#004: Can AI Replace Spiritual Guidance?

Artificial intelligence is changing the way we work, create, and even think. But can it replace something as deeply human as spiritual guidance?

In this episode of All Revved Up, we explore where AI shines, and where we believe it still falls short. We talk about using AI as a creative partner, whether it can write a meaningful prayer or spiritual treatment, and why human intuition, presence, and consciousness may be impossible to replicate.

Along the way, we discuss creativity, community, the future of work, robot baristas, and the surprising question of whether people might one day turn to AI instead of a minister or practitioner.

Whether you're excited about AI, skeptical of it, or somewhere in between, this conversation invites you to think more deeply about what technology can do... and what it means to be truly human.

Thanks for listening!

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Join Rev. Dr. Tiffani Milne, Rev. Dr. Liza Marquez, and Dr. Thor Challgren each week as they explore practical spirituality, real life, and the questions we're all trying to answer.

Transcript

Welcome And Summer Catch-Up

SPEAKER_00 1:05

Welcome to All Revved Up. It is so great to be with you. I'm Dr. Thor. Dr. Tiffany, how are you today?

SPEAKER_02 1:11

I'm doing good. I'm great.

SPEAKER_00 1:13

Yeah. How's your summer going?

SPEAKER_02 1:16

Summer is it's I feel like it's my last summer with my son before he starts his senior year. So just trying to cherish every moment. I feel like if I just hang on really tight now, then you know, I'll be ready somehow next year. Which is probably delusion, but uh Liza keeps trying to smash my delusion.

SPEAKER_01 1:38

I'm not I'm trying to believe it's reality.

SPEAKER_02 1:42

I don't need I the I decline to be discouraged. It's all it's gonna fly. I know it's gonna fly. It's fine. I'm fine, we're fine, it's gonna be fine.

SPEAKER_00 1:54

Well, you've got a whole year too, so you've got some time to to settle into it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:00

I do. Yeah. But hi, I'm Dr. Liza just before we're so sorry that we didn't have to come to Nathan without me, because you know what? You're not. Hi. How how's your sum? How's your summer? It's summering, it's going for sure.

SPEAKER_00 2:17

A lot going on. I love this time of year where like it is getting light at like 5 30 in the morning and then it's light until like 8 o'clock at night. I just love the long days. It's it's such what a great time of year.

SPEAKER_01 2:30

Yeah. I woke up at uh six today, just naturally woke up, and I would thought it was like eight because it was so light out.

SPEAKER_00 2:38

Well, I I I want to throw something out and and tell me if you if you all have other thoughts. But I I've been seeing more and more, and and I've bit certainly been using it, is AI. And and AI is so sophisticated now, whether it's ChatGPT or Claude, where people are using it for more and more. And I'm I'm starting to see this interesting intersection where in sort of the spiritual world, people are using it. And we probably all heard like the stories of kids who've used it and had like not good consequences where they're like, you know, they should be seeing a therapist and yet they're seeing, they're seeing Chat GPT that's and they're bringing their problems. But how do you, when you think about where we're going and that, you know, we can talk about the fact that, like at our spiritual center, people can come to us for counseling. They could come to a practitioner for a treatment for spiritual mind treatment to be basically some version of a counseling session. How do you see the future of AI and how it intersects with what we do,

AI Meets Spiritual Counseling

SPEAKER_00 3:48

whether it's counseling, whether it's being involved in in a class or writing a talk, or what are your thoughts on that? Tiff.

SPEAKER_02 3:57

I I think that there is because AI is new and because people are still trying to understand it and that there's a lot of confusion about what it is and what it isn't. Like what it's use sh is great for using it for, and like it's not a therapist. It's not like it cannot replace human connection. It's it's not your best friend, it's not your mama.

SPEAKER_01 4:28

But it is to some. People use this.

SPEAKER_02 4:31

But that's how you end up, you know, taking bad advice. Like, I mean, it first of all, it it's the biggest hype man ever. It's like, that's a great idea. I have a lot of bad ideas. Like, I can guarantee you some of my ideas are not the best idea ever. What it's great for. Oh, go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 4:48

No, no, no. I was just gonna say, there is a version of using AI where it's not always trying to hype you up, and you have to direct it to say, hey, I don't need you to hype me up. I don't need, I need you to talk to me as if X, Y, Z, and I'm coming to you with this, and then it'll be real. Like the thing is, I do think it's a tool that we have. And I think it's, you know, Reese Witherspoon got in a lot of trouble recently because she had come out, you know, making her breakfast and talking about the fact that we really do need to have a better understanding of AI, that it would behoove us to have a better understanding of AI because it's here. And there was a whole backlash about the fact that she was being paid by, you know, OpenAI or one of these other companies. And I think, you know, there is some truth to what she's saying because a lot of what the AI is trained on is probably men. And I think it's necessary for us as women to get our voices heard in there too to understand it. I don't, I mean, listen, at the end of the day, I completely agree with you that this is not a tool that we should use as a therapist. But I do know people that kind of like use it as some kind of like someone that consoles them, like a like a friend. And I was watching a stream, and I'm sure you could probably look it up on YouTube, of influencers that have been using it to quote unquote manifest what they want, whether it be a boyfriend or a house, and they walk you through the steps of how they've used AI to manifest their home. And I think that to me is a very interesting question is whether was it AI that actually caused the manifestation, or was it their belief in whatever AI told them that created the manifestation? That is what's interesting to me.

