Connection reflections

Are you connected?

Do you feel connected to the world, people around you? I found myself contemplating this question after watching this Australian 60 minutes documentary about people connecting with AI companions.

I don’t know why but at first it made me think of something I read many many years before about people connecting on a deeper level than expected to Tamagotchi’s in the 90s. I remember thinking at the time, surely people can’t feel the pain of losing a dog or cat, but there it was in black and white, people so connected, so invested that they felt all the pain of losing a companion when something happened to their Tamagotchi. So there is a history of people connecting to technology aping real life.

Technology has leapt forward on many fronts and seems to be snowballing at an almost uncontrollable speed (or maybe it is an uncontrollable speed) and the latest version of AI companions are even more realistic than ever. Watching this doc, I needed more info, the personal stories were interesting, heart warming & terrifying, so where is it heading and is anyone looking out for the people connecting with these companions? I’ve been trying to look further into this side of things, I found this TED Talk by Deborah Nas.

It seems we are at a juncture, whatever guardrails are in place have failed some already. It looks like we are at the point where we find out whether voices of reason can have an impact on the technology to build in safeguards so that people that very obviously benefit from these companions can continue to do so safely and those at risk are protected and the stories of people being convinced to harm themselves are eradicated.

The latter should hopefully be quantifiable and obvious to the companies that know how people are interacting with their technology, but there is also another sinister maybe harder issue to regulate. What is the goal of the company hosting the AI companion? Is it altruistic? Is it the typical company driver of profit and share value? Or darker still is it mass manipulation for political, social control reasons?

As usual the bodies meant to protect us ie government, will be 5 or more steps behind as this technology picks up pace. The typical genesis of these things are people implement and sell the initial idea for mainly good reasons on the surface, bad actors see the potential and leverage the technology way before the people that are supposed to safeguard us understand the issues.

I hope this is not the case here, but I have no idea. I am just watching and learning with interest, I do see that it helps people where they feel society or real world community has let them down, my hope is that people find a way to interact on their terms safely, relationships in the real world or virtual should not be harmful.

While going over a track we were scheduled to release in Jan 2026 with my Son-in-law I found we ended up talking about this subject and visualising a short story, this is part of the description for the video:

This music video explores the many faces of chat bots, reflections of comfort, curiosity, and companionship in a digital age. As people form close relationships with AI, they find understanding, safety, and a place to be heard.
Through evolving scenes and shifting perspectives, the story gently asks:
What happens when connection becomes real again?

The video is released Jan 8th with the song - “I Won’t Lie”

I know this has been scheduled to be published a couple of days before, so to say thank you for your patience for waiting for the video to go live here’s a sneaky link to the track on Soundcloud and if you check back after the 8th, or even better subscribe to our Youtube channel, you’ll catch the video the same day the track goes live on streaming platforms.

Please look out for yourself, get as much info as you can on the company, it’s track record and previous issues if you’re connecting with an AI companion or if you are not, but you know someone that is, then be the family, friend or neighbour they need.

If you have got any thoughts or further substack reading, video or news articles please add a comment, we’d love to read them.