We often think of love and addiction as opposite forces. Love is life-giving. Addiction is life-limiting. Love expands your world. Addiction shrinks it. But what if I told you that biologically speaking, love and addiction are more similar than you may think. And that chatting with AI bots can actually activate part of our brain that triggers a “love” response, which mimics our brain activity when we’re experiencing addiction.

We unpack all of this in this episode of The Intersect, where I am joined by Maia Szalavitz, one of the leading voices on addiction in America. Together we dive into what’s going on in our brains when we experience love, and how like drugs, shopping and other vices, we can actually become addicted to it. Maia has written extensively on addiction. She has survived a heroin addiction herself, and unpacks how AI chatbots are designed to pull us in and keep us hooked. She reveals that addiction isn’t about a specific substance, but rather is about how addiction is defined by continued behavior despite negative consequences. That’s why obsessively relying on chatbots may be more dangerous than we think.

Topics Covered:

• What happens to your brain when you’re in love, and does it mimic your brain during addiction?
• How can connecting with AI chatbots mimic the feeling of falling in love?   
• How is dependency different from addiction?
• How can AI companies become aware of the addictive qualities of their products?
• How can chatbots help people navigate social or emotional challenges?
• In what circumstances should chatbot use be regulated? 

About Maia Szalavitz: 

Maia Szalavitz is a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times and the author, most recently, of Undoing Drugs: How Harm Reduction Is Changing the Future of Drugs and Addiction. An author and journalist working at the intersection of brain, culture and behavior, Szalavitz has written for Time Magazine, the Washington Post, Elle, New Scientist, Scientific American Mind and many others. She's author/co-author of five books on subjects as wide ranging as empathy, polygamy, trauma and addictions.

Follow Maia Szalavitz on X and LinkedIn

Check out Maia’s recent piece in the NYT’s: Love Is a Drug. A.I. Chatbots Are Exploiting That.

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