**I have an intuition that it's OK to delegate logistics, but not OK to delegate care.** I don't want an AI to falsify to my friends and contacts that I'm thinking about them, if in reality an AI is fully automating my touchpoints. But the boundary gets fuzzy: Birthday reminders from an AI seem clearly "logistics". A handwritten card seems clearly "care". But what about: An AI that notices patterns in your friend's life and suggests "Your friend Sarah mentioned struggling with her job search three times in the past month — might be worth checking in"? Is that logistics (pattern detection) or care (noticing what matters)? I think this is OK. I aspire to delegate thoughtful reminders about my own personal needs to AIs as well. When I'm sad, having an AI help me remember that I haven't worked out in 2 weeks would be helpful. The knowledge gives me the opportunity to care for myself - I still have to actually go do the self-care. Care is about choosing to prioritize someone's wellbeing. Maybe it requires choosing them over other things that you value, and that it's more meaningful when there's sacrifice involved. Maybe it's not meaningful unless there's sacrifice. I'm not sure. [[I aspire to True Friendship]], and Union stands to help - but being clear about the ethical line will also be important. --- ## Changelog ### [[2025-10-22]] Is care meaningful without sacrifice? #Question Does low-cost care (a text that takes 30 seconds) feel less meaningful than high-cost care (driving across town to bring soup)? Or is the choice itself what matters, regardless of cost? - [Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics & Moral Education - Nel Noddings](https://www.ucpress.edu/books/caring/epub-pdf) (1984) - Care ethics based on natural caring, like mother to child, not abstract rules - ["Reciprocity is Evil": Girard, Mauss, the Gift, and Love - Philippe Chanial](https://shs.cairn.info/journal-mauss-international-2022-1-page-153?lang=en) (2022) - René Girard on reciprocity vs. love that transcends exchange - [Cultivating Compassion - Thich Nhat Hanh](https://tricycle.org/magazine/cultivating-compassion/) (2015) - Buddhist metta practice: love without attachment or expectation - [Emotional Labor around the World: An Interview with Arlie Hochschild](https://globaldialogue.isa-sociology.org/articles/emotional-labor-around-the-world-an-interview-with-arlie-hochschild) (Sep 2014) - Sociology of care work and what makes caring genuine vs. performed - [Showing That You Care: The Evolution of Health Altruism - Robin Hanson](https://hanson.gmu.edu/showcare.pdf) (Aug 2007) - Costly signaling theory: we care through hard-to-fake sacrifices to prove commitment - [The Gift - Marcel Mauss](https://files.libcom.org/files/Mauss%20-%20The%20Gift.pdf) (1925) - Classic anthropology: obligations to give, receive, reciprocate in gift relationships - [Rehabilitating Self-Sacrifice: Care Ethics and the Politics of... - Alfred Archer](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09672559.2018.1489648) (May 2018) - Feminist philosophy on when self-sacrifice in care is empowering vs. oppressive - [Costly Signaling Theory - Hui Ying Ivy Koh & Norman P. Li](https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?params=/context/soss_research/article/5403/&path_info=CostlySignalingTheory_av.pdf) (Dec 2024) - Evolutionary psychology on costly signals proving genuine commitment in relationships - [This Is the Buddha's Love: An Interview with Thich Nhat Hanh - Melvin McLeod](https://www.lionsroar.com/this-is-the-buddhas-love/) (Mar 2020) - Love that expands without limit through understanding interdependence - [Between cheap and costly signals: the evolution of partially honest communication - NCBI](https://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3574420/) (Jan 2013) - Biology of honest signaling: when low-cost communication can still be trustworthy - *[[2025-10-22]]* - [When AI Automates Relationships - TIME](https://time.com/7010288/when-ai-automates-relationships-essay/) (Aug 14, 2024) - Allison Pugh on the "depersonalization crisis" from automating human connection - Interpersonal workers defended their humanness through three key elements: their work is not rote, they are not robots, and their judgments involve navigating unpredictability - Much of human connection rests on unpredictability — feelings, secrets, mistakes. - [The Last Human Job: The Work of Connecting in a Disconnected World](https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691240817/the-last-human-job) - Allison Pugh - Book on "connective labor" and defending humanness in the age of AI - [Constructing What Counts as Human at Work - American Behavioral Scientist](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/00027642221127240) - Academic paper on how workers distinguish themselves from AI through unpredictability - [Masters of Love - The Atlantic](https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/06/happily-ever-after/372573/) (Jun 12, 2014) - Emily Esfahani Smith on John Gottman's research on "masters vs. disasters" — masters scan for things to appreciate, disasters scan for mistakes - *[[2025-10-22]]* ### [[2025-10-22]] What makes human connection meaningful? #Question - [Buber, Levinas, and the I-Thou Relation - Patricia Meindl, Felipe León, Dan Zahavi](https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780429462580-4/buber-levinas-thou-relation-patricia-meindl-felipe-le%C3%B3n-dan-zahavi) (Nov 2019) - Philosophy of encounter: Buber's reciprocal I-Thou vs Levinas's asymmetric responsibility - Both thinkers refuse to conceive of relating to others in purely cognitive terms - [Attachment Theory in Practice - Susan M. Johnson](https://sobrief.com/books/attachment-theory-in-practice) (2019) - Emotionally Focused Therapy founder on attachment bonds as foundation of meaningful relationships - Sue Johnson pioneered understanding adult love through attachment lens - [Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation - Vivek Murthy](https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/surgeon-general-social-connection-advisory.pdf) (May 2023) - U.S. Surgeon General's 82-page advisory declaring loneliness a public health crisis - Half of adults report loneliness; social connection as essential as food and water - [The Wondrous Path of Difficulties - Pema Chödrön and Jack Kornfield](https://www.lionsroar.com/the-wondrous-path-of-difficulties/) (Dec 2023) - Buddhist teachers on transforming everyday difficulties into paths of connection - Cultivating open-heartedness through practice rather than perfection - [Reclaiming Conversation - Sherry Turkle](https://www.afterbabel.com/p/reclaiming-conversation-age-of-ai) (Aug 2025) - MIT professor on how technology creates "forever elsewhere" - we sacrifice presence for connection - Face-to-face conversation builds empathy, self-reflection, and meaningful relationships - [The Neuroscience of Human Relationships - Louis Cozolino](https://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/facultybooks/58/) (2014) - How attachment and social brain development depend on relationships - Neural basis for why we're wired for connection and what happens when bonds break - [Emmanuel Levinas - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/levinas/) (Sep 2025) - Ethics as first philosophy: responsibility arises precognitively through encountering the other - Face-to-face encounter reveals our fundamental interconnectedness - [Digital Minimalism - Cal Newport](https://bookshop.org/p/books/digital-minimalism-choosing-a-focused-life-in-a-noisy-world-cal-newport/12081448) (Feb 2019) - Technology as tool vs. environment: reclaiming intentional connection over constant connectivity - Cal Newport argues for philosophy of "less can be more" in digital relationships - [What is Causing Our Epidemic of Loneliness - Harvard Graduate School of Education](https://www.gse.harvard.edu/ideas/usable-knowledge/24/10/what-causing-our-epidemic-loneliness-and-how-can-we-fix-it) (Oct 2024) - Survey research on American loneliness: underlying causes and potential solutions - Pre-pandemic, half of adults already reported loneliness - [Interbeing: The 14 Mindfulness Trainings - Thích Nhất Hạnh](https://www.parallax.org/product/interbeing-4th-edition/) (4th ed.) - Buddhist concept: we "inter-are" - exist only in relationship to all other beings - Connection as fundamental nature of reality, not just social preference - *[[2025-10-22]]*