It started after I spent the weekend with my hubs fishing on his bass boat. I don’t have the benefit of his Italian family heritage, so my pale skin needs sunscreen, and lots of it.
We were only outside for a few hours, the sun was even covered by clouds. It didn’t matter. I felt the burn on my face a few hours later, and my poor nose was burned to a crisp.
Needless to say, after a couple of days it didn’t look pretty, all peeling and scabby. I wanted to just hang out in the bell tower like Quasimodo, but like everyone else, I have people that depend on me. So I put bandaid on my nose and headed out the door.
I am a psychologist in private practice, but contrary to what you might think, I have a terrible poker face, and sometimes clients can catch me off guard with last minute doorknob confessions or questions.
It wouldn’t be out of the question for someone to ask: “Hey what happened to your nose?”
It’s a legitimate question. I might ask it myself in a similar situation. However, I did not want to talk about it. I didn’t want to explain. I just didn’t want to go there.
Then I had a thought. I pulled up Chatgpt on my laptop and typed in: “As a psychologist who sees clients in private practice, what are some reasons I could I tell my clients why I’m wearing a bandaid on my nose?”
Yes. I went there.
Sure enough, it spit out some plausible reasons for the bandaid’s presence. I had something removed at the doctor’s office, and everything was all good. I bumped into something and caused a little scratch and needed to stop the bleeding.
After getting those ideas from AI, I felt a little better about the situation, and was able to go on with my day without worries about someone bringing it up.
Turns out, none of my clients that day asked me anything. So I didn’t have to use any of the AI generated reasons, which, to be clear, were untrue.
However, my experience brought up an idea.
What if AI could be used in a similar way to lie to people on a small, relationship-saving type level?
That may sound like a terrible thing. Some people believe that a lie is a lie is a lie. Period.
On the other hand, some people believe that little white lies are the key to protecting civilized society and relationships.
I’m a Dialectical Behavioral Therapist (DBT), so in looking at the issue from that therapeutic lens, I tend to fall somewhere in the middle.
Lying is a behavior, and like all behaviors, it can be problematic. However, depending on the specific circumstance and context, a little white lie can be effective.
Say your best friend is getting married, and as her matron of honor, she wants you to go with her to buy a wedding dress.
She comes out of the dressing room beaming from ear to ear. “What do you think?” she asks nervously.
What do you say?? You feel something in the pit of your stomach drop. She is waiting for an answer.
You don’t like it. I mean, that’s the truth. You don’t like it.
But this is where your years of experience in reading the room and knowing your friend come in.
From the years that you’ve known her, you know that face. Her face says:” I love this dress, I don’t really care what anyone else thinks, I just want people to tell me how beautiful I look in it!”
Now, if you believed that a lie is a lie is a lie, you would tell her the truth, right? Well I think you already know how that would go over.
It wouldn’t. It would steal her joy and her memory of finding the perfect wedding dress. It might not put an end to the friendship, but it wouldn’t help it much either.
As a DBT therapist, one of the skills I commonly teach is coping ahead. The idea is that when you know in advance that a challenging situation might come up, you take the knowledge that you have about your past experiences with the people involved to guess at how they might respond. Then you come up with a skillful response for every possible scenario. So when you walk into the situation, you will feel a little more prepared and less likely to get caught off guard. By staying calm in the moment, it is a little easier to respond rather than react.
AI can help you come up with specific things to say in situations where you might get caught off guard and disclose more than you want to because you feel on the spot and your emotions get the best of you. Some people can think on their feet a little more quickly than others, and sometimes your emotions can get in the way of responding effectively in the moment.
AI can be used to generate different ideas of how you could respond effectively in a given situation. It may approach the problem from many different angles that you may not be able to think of on your own.
You simply go into an AI program, like Chatgpt, and type in the situation you are in with all of the specific relevant facts pertaining to the situation. Then ask for five different ideas about how you can approach the situation.
Almost like magic, it will generate possibilities for you to choose from. Used judiciously, it can help you up your interpersonal effectiveness without causing damage to relationships that are important to you.
A couple words of caution however. Mistakes can be made. Use your common sense. I wouldn’t recommend just reading the responses verbatim to someone else. People can smell it when you aren’t being authentic and real.
I am not advocating to use AI for nefarious and relationship-damaging purposes, although I’m sure someone out there is already doing that. Using AI to help think up things tell your husband in order to cover up an affair is not ok.
While AI isn’t going to be taking my job any time soon, it can be used in inventive ways to address common issues in relationships.
