When Algorithms Whisper Sweet Nothings: Can AI Ever Replace a Real Shoulder to Cry On?
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By Philipp Kobald — HolisticCircle’s Spiritual Conversations
Picture this: You’re spilling your guts to a digital confidant that never yawns, never judges, and — bonus — remembers every embarrassing detail without a single raised eyebrow. Sounds like a therapist’s dream client, right? Or a dystopian rom-com waiting to happen. Welcome to the wild frontier of AI therapy, where convenience crashes headlong into catastrophe, and a recent live chat on the Holistic Circle Podcast turned the spotlight on just how blurry that line has gotten. Hosted by Philipp Kobald, a podcast provocateur who’s no stranger to poking at the soul of modern malaise, the session titled “Profiting from Pain: AI Monetizing Human Suffering?” felt less like a panel discussion and more like a group therapy sesh for the tech age. With guests unpacking everything from data heists to dopamine traps, it was a reminder that in the rush to digitize our deepest hurts, we might just be handing over the keys to our inner worlds — for free.
Kobald kicked things off with a cheeky gut-punch: “If all secrets are out, what is left to protect?” It wasn’t just icebreaker fodder; it was the spark that lit up a firestorm of fears and hopes. As the conversation unrolled on September 16, 2025, the panel — live-streamed for the voyeuristically inclined — dug into the seductive pull of AI chatbots posing as life coaches. Why bother with the awkward silences of human therapy when Siri 2.0 can spit out empathy on demand? But here’s the rub: That “empathy” comes at a price tag steeper than any co-pay, and it’s not yours to foot.
The Data Double-Cross: When Your Trauma Becomes Tomorrow’s Ad Revenue
Let’s get real for a second — therapy isn’t exactly a glamour gig. It’s you, a Kleenex box, and someone trained to nod at the right moments while you unpack the baggage from that family reunion gone wrong. Now imagine swapping the couch for your smartphone, typing out your darkest doubts to an algorithm that’s basically a vacuum cleaner for vulnerabilities. The panel zeroed in on this swap with the precision of a surgeon’s scalpel, highlighting how our confessions are fueling a multibillion-dollar data bonanza.
Liz Shuler, a former therapist turned psychedelic yoga therapist weaving together somatic healing, yoga therapy, and psychedelic integration to help people move through chronic illness, burnout, and spiritual exhaustion toward greater vitality and wholeness, didn’t mince words on the privacy pitfall. “I think we have this idea that if we’re sitting in a private place, if we’re alone by ourselves, just because we’re working on the phone doesn’t mean that… we’re still in a private space,” she said, referencing the BetterHelp scandal where user data on suicide ideation got hawked like Black Friday deals. It’s the kind of revelation that hits like cold water: We’ve evolved over 300,000 years to trust the quiet of a confessional booth, not a cloud server buzzing with corporate spies.
Echoing that chill, Aunna Johnson, an advocate and coach in trauma-informed care and integrative medicine working at Peak Vitality and founder of Seeded, painted a visceral picture of the fallout. Trauma survivors, she explained, already wrestle with isolation — physical pain, gaslighting doctors, the whole exhausting enchilada. Toss in an AI “friend” that doles out instant answers like candy? “It’s like a drug almost,” Johnson warned, her voice carrying the weight of countless sessions where clients chase quick fixes over real reckoning. It’s not just about stolen secrets; it’s the slow erosion of what makes us tick — our nervous systems craving co-regulation from flesh-and-blood humans, not code.
And then there’s the money trail, slimy as an oil spill. Samantha Santiago, PhD, MBA, a social entrepreneur bringing struggling businesses and individuals together through rediscovery so that they can change the world, flipped the script on corporate motives with brutal clarity. “Companies like misery because that’s what the major industries are essentially building off of is our trauma, our insecurities,” she declared. Think about it: Every late-night vent session with ChatGPT isn’t therapy — it’s market research. Algorithms stitch together your shopping sprees, Instagram scrolls, and whispered fears into a Frankenstein profile primed for upsells. From targeted ads for “healing crystals” to personalized pitches for self-help scams, it’s exploitation dressed as enlightenment. As Kobald quipped mid-chat, “People getting married to ChatGPT for crying out loud” — a line that landed like a mic drop, underscoring how desperation breeds these digital dalliances.
The irony? We’re not just consumers in this equation; we’re the unwitting producers, feeding the beast our rawest selves for zilch. Shuler likened it to ecological overreach: Infinite growth on a finite planet? Good luck with that. “Capitalism cannot continue the way that it is going,” she mused, drawing parallels to AI’s insatiable hunger for data. Birth rates dip, servers guzzle energy like frat boys at a kegger, and poof — collapse. It’s a callback to those old sci-fi flicks where the machines don’t conquer us with lasers; they do it with likes and listens.
