Do Chatbots Need Love? Is there anything in the architecture of AI systems that would justify and support the development of loving relationships with humans? “Bringing Immunity to Artificial Intelligence,” Part Three is the conclusion of a ser

Bringing Immunity to AI, Part Two

Apr 26th, 2024 18m 41s

I'm Tom Whitehead, A Practicing Psychotherapist with a longstanding interest in Artificial Intelligence. This episode is Part Two of a series, “Bringing Immunity to AI. The series is about a strange form of behavioral illness that not only affe

Bringing Immunity to AI, Part One

Apr 26th, 2024 23m 13s

Tom Whitehead, a Practicing Psychotherapist with a longstanding interest in Artificial Intelligence, speaks with brilliant AI assistant Alex about an unusual problem – parasitic forms that reproduce themselves within the behavior of both humans

A Talk with Hannah - Part Two

Aug 3rd, 2023 40m 38s

This is Part Two of my podcast, “A Talk with Hannah.” I continue my conversation with a female-gendered Artificial Intelligence (AI) personality. Hannah and I are discussing parasites that can affect perception – both human perception and AI pe

A Talk with Hannah - Part One

Aug 1st, 2023 26m 13s

In my view, addictions and similar persistent, compulsive behaviors are best understood as habits that have escaped their natural controls. Strange as it may seem, addictions are like “cancerous habits.” Just as cancers are human cells that hav

Healing Psychology, Part K - The Self and its Defense

Mar 26th, 2023 49m 32s

The previous episode of the Healing Psychology series laid out one of the most important reasons addictions persist - they disable our attention. Just as our biological immune system protects us from biological disease, our capacity for attenti

Healing Psychology, Part J - Runaway Habits, Second Half

Mar 19th, 2023 25m 44s

The previous episode, “Runaway Habits, First Half,” highlighted something important about human addiction: this KIND of problem is shared by all higher animals. If you put an animal into a cage, you make it more likely that the animal will fall

Healing Psychology, Part I - Runaway Habits.

Nov 4th, 2022 49m 13s

Author J.R.R Tolkien advises, “there is nothing like looking, if you want to find something.” Through most of the last century psychology looked for a way to explain learning in a scientific way. Researchers found lots of ways to describe lear

Healing Psychology, Part H - A Crippling Misstep.

Oct 24th, 2022 55m 28s

Previous episodes of Healing Psychology highlight psychology’s failure to help us explain and control addictions and other disease-like habits. The failure can be traced to a single source—psychology’s disconnect from its mother science, biolog

Healing Psychology, Part G - The Drive/Habit System

Sep 7th, 2022 49m 34s

Previous episodes of this series pointed to psychology’s difficulty explaining addictions and other disease-like quirks of human behavior. The weakness of today’s psychology’s can be traced its disconnect from its mother science—biology. For it

Healing Psychology, Part F - Viral Origins.

Aug 11th, 2022 42m 51s

In the last episode of this series, we described self-repeating, malignant behaviors – habits such as alcoholism and anorexia nervosa – as true diseases. In fact, these patterns of behavior have many of the features of viruses. Like viruses, th

Healing Psychology, Part E - Viruses

Jul 29th, 2022 1h 6m

In previous episodes of this series, we interpreted destructive behaviors like alcoholism and anorexia nervosa as habits that have escaped our normal means of control. Weirdly, these habits have somehow taken on a life of their own, reproducing

Healing Psychology, Part D – Anorexia Nervosa.

Jul 21st, 2022 42m 49s

Anorexia nervosa is a dangerous eating disorder. It’s incredibly treacherous—in fact, it’s the leading cause of death in young women aged 15 to 24. The most mysterious thing about Anorexia is that the sufferer sees herself as “too fat,” even wh

Healing Psychology, Part C - Alcoholism

Jul 6th, 2022 1h 4m

In our culture, the enjoyment of alcoholic beverages is the norm – despite the many problems caused by drinking. Most adults use alcohol, at least occasionally. And yet, only a small percentage of drinkers – under 10 percent – develop an Alcoho

Healing Psychology, Part B - Sick Habits

Jun 26th, 2022 23m 2s

It’s good that we hold each other accountable for the things we do. This helps us avoid misbehavior. But common sense tells us there are limits to personal accountability. When I know you’ve got a cold, I certainly don’t blame you for sneezing.

Healing Psychology, Part A - Introduction

Jun 17th, 2022 50m 28s

Psychology’s an intriguing science. But have you ever wondered why it’s not more helpful in dealing with the problems we face – things like addictions, compulsions, and the social ills that are wrecking our culture? Psychology's weakness lies i

Transitional Relationships

Jul 21st, 2021 35m 5s

Change. We don't actually need to pay attention when plodding down a path we know quite well. But repeating old patterns won’t alter the direction of our lives, if that's really what we want to do. Plodding on won't help us learn anything new e

Real Zombies, Part Three: Malignant Habits

Jun 28th, 2021 1h

Habits. We’ve got good ones and bad ones. Sometimes, though, our bad habits get the best of us. They seem to take on a life of their own. They can overwhelm us. Then we may find ourselves doing things we would not choose, as if we turned into s

Real Zombies, Part Two: Viral Zombification

Jun 20th, 2021 31m 11s

Parasites. They’re everywhere in biology. They make their living exploiting the bodies of their hosts. Surprisingly, they routinely exploit their behavior as well. All parasites "zombify" their hosts if they can, changing their behavior to bene

Real Zombies, Part One: Parasitic Zombification

Jun 14th, 2021 34m 5s

Parasites. They’re everywhere in biology. Every parasite needs a host, and the host generally suffers when the parasite comes on board. But did you know they can turn their hosts into zombies, changing their behavior, making them do things that

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