Senate hearings. Teen suicides. Parents demanding new laws. Whatever happened to the cheerful sci-fi future our movies and TV promised us? We’re a long way from AI like Data and C-3PO, who help us be us without pretending to be us.

AI doesn’t have to be this bleak. But the deeper question isn’t better guardrails or tougher regulation. It’s what we ask AI to optimize for: human thriving, or human imitation?

Anastasia Uglova, founder of Better Half, argues AI needs something the industry hasn’t built yet: relational intelligence — the capacity to drive trust, agency, and real connection.

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