinct from and superior to machine-generated power.