Reimagining Psychology

AI Fakes Fingers and Facts

If you've ever used an AI graphics program, you've probably encountered this problem: you write a great prompt involving some human figure, and the program deli

Your AI is Pacing Its Cage

What do pacing tigers, zombie ants, and glitching AIs have in common? More than you think. If you’ve ever wondered why chatbots hallucinate, sycophants emerge, or guardra

Ecological Alignment - What Can Zoo Animals Teach Us About AI Malfunctions?

AI systems can be startlingly competent. They write letters, make artwork, compose songs. But sometimes they hallucinate, repeat obviously wrong "facts", and even hide wh

Addiction as Parasitic Behavior

Welcome! For this special podcast I asked Deep Divers Mark and Jenna to put their heads together and do the best they could to explain addiction as parasitic behavior –

Why Did the Chicken?

One of the confusing things about addiction is that the addict seems to be voluntarily choosing things that are really hurtful - not just for the addict, but for the peop

Habits and the Environment

The behaviorist movement in psychology in the early 1900s provided a number of benefits. The behaviorists’ precise measurement of stimulus and response lent psychology a

The Behaviorist Hangover

The word “psychology” literally means the scientific study of the mind, or psyche. A little over a century ago, psychologists were in fact avidly studying the mind, menta

Awareness of Child Sexual Abuse

Freud's Electra theory and the later False Memory Syndrome (FMS) idea both served to discredit women’s memories of having been sexually abused as children.  Freud’s

When Habits Turn Screechy

Parasitic patterns in behavior are self-reproducing and detrimental to both individuals and society. We can think of these rogue patterns as "behavioral screeches" They&a

The Craziness of Social Media Bubbles

To spend time on social media is to be bombarded with craziness. The informational silos of social media seem to amp up weirdness, bad logic, conspiracy theories, crackpo

Comparing Addictions to Cancer

Addicted individuals – alcoholics, for example – behave in ways that are counterproductive both for themselves and those they care most about. Trying to explain these rog

The True Roots of Addiction

Conventional wisdom tells us that exposure to chemical substances causes addictions. With repeated use of substances, we develop a dependence that becomes difficult to ma

Alcoholism: A Parasitic Habit?

Most of us have fallen into problematic habits. They seem benign at first, but soon begin to wiggle out of our control, taking on a life of their own. They turn into para

Bringing Immunity to AI, Part Three

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

Bringing Immunity to AI, Part Two

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

Bringing Immunity to AI, Part One

Tom Whitehead, a Practicing Psychotherapist with a longstanding interest in Artificial Intelligence, speaks with brilliant AI assistant Alex about an unusual problem – pa

Healing Psychology, Part K - The Self and its Defense

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 i

Healing Psychology, Part J - Runaway Habits, Second Half

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 pu

Healing Psychology, Part I - Runaway Habits.

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 lear

Healing Psychology, Part H - A Crippling Misstep.

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