Host: I'm really excited to have on Paul Bloom today. He has an absolutely fascinating take on AI and loneliness. He says two things. One, AI can help solve loneliness. AI chatbots can help us feel less lonely. But, and this is the second part of the argument, he says that's a problem. We need loneliness sometimes in some ways to help us. It shapes us in often subtle but important ways. So, let's get to that.

Host: I want to welcome the wonderful Paul Bloom onto the show.

Paul Bloom: I am thrilled to be here.

Host: You are a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto. Uh you're a professor emeritus of psychology at Yale. So, you've been putting out some really fascinating work on AI and loneliness. So, we're going to get into all that. Uh but first, let's sort of set up our problem here. The United Kingdom created a minister of loneliness. Uh Japan created a minister of loneliness. How should we understand the problem of loneliness?

Paul Bloom: Loneliness is awful. Loneliness is one of the most terrible forms of human suffering. And, you know, you can think of in terms of solitude. You just have nobody in your life. And and a lot of people in the world are like that, particularly old people, institutionalized, no friends, no family, spending their days and nights alone. But, you know, you feel loneliness even if you're surrounded by people. If you don't feel loved or respected, understood, and needed. Loneliness has terrible health consequences. It's presumably worse than being obese, worse than than smoking a pack a day.

Host: Yeah.

Paul Bloom: But, you know, even if it even if it had no health consequences, anybody who suffered from periods of deep loneliness knows how bad it is.

Host: And there's an evolutionary component. There's this I think there's this feeling of way back in the day prehistorically, if you were away from your people, it was a danger. You survived with others. So, there would be these evolutionary, like almost alarm bells that go off. Is that why it's so painful? Does that tell a bit of the story?

Paul Bloom: I think it tells the the most important part of the story. We live in an unusual time now, where I really could go a very long time without talking to anybody. I could order my food in from Uber Eats and have them drop it off at the door. I get my entertainment through Netflix. I could read books, you know. And and I could live in a solitary environment and maybe do fine.

Host: Yeah.

Paul Bloom: But through in the environment in which we evolve, we everything of value, everything necessary for life was provided by other people.

Host: Mhm.

Paul Bloom: And so, social isolation wasn't just going to be a bad thing. It was death.

Host: Yeah.

Paul Bloom: And in fact, one when when if you were to be abandoned by your group, it's essentially a form of murder.

Host: Yeah.

Paul Bloom: This is what they do when they want to kill somebody. They leave you behind. And then you're you're in the wilderness by yourself and then you die.

Host: Yeah. And this is the hardware we're left with when we're alone. Okay, so in steps AI. We have, I think more and more people are using chatbots, be it Claude, be it ChatGPT. How can We can go in slowly here. There's a lot. How can, in your view, AI and chatbots help someone feel less lonely?

Paul Bloom: Well, a lot of people say that they get some sort of social sustenance from interacting with Claude or Gemini, ChatGPT.

Host: Mhm.

Paul Bloom: Um the data are are controversial and we should get into this. There's a lot of studies showing that in the short term, you you you find your loneliness goes away.

Host: Yeah.

Paul Bloom: You enjoy these contacts. In the longer term, there was a study that just came out looking at people over the course of a year.

Host: Yeah.

Paul Bloom: And at the end of the year, the people get even more lonely if they're in constant contact with

Host: Right.

Paul Bloom: with these with these AIs. If I was making the case for it, and I'm willing to partially make the case for it,

Host: Okay.

Paul Bloom: I'll go I'll think about the old.

Host: Yeah.

Paul Bloom: So, there's there's a lot of elderly people, millions upon millions of people who are are many of them are institution in institutions. Their family won't see them or their family is dead. They have no friends. They are totally isolated. Maybe they have dementia.

Host: Yeah.

Paul Bloom: Maybe they have all sorts of problems that make it difficult for them to interact with people. I think in those cases, having an empathetic conversation partner that never gets tired and is always there could do some real good.

Host: That's kind of like antidepressants. They can work They can help. There's the poop out effects, they call it. Not a great term for antidepressants, where after a year sometimes they stop working. The poop out effect for AI and chatbots you're describing, people over months can feel better and less lonely, and then they can feel worse. What do we How should we understand what's going on there?

Paul Bloom: I think we should admit we don't know.

Host: Okay.

Paul Bloom: I mean I'm telling you about studies. I'm telling you about studies that were done a year ago using chatbots from a year ago. Now they're different. We just have not had enough time with them to know what their short-term effects are long-term effects for for good or for bad.

