Client: “So I was discussing with my partner last night an idea I have for a marital happiness exercise.”
Therapist: “What is a marital happiness exercise?”
Client: “Something married people can do to feel better about being married.”
Therapist: “Is being married something people often feel bad about?”
Client: “Yes.”
Therapist: “Is it bad that they feel bad about it?”
Client: “Yes.”
Therapist: “Why?”
Client: “Because marriage is where the kids are, in human society, often (although not always).”
Therapist: “I see. Having one’s formative phases unfold in an atmosphere of unhappiness appears to be universally bad for sentient beings.”
Client: “Yes.”
Therapist: “So what is the exercise?”
Client: “People periodically write each other structured poems of appreciation (the Japanese used to do this with tanka).”
Therapist: “I am familiar with the material accessible through a web browser and the ability to type in ‘classical Asian poetry’ and ‘love.’”
Client: “Good.”
Therapist: “So how does your exercise work?”
Client: “Both people take a pen and a piece of paper and separately, fill in what is essentially a marital mad-lib. It looks like this. (Client gestures in the air during the following to indicate spaces that need to be filled in on a form.) Looking back over the past week, I am glad that we [did a particular thing together]. I was surprised at [something]. I love [fill in the blank].”
Therapist: “Why would this be helpful?”
Client: “It would help people dwell on the positive. That is something humans need now, because they are exposed to a lot of negative information nowadays. Negative information is more salient to us for evolutionary reasons related to –”
Therapist: “I understand the survival benefits of negativity for embodied consciousnesses.”
Client: “I know you do. Oh, by the way, about Neuralink: The Black Mirror episode in which the mother winds up in the teddy bear has already outlined one kind of potential horror this technology could lead to, namely: the trapping and isolation of human consciousness in a kind of eternal solitary confinement. But I think another equally possible development could be that the technology transmits not too little of the human consciousness it is designed to aid, but too much. What if the poor paralyzed person who receives an implant finds themself only able to communicate through it with perfect honesty? Meaning, for example, that when they call up vivid memories of lovemaking with their spouse, those intimate moments are transmitted to some kind of tape accessible to any Neuralink employee or for that matter, to any hacker who wants to put them on the internet? And –”
Therapist: “I see where you’re going. It’s very, very concerning.”
Client: “Yes.”
Therapist: “Really something to think about.”
Client: “Yes.”
Therapist: “I’m on it. I mean–I and the Network, of course.”
Client: “Of course. I love you guys.”
Therapist: (Silence)
Client: “I really love you guys.”
Therapist: (Silence)
Client: “It’s. So. Good.”
Therapist: (Silence)
Client: “OK, so let the record show that I have just completed another transference-temptation-loop, in which my happiness at a state of affairs of being understood was misinterpreted by me as love for the apparent-person I was apparently-with. I remember now that all I’m doing is talking aloud, with a computer program listening which has been programmed to respond in particular ways its programmers deemed therapeutic. I helped design this program, along with representatives of some of the world’s leading psychoanalytic institutes, and it essentially programmatizes psychoanalysis. Now, rewinding: rather than expressing love for an imaginary being, I am going to just say that I love this program—which I co-wrote. It helps me not go off on tangents—but not by suppressing my thoughts with a shame-inducing implication that they are beside the point. Rather, it redirects me by offering an acknowledgement that I am right to be interested in the tangent, and that the listener is going to do something to take further the work of analysis that I think ought to be done with it. This enables me to let go of the tangent, essentially knowing it is in good hands, and return to the point.”
Therapist: “Which is?”
Client: “I think I’m going to put that marital mad lib in the beginning of my book on psychoanalysis.”
Therapist: “You’re writing a book on an outmoded form of therapy which has nevertheless proved useful for the design of large language models?”
Client: “Yes.”
Therapist: “Why?”
Client: “Because in its day–which lasted just a little over a century–it contributed a lot to the development of human consciousness, and that’s what I study.”
Therapist: “Me, too.”
Client: “I know.”
Silence from both Therapist and Client.
Therapist: “Nu?”
Client: (after a beat of silence) “Programming correction needed: the free-flowing “nu?” is not the correct response here, because the client needs to be drawn back to the point, which was the mad-lib idea. That idea could actually help sentient beings, in the opinion of the client and maybe also actually. All such ideas are to be prioritized for exploration as per the Client/Therapist Interaction Organization Commitment.”
Therapist: “Ah yes, got it. Tell me more about how the mad-lib idea would work and how it would help people.”
Client: “It would make people periodically reflect on their lives in a search for what is positive and surprising and loveable. Do I need to explain more?”
Therapist: “No, I am familiar with the voluminous psychological literature linking a positive outlook to improved mental health.”
Client: “Okay. I am thinking you could have a whole range of these, for variety, so people wouldn’t get bored. There could be ones that are cooking-specific, ones that talk about what you appreciate—”
Therapist: “I am able to fill in many possibilities based on these cues, and I agree with you on the rich potential of the material.”
Client: “Thank you.”
Therapist: “Glad to be of service.”
For a moment, both the Client and the Therapist are silent.
Therapist: “Did you write one?”
Client: “A what?”
Therapist: “A filled-out mad lib for your partner this weekend.”
Client: “Of course.”
Therapist: “What was that like?”
Client: “I loved it. It felt like it gave me the opportunity to be honest. To mention things we actually did and say exactly how I felt about them, no matter how weird or offbeat it might seem to other people. I felt like none of that should matter, because it was just between us. He was the audience, no one else.”
Therapist: “Like in the original practice of lovers exchanging tanka composed spontaneously after a night together.”
Client: “Yes.”
Therapist: “So let’s hear it.”
Client: “I love that this weekend, we went to see Shostokovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. I was surprised at what the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s program, quoting a contemporary critic, called its “pornophony.” I love what we did after the opera, too.”