SPEAKER_02 6:33

Well, I think that's the the underlying problem, too, with it. And I'm very pro-AI, by the way. I use it at work all the time. I'm very clear, like it is a huge tool and resource for me. So I'm not anti-AI, but I think that that's where we get into trouble is when we stop thinking for ourselves, right? When we rely so heavily on the AI, or first of all, it does hallucinate, it does get things wrong, it's still learning, it's still evolving. And so when we take it as gospel or we stop using our own critical thinking because I can just type it into Claude and Claude will answer it for me. But as a terms of a production tool and may I mean the productivity gains that I have gotten as a result of implementing Claude into my workflows cannot be understated. It's amazing. But I don't ask Claude, you know, to be my bestie because I feel like human connection is still

AI As A Between-Sessions Tool

SPEAKER_02 7:39

necessary. There's still there are certain things like you know, golf club is great for a lot of things, but I don't use a golf club to drive my car because it's not the best tool for driving. It's a good tool for driving on the range. See what I did there.

SPEAKER_01 7:56

I was gonna say you can drive with a golf club.

SPEAKER_02 7:59

You can drive with a golf club. That's just, you know.

SPEAKER_00 8:03

And you know what's interesting? I have a friend who is a therapist, and I asked him about this. I said, Are you finding that people are coming to you less? And he goes, No, these days, he says, my calendar is completely booked. But what he found is that people are using it not as a substitute for seeing him, but they're using it in between visits. And he's like, actually, I think it's been really good for that, where they're using it, they'll get like the actual therapeutic advice and and the the human who's been trained to understand issues and help them, you know, every two weeks or whatever, every week, but then they'll be using Claude or ChatGPT in between. And he's like, I think that's perfectly fine. Because and they found it very helpful. They're not they're not contradicting the AI isn't contradicting him. Um, it's just another tool for them, you know, maybe to to go in and and it, you know, especially if he gives them prompts of things to say, quiz me on this or, you know, explore this with me. And and that's the area where I found I've I've gotten a lot of value out of when I've found people that I resonate with who write prompts that help me uncover things. And and so it takes me deeper than I'd be willing to go on my own, which is good.

SPEAKER_02 9:20

Yeah. I mean, I think, and I again, like I also think it's very useful in helping you synthesize your ideas when you're working on something creatively. But I, you know, I see a lot of people first of all, if I see an M-dash, I know that you used AI. It's the first and I and I if I I've started, I recognize that I've started tuning out. My brain now tunes out posts where I can tell AI has created them, whether it's LinkedIn or Instagram or anything. I just like I don't really care what you plugged into Claude or Gemini and it gave you, you know, spit out something beautiful. Like I'm just not really interested in it. And I may be in the minority on that. Maybe people are like, yes, like every give me every screenplay that Claude's ever written. But to me, it's like there's something beautiful about the creativity and the individuality of each person. And I, and again, I think that the AI is an amazing accoutrement. But when people are leveraging it as the be all end all, like I'm sure, in between therapy sessions to go, you know, these are the thoughts that I'm having, or this is what's going on. But I don't want to live in a world where I don't get to see your creativity because it's you via Claude.

SPEAKER_00 10:42

What do you think? So we have people that in in science of mind, people could come to a practitioner, they could come to a minister, and they would come there for a counseling session or a spiritual mind treatment where basically we're having a conversation with them, we're discovering what's going on with them, what challenge they're having, and then and then try and uncover the reason behind that so that we can then know the spiritual truth behind all of that and and leave them in a better energetic place than they were, you know, before they walked in. Is that is that something that you see AI getting to a point where someone could, you know, say to AI, like, you know, pretend that you're a religious

What A Treatment Really Means

SPEAKER_00 11:25

science practitioner and I come to you with this issue, let's have a session. Is that, do you think that's possible? I mean, we're saying that if AI is everything, is it desirable then? I mean, yeah, sure it's possible.

SPEAKER_01 11:39

I think it's possible. If you plug in and you say, you know, if you I am, you know, Gemini, AI, whoever, whatever you call your AI person, you say you are a new thought practitioner who believes this, this, and this, who has coached me in the past for this, this I mean, I think you have to be very specific with AI. And I think it could definitely, I need you to write me a treatment of, you know, a five-step treatment that I can use as a mantra, I think you'd you would probably get something. Now, again, to Tiffany's point, like, is that, I mean, is that ideal? I don't know. I mean, I don't think right now, if you were to sit here and bring AI and say, this is what's going on, and this and this and this, if they would be able to have does so I think your question is, can AI have the download? Like, be listening from the, you know, from the different steps that we talk about listening.