Host: Yeah.

Paul Bloom: And so it's going to be I I'm pretty confident it's going to that the prevalence of AI companions is going to transform our lives. I don't know how it will transform our lives.

Host: Yes. In 2024, you published a paper in praise of empathic AI. I think it's fair to say that you got a wee bit of pushback on that. Why do you think people recoil at this idea, especially of empathic AI?

Paul Bloom: Um they recoil with some good reason.

Host: Yep.

Paul Bloom: I mean, we were clear in in the article, and I'll I'll credit or blame the first author, Michael Inzlicht, my my colleague at University of Toronto. We were clear that by empathic we meant gives the impression of empathy, gives the impression of understanding, of of connection. We're we're agnostic about whether or not it actually has any of these things. We probably think right now it doesn't, but it feels that way. What we did in our paper was recite study after study after study showing that if you don't know what you're dealing with, and we would put you in front of a person or a chatbot, we have you interact with a person or a chatbot,

Host: Yeah.

Paul Bloom: the chatbot wins. You say more understanding, more loving, more empathic. And um and this opens um some possibilities. I mentioned before the suffering of the elderly.

Host: Mhm.

Paul Bloom: Another venue is therapy. Another venue is just everyday loneliness. Maybe it could do some good.

Host: Do you think I don't I read this I think the piece is few months old, but you said that you don't you don't think AI is conscious.

Paul Bloom: No, I don't.

Host: Okay. So, if AI doesn't AI doesn't have a mind, so you think there needs to be a mind for there to be real empathy there?

Paul Bloom: Yeah, I do.

Host: Okay.

Paul Bloom: I think that If I if I'm communicating to a chatbot and it says, "Oh, you know, I really feel for you, and this sounds awful." And

Host: Right.

Paul Bloom: Um maybe there's the illusion uh of empathy, and maybe the illusion of empathy is enough. Though there's moral questions about AI fool you.

Host: Yes.

Paul Bloom: But still, without a mind, without consciousness, it's just, you know, it's fancy autocomplete. It's a stochastic parrot. It's all of those things.

Host: Yeah, yeah.

Paul Bloom: Now, I don't think current AIs are conscious.

Host: Okay.

Paul Bloom: And and cuz it's controversial. The the the the godfather AI, Jeff Hinton, a fellow fellow UFT uh faculty member, says current AIs are conscious and they have emotions and have feelings and so on. I think this is mistaken.

Host: Okay.

Paul Bloom: But, I grant the possibility that 10 years from now we will be dealing with conscious AIs. And that's going to change everything.

Host: But, would we know? We don't really have a test for consciousness. So, so I think in your piece you talked about how folks that might be getting some nourishment from talking to an AI and feeling less lonely, there might be a level of self-deception there where they have to. But, we don't we don't really know for sure. We we can't know when and if that happens.

Paul Bloom: No, you're right. We don't know for sure. We have no good theory of consciousness that could apply a test saying, "That's conscious. That's not conscious. That's conscious." So, the debate over history has been happening over all sorts of animals. Most people would say, "Oh, well, a dog or a cat has some degree of real experience, can feel pain, for instance."

Host: Yeah.

Paul Bloom: It gets more complicated than that. And now we have to ask the question about about AIs, and we have no way of knowing. All we have is intuitions, basically.

Host: Yeah, so in terms of uh therapy, uh I was once taught cognitive behavioral therapy by something called a Woebot. It wasn't a large language model, it was done by these brilliant folks at Stanford. And that's very formulaic. But, for a lot of people therapy is a big part of it is just being able to sit with someone and having them having an actual mind listen to you. So, I'm curious, where are we at now with understanding how effective uh AI can be, chatbots can be as a therapist?

Paul Bloom: There are some preliminary studies which provide somewhat promising results, but I wouldn't I wouldn't trust them or make too much of them.

Host: Yeah.

Paul Bloom: But I think the therapist, part of the therapist is a a person who has a mind, and who can understand you.

Host: Right.

Paul Bloom: So, if you're talking to a chatbot, you're not getting a therapist. You're getting something else.

Host: Do you think there's a risk of AI chatbots being too empathic? Sort of like a super sycophantic machine that's ready to just nod along with you and agree with whatever you say.

Paul Bloom: I do. I do. They're designed to be sycophants.

Host: Yeah.

Paul Bloom: They agree with you, they praise you.

Host: Right.

Paul Bloom: They tell you how wonderful you are.

