What I Worry About With AI: Losing Human Connection

Summary

Emmanuel Goossaert argues that his main concern about AI is not a takeover scenario but the possibility that people will lose the habits and abilities needed for human connection. He places AI in a longer history of social fragmentation, from industrialization and the decline of community “third places” to engagement-driven social media and the isolation of the COVID-19 period. The author cites research and reports linking loneliness, screen exposure and reduced social contact with anxiety, changes in brain structure, and poorer cognitive or social outcomes, while acknowledging that some claimed relationships may be correlational rather than causal. He believes AI could intensify these pressures because personalized games, conversations and endless generated content may let people avoid disagreement, vulnerability and face-to-face interaction. He also argues that AI is already competing for attention even though its broader economic profitability remains uncertain, while the effects of sustained AI interaction on the brain are not yet known. The proposed response is not to reject progress, but to use AI deliberately while cultivating friendships, meeting people in person, reading human-authored books, writing, practicing periods without digital input, limiting addictive apps, learning history and logic, exercising, and discussing ideas with other people. The essay is explicitly an argument and personal warning, not a controlled study or a claim that all AI use produces these outcomes.