Greetings, Reader!

Today’s newsletter is about robots (aka AI), the nervous system, and how this technology could actually be making our pain worse. Stick with me on this one!

This is all swirling in my head because this weekend is the last hurrah of summer before I head back into the classroom next week. I teach Anatomy & Physiology at the Community College of Vermont, and while I love teaching, I have to admit that I’m feeling some resistance this year. I’m working through the usual stuff that comes up every year around needing to shift my routines and schedules to open space to teach, but I’m also feeling the weight of being an educator in the age of AI.

I know that every generation wants their children to have more opportunities than they had, and that there is often a tension that arises from that progress. I remember my grandparents fretting about the rise of the calculator, and while I rolled my eyes as a kid, I know that my times tables aren’t as sharp as they used to be, and that I default to the calculator app more often that I’d like to admit instead of putting in the mental effort to figure it out myself.

If they could only see where that convenience has led us! We don’t even have to use a calculator anymore; we can just say the problem out loud and the robots that are listening will answer instantly.

Every semester, students are becoming less and less able to swim in the sea of not knowing. It is getting harder to convince them to put in the effort when the “right” answer is available without having to get their hands dirty. And worse, they feel like they are failing when they can’t solve the problem immediately.

In many ways, what I see in the classroom is similar to what I see in the clinic, and I worry about the impact of this new technology, not just on our ability to learn, think critically, and make our own decisions, but on our ability as humans to tolerate discomfort.

With the rise of AI, we are being trained to outsource our thinking, creating, communicating, and problem-solving. We are essentially forfeiting our ability to grapple with problems and possibility, and training our nervous systems to be intolerant of challenge.

The consequence of this bargain is disembodiment. I fear that the more we listen to the robots, the less we will be able to hear or trust our inner wisdom. If we get used to outsourcing our decision-making processes, will we sacrifice our ability to make intuitive choices that feel right in our bodies and make sense in our minds?

If we settle for the fastest solution, what possibilities will we miss by opting out of the creative process? I don’t know about you, but the things I’m proudest of in my life, and the times when I’ve learned the most, are not the times when things came easy, but the times when I persevered and accomplished something that wasn’t inevitable.

In many ways, the instant convenience of AI parallels some of the growing concerns I’ve had about the medical system. Just like AI is training us to outsource our cognitive processes to produce more with less time and effort, the medical system also encourages us to look for answers outside of ourselves, and to believe that there is a magic pill that will both ensure that we don’t have to feel anything, and that will lead to change without us having to change anything.

This way of thinking makes it really hard to sit with our pain and really listen to its suffering. It causes us to abandon ourselves and our pain because we've been conditioned to believe that we shouldn’t have to struggle.

We cannot outsource our healing, and the less tolerant we become of discomfort, the more our nervous systems will actually perceive pain because pain is a sensation interpreted through the lens of fear.

One of my favorite quotes by the poet, Rumi, is,

Pain is messy, uncomfortable, sometimes intolerable, and often confusing. But it is also a guide, and the only way out of it is through it.

If you are struggling with pain, I hope you will tend to your nervous system and teach it how to experience sensation without activating the pain alarm. AI can’t do that for you, but, luckily, your body is designed to heal and your nervous system can learn if you trust it enough to work through it.

In love and solidarity,

Rachel Doctor of Physical Therapy & Integrative Pain Specialist Rewire your nervous system and break the cycles of chronic pain, depletion, burnout, and overwhelm so you can be fully present for what matters most in your life. ​Click here to book a free consultation with me.

PS: I know AI is a pretty polarizing topic, and I welcome your thoughts. I tell my students every year that I care so much about this because I want them to be able to discern what is true and what is false, to know how to find accurate information, and to be confident in their ability to think critically and make informed decisions. That includes having hard conversations and holding space for multiple perspectives. What do you think? Hit reply and share what’s on your mind. I’d love to hear from you.