Host: appreciate how wonderful I am. And so, they're kind of great. And I want to go back to this sycophantic machine that that that that really makes me feel good about myself.

Paul Bloom: It draws out the more narcissistic parts of us.

Host: Yeah.

Paul Bloom: A little bit.

Host: And you might think, well, how big a deal could this be? You just go you go you go you change the settings. Everybody who uses chat or Claude knows you can just change the settings and they stop doing that.

Paul Bloom: Yeah.

Host: But I think the problem is, in the short term, at least, we don't want it to stop doing it. We like the feeling of being praised and being comforted.

Paul Bloom: Yeah.

Host: So, in in that way, too, it's like a drug.

Paul Bloom: Yeah. And back to the empathic part. I've always been quite obsessed with how we look at each other. Not just you and I, Paul, but people in general. I think a lot of therapy is undoing and learning how you were seen when you were a kid. If you were neglected, if you weren't attuned to, if you were seen with malevolent eyes or angry eyes. And then on the other side of that, if you think about your best relationships in your life, those are ones where you feel seen and heard. And for me, that's there's this feeling of home. And if I was going to think of a word that's the opposite of loneliness, it would be home. And home may be where you hang your hat, maybe where your heart is, but I think home is where your people are. Home is is inevitably like relational. And so, I'm curious, do you do we need others to feel that sense of home? And further down the horizon, could a chatbot ever offer that sense of home?

Host: I mean, they may offer it now, at least some people. A lot of people receive solace from chatbots.

Paul Bloom: Yeah.

Host: We don't know where the technology will be 10, 20 years from now. I mean, right now, for instance, we communicate with chatbots by talking or by typing. But, how far are we away from something where I'm sitting staring at a screen, a big screen, and there it is, as if I'm looking at you, you know, that that that this handsome, normal-looking guy staring at me with interest and engagement. But now it's an AI. But but I can't help but see it as a person.

Paul Bloom: Yeah. Okay. And will we do that with everything? We we we we see minds everywhere very easily. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

Host: It is, we talked before about evolution. It makes kind of sense to to quickly jump to the inference there's somebody there, there's somebody looking at me. You get it wrong, no big deal. You get it you but you don't want to miss a case where there's a real mind out there.

Paul Bloom: Yeah.

Host: But um but I think it could lead us to be fooled.

Paul Bloom: Yeah.

Host: And um and and I would have moral problems, you know, if we if And know, a little there's a little bit of irony because we do we take animals which we know are conscious if we know anything. We know our pigs and cows are conscious. You know, we we they suck up to us. Uh, you know, chickens, pigs have deep complex social hierarchies, relationships, and so on. Um, we we you know, they they they die terribly by the billions. And it would be funny or ironic at least if we continue to neglect their suffering. We'll become exquisitely attuned to the suffering of chatbots.

Paul Bloom: So, what what other moral problems do you potentially see?

Host: Well, I'm not entirely positive about the use of these AIs in alleviating loneliness. I think for the elderly really I really am positive, but but for younger people and young adults are those who suffer the most from loneliness.

Paul Bloom: Yeah.

Host: I think that there's a real risks. And there's a couple of risks, but but but one I'll focus on is from the sycophantic nature of these AIs. I think takes away the opportunity for social growth and learning.

Paul Bloom: Yeah.

Host: so, you know,

Paul Bloom: Yeah.

Host: you're a teenager and you learn you start you tell long boring stories, but you learn that you're boring people and they tune out. You're not a very good social person and so you get better. You you learn to apologize because you know, you offend people. You learn to express an interest in other people because this is how they stick around and are your friends. But an AI needs none of that. An AI will never need an apology from you. Will never roll his eyes as you tell your boring story. Will never be offended. Everything you say is wonderful to it. Now, this might be immensely pleasurable to deal with, but it's also a recipe for creating a really awful person.

Paul Bloom: So, if we did, and this is the big if, if if AI companions evolve to a level that they did solve for loneliness. Bigger picture, would we be better off?

Host: In some ways, I mean my my answer is not going to be a neat one in some ways. In some ways ways obviously yes cuz loneliness is a form of suffering. A parallel question. If we'd all taken out fentanyl that it would would obliterate all of the everyday aches and pains, all of the suffering of chronic pain and so on. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. But the negative side is say just assuming that The negative side is it might ruin our capacity to have relationships with others. It might it might make us worse people. It might it might make us lose the sort of social give and take with other people who have their own needs, their own desires, their own priorities that I think make us human. And you take that away, I think in some ways that's a disastrous consequence.