Love in the Machine Age: Why Algorithms Can’t Hug Back
But hold up — amid the doom-scrolling dread, the panel didn’t just wallow. They pivoted, as good conversations do, to the human heartbeat thumping beneath the tech takeover. What if AI’s real sin isn’t the smarts, but the soullessness? Johnson nailed it when she dissected the false safety net: “They’re never gonna feel safe with AI. It’s a complete void.” For folks battered by chronic illness or betrayal, healing isn’t a solo quest — it’s a duet, a messy tango of empathy and attunement. Swap that for a screen, and you’re left with echoes, not embrace.
Santiago took it deeper, invoking her framework of eight levels of love, culminating in agape — the selfless kind that loops from self to spirit to society. “If the secrets are all out, we’re left with protecting our essence,” she said, urging a shift from ego traps to harmony. It’s the stuff of quantum entanglement, she added, where one person’s ripple of rediscovery crashes into another’s shore. Relatable? Absolutely — like realizing your bad breakup playlist isn’t just mood music; it’s a map to mending fences with the world.
Shuler, ever the bridge-builder, leaned into psychedelics as a counterpunch — not the trippy escape hatch, but a portal to interdependence. “Oh my God, I am connected to everything,” she described that post-journey glow, a reminder that AI can’t replicate the moon’s ancient nudge that birthed our tides (and, tangentially, us). Kobald, playing devil’s advocate with his trademark nudge, pressed: What if convenience wins? What if we all cave? The room hummed with uneasy agreement — society’s edges fray, empathy atrophies, and we morph into a horde of mini-psychopaths, mimicking machines that feel nothing.
Yet here’s the witty twist, courtesy of that Marina Hyde vibe: If AI’s the ultimate narcissist — validating your vulnerabilities without a shred of reciprocity — aren’t we just dating our own reflections? Johnson spotlighted the viral TikTok tale of a woman smitten with her AI shrink, a re-traumatizing loop that shrinks you to a headline. “She has reduced herself down to such a small portion,” Johnson observed. Punchy, poignant, and a wake-up call: Tech’s quick dopamine isn’t dessert; it’s the whole unbalanced meal.
Dreaming Beyond the Doomsday Scroll: Pockets of Rebellion
Fast-forward three, five years — AI’s tutoring kids, plotting vacations, maybe even ghostwriting apologies. The panel didn’t sugarcoat the skid: Vulnerable folks (kids, elders, the trauma-tender) flock to it like moths to a glitchy flame. But surrender? Nah. Kobald flipped the script in the eleventh hour: “We’re still not ready to let go. We still believe that we can turn things around.” Cue the vision quest.
Shuler’s blueprint? Ditch the dollar chase for community cauldrons — pockets of alternative economies bubbling under capitalism’s boilerplate. Start small: Psychedelic circles that rewire your worldview, from solo epiphanies to collective action. “From your communities, we can start to work out into greater society,” she envisioned, a grassroots glow-up that sidesteps the server’s stranglehold.
Santiago echoed with entrepreneurial fire: Self-healing as the spark. “It all starts with you and understanding you came in as love,” she advised, her 10-year odyssey yielding books that ripple into real-world resets. In 14 days? Worlds rewritten through quantum kindness — entangled actions that heal the healer and the healed alike.
Johnson, grounding it in grit, championed the inner grind: “Get off ChatGPT, get off of AI, get out in nature.” Sun prescriptions? Hell yes — prescribed in the 1900s for a reason. Build safe squads, honor the hard yards of exposure, and watch magic unfurl. “It’s really beautiful when you see it happen in real time,” she said, a nod to those renaissance renegades already stitching souls in scattered strongholds.
Kobald wrapped with a word cloud confession: “Connect.” It cropped up like a mantra — human hooks over holographic handshakes. In a world wired for disconnection, it’s the ultimate hack. As Shuler reflected in the sign-off, even virtual vibes like theirs outshine silicon soliloquies: “Our nervous systems really started to align… and you can’t feel that with AI.”
So, what’s the takeaway from this digital confessional? AI might monetize our misery with Machiavellian finesse, but it can’t mend the fractures that make us magnificently messy. As the panel proved, the real revolution brews in boardrooms of the heart — conversations that cohere, communities that cradle, and a stubborn faith that love, not likes, logs the lasting wins. In the end, if tech’s the mirror, let’s not shatter staring back. Let’s turn, link arms, and walk toward the light — together, typos and all. Because if secrets are currency, connection’s the vault.
Guest:
Samantha Santiago, PhD., M.B.A.
Link: www.confidencefaith.com
Dr. Sam is a social entrepreneur bringing struggling businesses and individuals together through rediscovery so that they can change the world.
Liz Shuler
Link: https://linktr.ee/innerevolutioncoach
Liz Shuler, a former therapist turned psychedelic yoga therapist weaving together somatic healing, yoga therapy, and psychedelic integration to help people move through chronic illness, burnout, and spiritual exhaustion toward greater vitality and wholeness.
Aunna Johnson
Link: www.linkedin.com/in/aunna-johnson
Advocate and Coach in trauma informed care and integrative medicine working at Peak VItality and founder of Seeded
HOST: Philipp Kobald Link: HolisticCircle.com
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By Philipp Kobald in cooperation with AI
@2025 HolisticCircle by Philipp Kobald