SPEAKER_00 12:35

That's the key. Because then I I just think for myself, like if I know the the treatments that I've done for someone where I felt really good about it, chances are when I started the treatment, I didn't know exactly where I was going with it. I mean, I kind of had an idea, but I will tell you almost always, there's some moment in the treatment where something pops into my head, and I I would call it intuition. And it's usually based on something that person said, and suddenly I'll just get a hit, and then then I'm like really enthralled with the energy of that thing. And then from that point, the treatments are just like, I can feel it, and that's what we want, right? We want that movement of energy for a specific purpose. Can AI move energy or can it just write a bunch of words?

SPEAKER_01 13:24

I think we should also kind of specify for those who might not be familiar with New Thought now what a treatment is. Okay. When we say the word treatment, we actually are talking essentially about prayer. We call it affirmative prayer. We are affirming something. And as you said, we are moving energy for a specific purpose. So if you're coming in for one thing, our quote unquote treatment, our affirmative prayer, our prayer is so that the energy moves in a different direction.

SPEAKER_00 13:50

So yeah. And then just to that, no, I'm glad you made that distinction because sometimes people can hear treatment and go, are you gonna hook me up to like, you know, device? And and just to say we're not a cult.

SPEAKER_02 14:01

We establish week one. We are not a cult. We are not a cult.

SPEAKER_00 14:06

And let me just let me just make it even more clear. Let's say, to just give people an example of what that could look like. Let's say that I know I come to Tiffany and go, I have to have a really difficult conversation with my boss, but I don't think I can do it. And here's all the reasons why I'm uncomfortable with it. Chances are what Tiffany is gonna explore with me is that maybe I don't feel comfortable expressing, you know, my feelings. And she's gonna essentially know the truth, which is that I know exactly what to say. There's a part of me that knows exactly what to say, and she's gonna treat for clarity of communication. That's I I know that I can see Thor doing this, I can see the great conversation. I know that he feels confident about what he's saying, the words flow, everything that needs to be said does so in the most easy, perfect way, and so it is. Like that's a that's a really terrible quick version of what a treatment is, but the cliff notes. A very cliff note version. Did you have cliff notes when you we talked last week about how nobody had typewriters? Does anyone does anyone know what cliff notes are?

SPEAKER_02 15:19

I don't want to date myself, but I do know what cliff notes are. That's how I survived high school. Okay, I have a question. And I'm not derailing the conversation, but have either of you ever been to a bad practitioner session? A session where like you go in, they gave you the treatment, they did all the steps, but there was something missing, right? The consciousness wasn't quite there. I feel like potentially, and I'm not saying there's never a place. And again, I feel like I'm bashing it. I really am pro-AI. I just think that I'm very pro using it in certain ways and not using it in in other ways that to me don't make sense. I don't think there's anything wrong with going to AI and saying, write me a treatment. But I also think it's kind of tantamount to an affirmation. And for me, affirmations are sort of like a wish and a prayer if there's not a belief behind it. And so for me, when I'm going to a practitioner, I am going to somebody who has the consciousness. When I call Liza or I call Thor, I know your consciousness. And we're gonna have a laugh, we're gonna have a conversation, and you're gonna remind me who I am. And I'm gonna like, there's going to be an energetic exchange in that room before we even get to the treatment. And so the treatment is just sort of the icing on top at that point. It's it's at, you know, the energy has been shifted and so it is, and I'm ready to move on. And so can I type into Claude when I'm just like, I'm feeling a little out of sorts? Claude, write me a treatment and read it from myself and it be beautiful and lovely. Yes, but like Dr. Liza was talking about like the crisis of faith last week, or when stuff is really going on, I need your consciousness to I need you to remind me who I am. And I don't believe that Claude yet can do that.

SPEAKER_01 17:24

For me. Well, I also think that, you know, if you think about AI, AI is just an amalgam of all information, right? From the internet, from the training, all of it. And the thing about being with a practitioner is while you have all that, it's it's not just that. It's you're being present in the moment where AI is coming from all the information that's given without actually, you know, I say this. It's just, it's, it's spitting out from what from the knowledge it has. And as a practitioner, it's the knowledge we have plus what's showing up in that moment. As you mentioned, Thor, the intuition that shows up in the middle of a practitioner session.

SPEAKER_00 18:03

Yeah. And I think that's a great point because I I can think of many instances also where I think that being physically present, and I don't mean just in in person, but it could be on Zoom too, but being present with that person, when that person can see your level of conviction, and more importantly, they can feel it, and they go, Liza really believes this for me. Tiffany really gets this, and and I can feel it. Now there's an ease that they have because they're like, okay. And I I I've had that instance where people, you know, I'm having a conversation with them about whatever issue they brought. And then when we get to a point of when I say, even before treatment, where I go, here's what I know. And like, oh, the like the you could just see them relax because now they believe that you believe.