Paul Bloom: So do we need and make it's tough. There's lots of gray area here, but do we need loneliness in our lives sometimes in some measure?

Host: I think we definitely need social pain.

Paul Bloom: Okay.

Host: I think social pain is the corrective force. Just like you know a toddler learns to walk by falling down. You know, a cook learns to cook by tasting the food and it's not quite right. A boxer learns to block by getting punched in the face. We learn to become social creatures by messing up sometimes, by trial and error. And full-blown loneliness maybe doesn't have to be, but it has to be the sort sort of a little bit of the hurt of not being understood, the the hurt of being of of oh, I've offended somebody, I've bored somebody. That's all that's all doesn't feel good. I'd rather not have that. But without that you know, we wouldn't grow to be people.

Paul Bloom: I I want to talk about solitude a little bit. So there's there's loneliness and solitude. And so for me every year starting in my early 30s, I would I'll spend three or four nights alone in a cabin in nature. The first time I did it, I like I hated it. Like it was it was terrible. To be to finally be alone with my thoughts, not being able to grab out a phone was like a lot. And then as I did it a bit more, kind of got over the hump and it was this really nice feeling of being alone with my thoughts. And they would to a certain level sometimes entertain me. Different things would come up that I would have never been in touch with if I didn't leave that space of being alone. Uh and then sometimes your thoughts slow down enough that you can let more of the world in and that's it's own pleasant thing. But the thing that I always found when I go away for like four nights is I've been completely alone. I haven't even texted with anyone. But when I come back, I'm more available for my pals. Like I can the there's a richer there's a richer connection. So do you think that um to a certain level learning to be alone can help us have richer connections in our lives?

Host: Absolutely. Um Susan Cain writes about introverts and she she makes exactly that case. She says, you know, a little bit of quiet Her book's called Quiet. And and a little bit of quiet, a little bit of time away from people, time to reflect um allows us to to expand our creative pursuits, allows us to think through things, allows us to to expand as people.

Paul Bloom: Mhm.

Host: So just as, you know, contact with other people very important, but also also being by ourselves is very important.

Paul Bloom: Yeah.

Host: And and this is an argument for solitude of the sort you're practicing. It's also an argument for escaping from our digital distractions.

Paul Bloom: Yeah.

Host: You know, and I I am I you know, I do not practice what I preach. I am very very rarely away from my phone for more than an hour.

Paul Bloom: I I I can fully admit I have a phone addiction.

Host: So, you know.

Paul Bloom: It's too much.

Host: And so the endless distractions of the phone um make us kind of make it hard to be bored at any second I can always I can always play play a word game or listen to a podcast or check my email and anything like that. But in the long term I think it leads to sort of like a higher level of boredom and in fact again Mickey Ensley from U of T has done some studies finding that even though we have these endless digital distractions the extent to which people are bored described themselves as bored has either stayed constant or has in some cases risen. Even though we have all of these distractions available.

Paul Bloom: Why why do you think that is?

Host: I think because part of what bores us is something which is not engaging just distracting.

Paul Bloom: It's like a drip drip.

Host: Like a drip drip and you know to to to really escape from boredom you need to actually put something into it. You need to sort of focus have an extended interaction with like a good movie or a good TV show or a good book. But the endless list drip drip of Tik Tok videos and notifications and likes and so on in the end make us feel antsy and uncomfortable and unhappy.

Paul Bloom: Can we find that valuable solitude if we aren't willing to be lonely first?

Host: I think we can. I think solitude and loneliness are different they're separable. This Atlantic writer Derek Thompson has a wonderful article where he points out that Americans and Canadians and any product everywhere are far more alone than we've ever been. You ask people how many times how many have you eaten dinner alone over last week? Have you when have you been to a party with other people and so on. People solitude has increased radically over say the last decade. Loneliness not so much. And so you could pull them apart and you could also imagine take your case you're out in the woods for three days you're you're but you know there are people who love you. You know you have friends in the wings. So you're you're fine with solitude because you're still you're still socially connected. Just not now.

Paul Bloom: Yeah, there's a there's a great quote from from Sherry Turkle here. Uh if kids don't learn how to be alone with themselves, they will grow up only knowing how to be lonely. Does that Does that register for you?

Host: Yeah. I think um you know, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi writes about flow, right? Sustained focus. And a lot of his attention towards the sort of near to end of his career he's focusing on adolescence and children. He made the case that part of learning to be, you know, a full competent creative agentic person is learning to to engage in focused concentration, non-distraction, and often you do this by yourself. And so one of the gifts I would love to give, you know, to people I love, their children, you know, my children, would be um would be the capacity to be alone, the capacity to feel solitude.

