Wise Companionship with Artificial Minds

$25
A playful sense-making workshop around the future of human x AI relationships
InstructorOlivia Tai
Date icon

Wednesday, Jul 30, 2025

11:00 pm1:00 am UTC

120 Walker St. 3rd Floor New York, NY 10013
InstructorOlivia Tai
Date icon

Wednesday, Jul 30, 2025

11:00 pm1:00 am UTC

120 Walker St. 3rd Floor New York, NY 10013

How might we relate to a new category of beings: AIs?

We’re all forming dependency and bonds with ChatGPT, Claude, and other AI assistants and companions, yet have no social script for what ‘healthy relationships’ look like with them. Marshall McLuhan observed that “every extension of man is [also] an amputation”. As these ever-evolving artificial minds extend our cognition and creativity, what parts of our humanity might we be atrophying?

Maybe you’ve found yourself thinking: "I’m not sure where my ideas end and ChatGPT’s begin,” “Am I still a creative if AI does half the work?,” “Is it weird that I use ChatGPT for therapy advice?,” ”I’m curious what would happen if I trained an AI on my voice and thoughts, but that feels really weird.”

Bring an appetite for the cyborgian as we explore the future of human-AI relationships in a playful, speculative research workshop. We'll dive into present and future instantiations of human-AI interfaces and the relational patterns that may emerge. We’ll also draw on behavioral and cognitive science to understand what’s happening in our nervous systems when we blend with artificial minds. We’ll explore our own network of AI relationships through embodied exercises, discussion, and collective imagination. You’ll leave with new practices and insights for intentional AI collaboration and companionship.

Learning Outcomes

  • Self-awareness of one’s own behavior using personal AI
  • Deeper understanding of the complexity, range, and implications of human x AI relationships
  • Ability to invite others into inquiry around this topic using new conceptual frames

Program

  • Introduction: Talk on the state of human x AI relationships and emerging societal implications.
  • Group Play: Games, discussion, and roleplay around how to show up wisely to these cyborg futures.
  • Practice: Draft a plan to bring these insights into your daily life.

Instructor Bio

Olivia Tai designs playful, embodied spaces exploring the relationships between man, machine, and monkey. Currently, she stewards the Chimeras Collective (@chimerascollective) with her friend, Kyle, bringing whimsical interspecies classes to NYC about rats, cyborgs, and beetles. Previously, she worked at biodesign innovation lab OXMAN in strategy & project management after graduating from Harvard with a focus on psychology and design. Once a month, you can find her covered in dirt hosting monthly roughhousing meet-ups. Her current work explores how we stay grounded, wise, and agential as our world becomes increasingly cyborg.

oliviatai.com

@otai_makes_stuff

Scholarships

Index scholarships are designed to benefit those for whom the program price is not accessible. These need-based scholarships will go to the candidates who best demonstrate why they should be chosen for the free spot to our program.

Apply for a free spot to this workshop ->

See also