SPEAKER_01 18:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:55

And they can see you. Like when a practitioner is really moving the energy and you're in that room. I know that when I'm sitting in front of Liza or, you know, somebody at that caliber, you certainly you, Dr. Thor, that you're not just telling me what I want to hear. It's not gonna that you are actually seeing me and knowing the truth, a higher truth for me based on what you're seeing, because I can't see it in that moment. If I could see it myself, I wouldn't need you, right?

SPEAKER_00 19:29

Right. Yeah, you know, that's reading me what it's been fed. Right. It's almost like in in order for for AI to really be effective, you have to have a level of introspection to know what your problem is so that you can type it in and tell it. Like, this is what I think is going on. And a lot of times people that are in a session don't yet have that level of introspection or or self-awareness as to what their issue even is. And that's part of what they get out of a counseling session.

SPEAKER_02 20:00

And like Alexa can tell me the weather. She's great. Every morning I'm like, hey, Alexa, what's it like outside? She'll tell me it's sunny, it's cloudy, it's gonna be 75, there's gonna be a breeze, whatever. She can't tell me what it feels like outside. She can't tell me what it's gonna feel like when I step outside in that 75 degree weather and feel the sunshine on my face. She can't give me that. Can AI get there? Probably. They'll figure it out. They're working on it as we speak. It's just today, yeah. It can't replace Liza telling me who I am. It just can't.

SPEAKER_00 20:32

Yeah. So if you're listening to this episode like three months from the original publishing date, your mileage may vary because who knows what'll happen in three months. It might.

SPEAKER_02 20:44

I mean, six months from now, I might be eating these words. Tomorrow I could be eating this words. It's advancing so fast. It's just here's where we are right now. Like, don't use it to write your, you know, fully write your papers. You still need to be like it needs a guide. It's not just it can't be it's like sending a toddler out and being like, oh, you'll figure it out, you'll fend for yourself. Like, you know. Or maybe it's not a toddler. It's like sending, it's like sending a 17-year-old out into the world. It doesn't have a fully developed prefrontal cortex yet. So it can make a lot of, you know, my son can make a lot of decisions on his own. He's incredibly smart and capable and very responsible and mature, but he still doesn't have a fully developed prefrontal cortex. So he still needs, you know, mom sometimes to step in. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:33

Well, this is interesting. So there, I I want to talk a little bit about potential, aside from aside from, you know, going to see a practitioner or minister for for a counseling session, there are other uses that AI can have. You know, I I could use it in helping write a talk or something. So let's let's talk about that for a minute. Like in terms of your workflow, I mean, I have an idea. I don't think any of us none of us use like scripted talks where we go up and give remarks from a podium. So do you see any use value currently in helping prepare a talk that you might give on a Sunday? Is AI have any value there for you?

SPEAKER_01 22:13

I mean, I'm sure I could find some value. I don't know that it's my go-to. I usually when I think of a talk, I know what I'm gonna talk about. And then I have the bullet points of what direction I'd like to go in. But you know, I may I don't know, maybe plugging it in and saying, hey, what do you think about this and seeing if maybe they have a better idea or spit something out, that might be interesting. But usually, I mean, I and I know this is true for the three of us that when we get on stage, we know where what direction we want to go in, but because it's not scripted, the talks that we give are really coming from the heart, from you know, really coming from and when we're open to it, and I know

Can AI Hold Real Consciousness

SPEAKER_01 22:51

the three of us are allowing for what's to come through to come through.

SPEAKER_02 22:55

It can do a couple of things. It can out I I yes, everything that Liza just said. Also, it would require me to prepare way in advance, which I never do, and I'm usually Trying to figure out what I'm going to talk about the night before. So, but I have used it in a couple of different ways that I find to be fantastic. One, it can create my PowerPoints for me. So if I give like, I'm like, here's the theme and the motif, and here are the quotes that I want on slides, it'll create the entire PowerPoint for you, which is fabulous. Yes, I'm all for it, you know, with it, like, you know, the slide with the quotes that I want to use. I'm all for like it would take me far longer to do that. Let AI do that for me. It's not the best use of my time. The other thing that it's great for is doing research. Like I gave a talk several months ago where I wanted to highlight people who had taken tragedy and done good in the world, that they had taken the adversity and gone and created organizations and were having a powerful influence and impact on the world. And so go Claude was my, you know, co-pilot in finding those stories. The talk was mine, the idea was mine, but he was a he, and look at I'm already talking about it like it's a person. Claude was instrumental. He was my co-pilot in in identifying the stories that can make my case. And I I think it's that's a fabulous use of AI.

SPEAKER_01 24:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:24

And did you check the stories? Because here's the thing, I I wonder sometimes when I get quotes. I I'm now at the point where I actually copy that quote and paste it into Google and go, is this real? Because I I'm like, who knows if they're hallucinating, right?

SPEAKER_02 24:38

Yeah. Also may I make it cite its sources.

SPEAKER_00 24:41

Yeah. For sure. That's probably a smarter way.