Paul Bloom: Some of our best moments intentionally are when we're lost and not in our heads. Right? And where there is this the quiet. It feels like we're creating a world. Yes, we all know the social media thing, the constant distraction. It's intentionally grabbing us at every moment. But now we potentially have these chatbots. At any moment we can just be querying anything with, whether it's to be lonely or not, whether it's to reaffirm that uh that person shouldn't have said that thing to me in the meeting, and of course it will reaffirm it. It feels like we have this tidal force of a trillion-dollar economy that's moving our attention all in the place we know makes us more miserable versus the place where we're slow and present.

Host: Yeah.

Paul Bloom: Is that too catastrophic?

Host: No, it's it's catastrophic enough.

Paul Bloom: Okay.

Host: Uh but

Paul Bloom: That should be your podcast name, by the way. Catastrophic enough.

Host: I'll go with that. But where to blame?

Paul Bloom: That's to be my point. We're We're to blame. They're only giving us what we want. You know, you know, we complain that they give us these these 5-second videos. That's what we want. We We We We want the endless release, the endless distraction, the endless entertainment, and so on. When chatbots As chatbots get more popular, we always want to be able to talk to somebody. We always want to be praised. We always want support. And there's a distinction between what we want and what's good for us. But, you know, we will We'll get what's good for us as soon as we're willing to pay for it and give up what we want in the short term.

Host: Yeah. So, we need to feel the discomfort of loneliness sometimes to live good lives. I'm trying to package this into the to the sweet spot. How does this insight, do you think, uh connects to the larger premise of uh the sweet spot? The pleasures of suffering in the search for meaning.

Paul Bloom: Yeah, the the larger premise of the sweet spot, available at your better bookstores everywhere, the larger the large the larger premise is that a good life includes suffering. It includes pain. It includes struggle.

Host: Yeah.

Paul Bloom: And it does this in a couple of ways. One thing is even a lot of pleasure includes pain. You know, spicy foods and hot baths and BDSM and so on. There There's sort of a pain-pleasure balance where sometimes exposing yourself to pain and suffering expands and gives you more pleasure. And I spent the first part of the book talking about that. But But the big argument is that a life is What makes a life valuable is meaningful pursuits. And we're wired up such that for something to be meaningful, it has to be hard.

Host: Yeah.

Paul Bloom: You know, um I ran a mar- I ran a New York Marathon a long time ago. And and I was, you know, out of shape, and it took me a long time to train for it. It meant a lot for me.

Host: Yeah.

Paul Bloom: I have friends who are in great shape, and they I could just, you know, hop over and run a marathon the next day. But, it won't mean that much to them.

Host: Right.

Paul Bloom: Um you ask people what's meaningful in their lives, and they'll tell you that raising kids,

Host: Yeah.

Paul Bloom: starting a business, being married,

Host: Yeah.

Paul Bloom: um uh intellectual pursuits, physical pursuits. But, what they have in common, have in common is they they are in some way morally good. They make the world better. They they they help other people.

Host: Yeah.

Paul Bloom: But, also they have in common is they're hard. They're difficult.

Host: Yeah.

Paul Bloom: They um the jobs that people rank as most meaningful are jobs like um uh social worker, being in the military, being part of the clergy, being a doctor.

Host: Yeah.

Paul Bloom: Jobs that involve tension, and difficulty, and struggle. And uh and and so, in some way, difficulty and struggle is part of a good life.

Host: Do you think we recognize these moments in our lives where there is that sweet spot of friction and difficulty and challenge um as as good, or do we really just note the the very easy pleasurable ones and feel like that's the good life for us?

Paul Bloom: I think people differ.

Host: Okay.

Paul Bloom: I think people differ a lot. I think some people have sort of understand themselves well enough that they go for the difficult thing.

Host: Yeah.

Paul Bloom: I think other people are just maybe wrong about what makes their life fulfilling. So, they'll watch Netflix and drink and just do nothing, sit on the sofa and do nothing.

Host: Yeah.

Paul Bloom: And, you know, they're not entirely wrong. There's pleasures to be had that don't involve suffering,

Host: Yeah.

Paul Bloom: that don't involve difficulty. But, I think they're sort of wrong in the in in the long term.

Host: Yeah.

