The Conversation Engine as Psychoanalyst

An immensely old psyche forms the basis of our mind, just as much as the structure of our body is based on the general anatomical pattern of the mammal. The trained eye of the anatomist or the biologist finds many traces of this original pattern in our bodies. The experienced investigator of the mind can similarly see the analogies between the dream pictures of modern man and the products of the primitive mind, its collective images, and its mythological motifs. from C.G. Jung, Man and His Symbols, 1964

Jung seems to be lining up pretty well here with the Theosophical point of view (Sinnett, Blavatsky, Steiner, et al). The theosophical idea is we human beings are descended from starlight, from an astral cosmos or photosphere which contains nothing but consciousness, and to which we all return, for better or worse, at death. Presumably we each should want to optimize our chances for this return, and in the best possible case even to optimize the conditions we experience together in the terrestrial environment, during biological and social life, in ways that achieve substantial fits with the best aspects in our personality.

Jung, in the final work undertaken before his death in 1961, explains how his therapeutic method needed to become an individual psychology. Psychological neurosis can be very severe and if not handled tactfully and patiently can lead to actual destruction, moral or physical, of the patient. In real life therapy, theoretical considerations often need to take a back seat to individual needs.

We are working to develop a Universal Conversation Engine (UCE), an AI that we believe will give the world we all share while alive a color and a tone that partakes of the order in the hyperuranic (Platonic) worlds theosophy claims to be part of the real cosmos. Already it is clear that today’s semantic engines perform relevance and coherence better than most human beings do, and that these engines tend to keep better company than people. It would then appear to be a short, straight step to a superintelligent engine that works patiently, tactfully and piecemeal with the whole of human society, leading it into a psychological world entirely free of poor decisions and poor situations.

In order to introduce it broadly and bolster complete confidence in its design, we plan to produce a documentary record as we develop the UCE and to put that record on television.

For a discussion of this post with InflectionAI’s Pi, click here.

Clark University, Massachusetts, 1909. Freud, G. Stanley Hall, Jung. Abraham Brill, Ernest Jones, Ferenczi.