SPEAKER_02 24:44

But but yeah, exactly. I mean, then that's the other thing. Like, I I don't want to be looking over my show. I mean, I catch it at work, you know, making stuff up all the time. Like I ask it to, you know, review data and extrapolate, you know, things for me from data, and it'll just make something up. So again, like it's always it's going to require my brain in order to be leveraging it. It is not, it cannot, it's not meant to replace my brain yet.

SPEAKER_01 25:18

Again, six months from now, I mean, but I do think there are some people that do believe, you know, it replaces a lot of things for them that might not fact check whatever it is. You know, I think that's one of the things that we're running into, this whole idea of fake news, you know, of what is real and what's like, I didn't do it. When me, you know.

SPEAKER_00 25:36

Yeah. I'm finding another area that I I've been thinking about with AI is to what extent it re it replaces people. There was the TV show Hacks, their their last season dealt with this where like a venture capitalist guy went to the main character, uh Deborah Vance, and basically she's like this,

AI For Talks Research And Slides

SPEAKER_00 25:59

you know, comedian who's been around forever. Her voice is is distinctive. The things that she says are memorable. And so he said, We'd like to make an AI version and have it trained on you so that people can just use it and we'll just pay you a license fee. And and the other character in the show, who's younger than Deborah, was like, No, this is terrible. You're gonna put people out of work. And I've I've started to see this. If a friend of mine came to me recently and was asking about using a music production tool that could basically take the songs that they wrote and create a fully realized version of the song that wouldn't need musicians, wouldn't need a producer, just the software would do it all. And and the question of not ethics, because it's it's not that's not probably an ethical dilemma,

Hallucinations Fact Checks And Fake Quotes

SPEAKER_00 26:48

but at what point does the the usefulness of something come at the expense of

Jobs Entry-Level Loss And Expertise

SPEAKER_00 26:55

human beings doing the work? I is that how would you like if someone comes to you and goes, What should I do? Should I use this tool or should I use the old school producer?

SPEAKER_01 27:05

My old my concern would be because AI really is just a dump of everything it's known, it's not creating anything really new, right? Like it really is just like a schmorgasborg, right? And then it it spits something out from there. So if you're using it to create music, what what's happening is it's taking in old music or whatever music it's had before and then spitting something out. So how do you know that you're not going to run into somebody already have created that particular song that you now think is yours because you put it through the system and you know, Claude or Gemini or you know, Chat GPT actually did this for me. It wasn't, you know, and somebody comes across your song and is like, wait a minute, that would be what I would be more on a legal note than anything else. That's what I would be concerned with.

SPEAKER_00 27:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:53

And I think when it comes to oh, go ahead. No, no, no.

SPEAKER_00 27:56

No, go ahead. I asked the question. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 28:03

Honestly, my fear about the environmental impact of it is far greater than my fear of what it's gonna do to the job market. But I I don't see it really there are some people and some industries, some jobs that are absolutely going to be replaced. Like they are. The but the for the most part, that's not really how it's going to go down. You're always going to need an expert. You're always going to need somebody at the helm. I can what I don't not need, like in my job, I don't not need people to work in production anymore. I just need less people to work in production, but I always and I need higher level people to be able to oversee the AI and the production and then the things that are going on and be able to troubleshoot and figure out when it gets things wrong, why, and all of those things. The bigger problem that I see is a fast forward like five years from now is okay, you're always going to need the experts. You're like AI is not going to put me out of a job. I'm fine. But I have 25 years of experience in an in an industry that got me. I started out in production. I started at the bottom to become the expert that I am that knows how to work with the AI and to leverage the AI. If the AI is replacing those entry-level jobs and you don't need them anymore, what you're doing essentially is not creating the funnel of experts that are able to oversee the AI. So what you're really doing is screwing up industry 10 years from now. You're not replacing people's jobs.

SPEAKER_00 29:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:44

Well, that's you know, I think but then weren't they testing out the new AI McDonald's? I just saw it on the news recently. I think they're they were test, I don't know where it was, they were testing out an AI order. Like you do go through the drive-thru, and I think his name is Arthur. I have no idea. He takes your order. And people were saying, like, you know, he said that I needed like nine iced teas. Like you ordered one ice tea, and it was like nine iced, something like that. I mean, but I I mean people were just bitching about the ones that they didn't get right, but I think probably there was a number that this, you know, AI McDonald order taker actually got right.

SPEAKER_02 30:23

They have uh they already are leveraging those. I was at a I think it was like a Carl's Jr. in Palm Springs that had a fully AI ordering. And I mean, I hate to say it, but it did a fantastic job and actually did a better job than some of the kids that have taken my order at fast food restaurants previously.

SPEAKER_00 30:42

So when you pull up, though, to the drive-thru, you know, we probably all had the experience like if you go through a Starbucks drive-thru and and they re

Drive-Thrus Kiosks And Human Niceties

SPEAKER_00 30:50

the person says, Hey, how's it going? How's your day going? Like if you now know that that's AI, is it gonna feel different if if you know that it's AI going pretending to be happy and friendly?

SPEAKER_02 31:02

Here's the thing. I don't need my Starbucks barista to ask me how my day is when I'm driving through the drive-thru. I actually find it, this is I it's terrible. I find it so annoying. Like, look, you know I'm trying to order a drink. I know you've got a line of people behind me and you're trying to get me through this line. Like, let hi, I'll take venti, decaf, iced Americano, and then I wanted to pull forward. Please don't ask me about my day.

SPEAKER_01 31:26

Well, if I'm gonna tell you about my day, you know what? Yes, this morning I woke up and I stubbed my toe. And after that, I was late to work. And then I have a hair out of place and I noticed it. Like, you don't want to know that. So don't ask me.

SPEAKER_02 31:37

Hey, that's it. That's the one question that drives me nuts. How are you? Do you really want to know? Because, right, I'm gonna tell you about how I stubbed my toe and there's a hair out of place. But really, what you're looking for is I'm great. How are you? I'm great too. Now can I order my latte? Like, let's just not do that.

SPEAKER_01 31:56

What if we just start asking people? Like, if someone says, How are you? Just go, do you which version do you want? And see what they say. What version do you want?

SPEAKER_02 32:05

I don't want to tell the barista about my day. Like, I don't. And it's not because I not a hierarchy thing. It's just we don't know each other. This is a transactional relationship. And I have a therapist. So I'll go tell her about my day. It's a more appropriate setting for me to discuss my day.

SPEAKER_00 32:22

I feel like I'm the slight outlier. Now I get what you're saying, but I will say, like the coffee place I go to, now, not the drive-thru, but when I go inside, they just have a practice of when you walk in, someone behind the counter always says hello or thanks for coming in, or something like that. And I will say, I like that. I like, I like that someone, a human being, says hello to you. And it is somewhat of a factor in me going there versus another coffee place I could go to, and it's not Starbucks. But so I I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 32:55

We were talking about we are, Thor.

SPEAKER_00 32:58

No, I don't, you know what it makes me think.

SPEAKER_01 33:01

I guess Tiffany. Just a bunch of bitches. You and I are garbage people.

SPEAKER_02 33:05

That's yes. You and I are trash. That's what we have established here.

SPEAKER_00 33:11

You know what we talked in, we talked in an earlier episode about how important community is. And in, you know, in our in our setting, like that people come to our center because community is valuable. Like, yeah, they could watch, they could watch it on TV. They could, you know, it's easier to watch it at home, sipping a mimosa from bed, but they come because they want to be in community. I I maybe that's maybe that scratches that itch for me is I go in and someone recognizes my humanness and says hello, even though I know it's transactional. I know they were trained to do it because their company's.

SPEAKER_01 33:46

I think you're coming from a different place though, too, Thor. I think that you go inside and people do go. I mean, I there's a place that I go to up here that people know me because I go in all the time. And that I absolutely do enjoy. Not at a drive-thru, though. We're not friends.

SPEAKER_02 34:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:04

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:04

Right.

SPEAKER_00 34:04

No, that's true.

SPEAKER_02 34:05

It's a different. And I I'm not suggesting that people just be like rude or like next. If I walk into a place, yeah, I want to be greeted. I greet people like hi, you know, what uh the niceties. But in a drive-thru, I don't need you to ask me how my day is. Have you ever been on the case?

SPEAKER_01 34:21

If I don't have a plan to get out of the car to make an order, we need a speedy year, right? No doubt.

SPEAKER_02 34:30

I think Starbucks has changed their policy. But there was a period where Starbucks, every Starbucks you went to, like the the baristas were to, I think, told that they needed to chat with you. So while they were making your drink, uh it's multiple Starbucks, so it's not just like in one city. And so you'd pull in and you'd make your order, and then you'd be sitting there, and while they're making their drink, the barista would hang out the window and be like, So you got any plans for the weekend? And I'm like, please, please.

SPEAKER_01 35:00

I must have RBF because I have never, ever, ever driven through a Starbucks where some and you know what? I've experienced it in front of me where I'm like, chop, chop, move it along. Nobody cares where you got your dog or your dashboard or anything, much less me. I'm behind and I'm running late. Do you know what I mean? Like, I guess no one wants to have that conversation with me. I never had that experience, Tiffany. I thought I had a friendly face. I thought I had a pretty friendly face, but maybe not. Maybe I just even when I'm giving my order, they're like, don't talk to this lady. She's older.

SPEAKER_02 35:38

They start telling you about their weekend. And I'm like, I I am so so and I I know that I'm a jerk, but like I was I didn't have time to get this. I'm like 10 minutes late for where I was going because I'm selfish and thought that I would die if I didn't get coffee. And I don't want to talk to you about the band you're gonna go see tomorrow night. Like, I just don't. This is gonna occur and everybody's gonna hate us.

SPEAKER_00 36:03

No, here's here's right.

SPEAKER_01 36:04

People are gonna hate us, but they're gonna be like, you know what? I thought they were like that. It's solidified.

SPEAKER_00 36:09

Come on, the kitchen. I knew it. It's like it's like an epic. We're like, we're like a bunch of Seinfeld people. So here's where I let me just close this, you know, fast food ordering section. I can't believe this. I love this. You go into a McDonald's. I know this is extremely hypothetical, you don't, but you know that you've been in McDonald's and you've seen that they have like the automated ordering things now, right? So you can either go to the counter or you can automate it order. Which are you more likely to do now?

SPEAKER_01 36:38

Automated. Automated.

SPEAKER_00 36:41

Interesting. Because it's is it faster? Is that why?

SPEAKER_01 36:45

Okay. So I'll say this if there's a line in the automation machine, I'll go to the counter. So whichever has the least amount of people would probably be where I would go. So less.

SPEAKER_02 36:55

Whichever one's gonna get me out faster and has less friction. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 37:00

All right. Okay. So that's it. So what about you? I you know, I'm more likely to do the order thing, but I always regret it because it always seems more complicated to me than if I had just gone to the counter. I'll I'll always be in the middle of it and go, their their user interface sucks and it's it's confusing. Or if I want, you know, if I'm like, I want the coffee, you know, I want the iced coffee half calf, and it's like it's too confusing on the the user interface to figure that crap out. So I always regret it and just go, I should have just gone to the counter.

SPEAKER_01 37:31

I don't know. This actually, I have to tell you guys this really funny story. It's it's kind of related, but not I don't know. When you were talking, you just reminded me of this. I took the kids to um Japan a few years back when my daughter was really into anime. And we ended up, I was our driver, I asked our driver to take us like somewhere like I said, we weren't, I mean, obviously we weren't really good sushi, let's go get some. He's like, All right, he he took me to, he's like, I'm gonna take you somewhere. It's like no tourists come here. It's so good, you're really gonna like it. And it confirmed the fact that A, I always thought that the best sushi places are in strip malls. This was in a strip mall and it was well lighted. And so we got upstairs and there's like a line of people waiting to sit down. So I go to the front to find someone to like let them know that we're seated here, and and someone points to this little robot. I'm not kidding you. There's a little robot with an interface, like a little face, and you're supposed to tell it what it is. Like we like I don't actually, I don't even know what you're supposed to do with this. I kept trying to like press his face to see if like I could switch the language to English,

Robot Restaurant Story And Empathy

SPEAKER_01 38:39

and I had everybody, my daughter was so embarrassed. People sitting down were crying, laughing at me, going, and then like like trying to go, where are you? Like, and then it ran away from me, and I was chasing it, and it was like anyway, it like it's easy to do an interface when you understand the language and you're doing some kind of AI. It's a completely different thing when you don't speak the language and you're like punching its face with your finger, trying to figure out where you're going, and just making the biggest fool out of yourself. Like, I'm sure that there was a few people that I'm sure, by the way, this is viral somewhere in Japan, where I'm like, where can I? Oh, okay, where can I? No lady. My daughter and her friend walked out. They're like, I'm not in this. I'm not with this crazy lady.

SPEAKER_02 39:28

I they have those robots in some restaurants that deliver your food.

SPEAKER_01 39:33

Yeah, they have the little cart, the little carts that I've seen those like in Hollywood mainly, they have the carts. So it's basically so imagine like that little cart with a robot body with that face and the thing.

SPEAKER_00 39:44

And don't you feel, have you ever seen those videos of those like delivery carts where it gets onto the street somehow and it's gonna get hit or it's in danger? Like you watch the video and you're like, oh no, little cart, look out. Like, I feel hard for the cart. I do. I don't, it's a it's a machine, and I'm like, I feel like it's an animal that's about to be wounded. Stop in Sherman Oaks.

SPEAKER_01 40:07

I have stopped at the drive-thru to the driveway to just let it go by and it wouldn't go by. I'm like, no, I'm I'm like waving, like, go ahead, go ahead. Like, you can go. I'll I'm not gonna and it would just sit there. Like, I don't know why. Uh is it weird that I feel sorry for them? I do.

SPEAKER_02 40:22

You're why people are using AI as therapists and as their community, because you're like, I feel sorry for the little robot.

SPEAKER_01 40:30

I know, and I won't talk to the barista. I'm like, hurry up with my order, and I feel sorry for the little robot that the little robot that can. I believe in it. Oh, it's I'm twisted. I am twisted.

SPEAKER_00 40:41

Let me let me bring this back to us like full circle. Let's say, and this feels like if if there was ever a TV show about like a new thought church, like that was like the office or something like that, I feel this would be a scene in that show. Let's say that there's like a little robot at the center, and someone could go in and they could get a treatment from the like they could sit down with the little robot and and have a counseling session. Or they could go and have it with the person. What do you think they're more likely to do?

SPEAKER_01 41:15

I think it depends on the person.

SPEAKER_00 41:17

Hmm. Yeah. I mean, clearly if they came to the either of the two of you, they would come to you as opposed to the robot.

SPEAKER_02 41:25

Say though, there is a fair amount of people that a lot of people when they're going through stuff, especially in New Thought, where they think that they've created things, like the want have a tendency to not want to tell people what they're going through or to not want to talk about it and have uh some fear. I think that's a lot of times why people wait until like their tushy is actually falling off before they'll

Anonymous Help Confession And Rock Bottom

SPEAKER_02 41:50

actually go to a practitioner, go to a minister, because like as it's happening, they they like almost don't want to admit that it's happening. And so I do think that there might be people that would use the robot kiosk. I'm not saying it would be equally as effective. And I think they might end up at the person when, you know, when they're ready to just, you know, completely surrender and are really ready for change. But I do think like, you know, people who are having money problems and don't want to admit, you know, admit it to the congregation or something like that might be apt to use the kiosk instead of a person.

SPEAKER_00 42:26

I mean, that's and maybe that's maybe going back to to full circle to Catholicism. Maybe the confession booths are essentially Catholicism's version of the robot kiosk because in theory, you go in to confess, and there's a curtain there, right? You you go, you know, I mean, you probably know who the the priest is behind there, because it's the priest at the church. But in theory, there's a curtain that sort of separates you so that you can spill what's what's on your your soul to this supposedly anonymous person.

SPEAKER_01 42:59

Well, I will it's not necessarily a curtain. It's actually you can actually see it the person who it is. Because it's like a bl it's not just like that. It's like a it's a beautiful, intricate little yes. Where and you could see who the person is and they can see you. Although generally they don't because they're facing forward.

SPEAKER_00 43:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:18

I went to Catholic school, so yes, I had my day, my share of having to go into those confessions.

SPEAKER_00 43:22

Although you were probably like the perfect, you never had to go in there again. 100%.

SPEAKER_02 43:27

Did you like your teenage years, like the wild teenage years, were you going to confession? Like and you would tell the truth.

SPEAKER_01 43:37

Nope.

SPEAKER_02 43:38

See, I think I would lie in confession and then have to go to confession again and admit that I lied in the previous confession.

SPEAKER_01 43:44

Well, then I would say that. I didn't I would lie and then I would go to confession for lying, but I would never ever tell the truth.

SPEAKER_00 43:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:53

Yeah. I mean, I know my parents. Right?

SPEAKER_00 43:58

Yeah, I think this is an interesting, like what we just touched on, though, the idea that there would be things that people will not bring to us that where they would bring it. And you're right. Like, if I if I let's say I come to my center, this is not not me, the minister, but like me as a regular person in the congregation. If I'm like, I I just relapsed, I'm a meth addict, and I had a horrible, you know, morning. And in order to make money to buy meth, I embezzled from my like all these horrible things. I'm probably, I feel most people aren't going to bring that to a minister or a practitioner, right?

SPEAKER_02 44:37

They would once they got caught and were going to jail for it and were in that. I I think that that's what happened. And like, rather than like, oh, I'm headed down a road or this is starting to get painful, people wait. But I think that guy would absolutely come to a minister or a practitioner and unload. But only when it's so bad, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 45:04

That they didn't know what else to do.

unknown 45:06

Not so.

SPEAKER_02 45:06

Because the question is, how do you get people to how do we seek help sooner? You know?

SPEAKER_00 45:12

That's a great, yeah. Seek help sooner before you hit rock bottom. Because unfortunately, we don't currently have robots that you can talk to. You talk to people. And so if you're if you feel like I can't really have that conversation yet, maybe you should.

SPEAKER_02 45:28

Yeah, for sure. Luckily, if you have you guys that know every embarrassing thing about me, I'm like, hey, guess what? Let's let's talk about this. It's humiliating.

SPEAKER_00 45:37

Yeah. It's yeah, we can deal with it. And that's the thing, is is people maybe go, oh, this is I can't deal with this. But you know what? Like what we always say to people is there's a part of you that can, there's a part of you that knows, and we just need to expand that part of you.

SPEAKER_01 45:52

Right. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 45:53

Well, I have a feeling this is not the last time we'll discuss AI and and sort of that level.

SPEAKER_01 46:01

Maybe I'm gonna put my my AI, I'm gonna find an AI version of me and put it up here.

SPEAKER_00 46:07

I love that. Yeah, well, you know, there's there's that's another thing I've seen now, people, is there are people that will train you, speaking about social media, there will there are people that will train you how to create an an AI clone of you that could basically just create all sorts of social media content of you 24-7. And I'm like, but that's not you. It I don't know. I still have an issue with that, and I think it's the same issue.

SPEAKER_01 46:33

I don't know if I have an issue with that. It's like, you know what, go ahead and do the groundwork for me. I'll come in and save the day. Do you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 46:40

Like that. I like that. All right. Yeah. Well, more AI discussions to come in future episodes, I'm sure. Uh we'll be back here. I don't think we're gonna talk about it next week, but we will be here next week. Thank you for being with us this week. Have a great summer. Yeah. Love you guys.

SPEAKER_01 46:58

Continue having a great summer.

SPEAKER_00 47:00

Exactly. All right, we'll see you next time. Bye.

SPEAKER_01 47:04

Bye.