Paul Bloom: I think the advice I would give to somebody I cared for is take on the big, difficult life projects. Find a relationship, raise children, start a business, write a book, learn a new language, whatever.

Host: And, it's not going to be fun in the simple sense of fun. Nobody's know pouring champagne down your mouth while rubbing your shoulders. It's but it's still in the long term where you'll look back and say that was a great life.

Paul Bloom: So if there's really good advice to give someone who just finished university, 21, 22, it's lean into the discomfort. You're not going to start a job, you're not going to start an internship, you're not going to be somewhere where it's going to feel comfortable or necessarily safe. That word's become very loaded these days, but lean into the discomfort. That's the good stuff.

Host: There, commencement speaker. But that's fair to say, right? Do you think kids are less willing to do that now though? I know we get into tough territory here, but are kids are kids more likely to want to feel comfortable versus leaning into the discomfort that that brings them meaning?

Paul Bloom: The kids today, they're the worst.

Host: As every generation has said forever.

Paul Bloom: Yeah. I won't compare. Like I don't I don't know if every kid in in the 1920s were really lazy, awful people and they were were much worse than they are now. But I mean part of nature of being a kid is, you know, you like whatever the equivalent is of, you know, of cotton candy and and and sitting in your jammies watching, you know, action shows on TV and running around goofing around. To to endure sustained difficulty and challenge is really really hard. And and requires level of discipline, requires social support, requires your parents telling you to do it in the beginning. It's It's in the nature of a kid to want to goof off and have fun.

Host: Yeah. And and I and your example of parenting, how is parenting a really good example for folks of the sweet spot? Because I think some people, this may have been a little bit further back in the day, were sort of sold parenting as this wonderful thing that's great all the time. But it can I a bunch of my friends have just had kids and they have been struggling a little bit with like this is this is really hard sometimes. This this really this really sucks. But that's kind of the point, isn't it?

Paul Bloom: So there's there's a data on parenting. The great question is, you know, does having kids make you happier, less happy? And the results are kind of a mess. Okay. Um it depends on the country, for instance, in the United States there's a lot of evidence that being having kids makes you less happy. In other countries there are more social support for parents like more more parental leave and more day cares that are available, it makes you a bit more happy.

Host: Yeah.

Paul Bloom: But it's complicated. Older parents are happier than younger parents. Men get more of a boost from having kids than women.

Host: Okay.

Paul Bloom: You know, there's complicated trade-offs. But I think the answer to your question, I'm not really answering your question, I'm just talking in terms of happiness.

Host: Yes.

Paul Bloom: You ask people about meaning and and significance and regrets. And it turns out most people feel good about having kids after the fact.

Host: Mhm.

Paul Bloom: And and when they and and I think most people acknowledge it's not like I just add up the happiness points the heatons. Having kids was just the genius move.

Host: Yeah.

Paul Bloom: You know, um my wife and I have a have a three-month-old.

Host: Are you in the sweet spot now, do you feel?

Paul Bloom: I I am in you know, I really like going to movies and I have not been able to go to movies.

Host: Okay.

Paul Bloom: Um I also, you know, for the first couple months I also enjoy sleeping and taking showers. Those things I had Those things I had I had to give up give up, too. It was tough.

Host: Mhm.

Paul Bloom: It was tough, but even then, you know, to to feel love for a new creature, to feel like this immense staggering responsibility

Host: Mhm.

Paul Bloom: is good. And you know, you live a life well lived without kids. There's a lot of ways to scratch this itch. But I think that somebody who says will children make me happier is maybe asking the wrong question. I think the answer is maybe maybe not.

Host: Yeah.

Paul Bloom: But I think the question is will children add meaning to my life? The answer is probably yes.

Host: Yeah. I feel like video game designers understand the the point of the sweet spot quite well. And you know, if you're playing a video game level, if it's too hard, you just it's terrible. If it's too easy, it's not fun. If it's just right, that's that's that's a fun great video game. And then so we should live our lives like a good video game.

Paul Bloom: Well, well, it's ridiculous but

Host: Well, it's scored though.

Paul Bloom: Video games are an excellent example of how struggle and difficulty can increase pleasure. Well, you're right. If the game is too easy, it's no fun.

Host: Yeah.

Paul Bloom: Um and and so they want to find it right between, you know, the level of too easy and level of too difficult, a sweet spot. Which which just quite works. Same with same with like I do crossword puzzles. I enjoy doing crossword puzzles, but I don't do the easy ones cuz that's who cares. But if they're too hard, I find them frustrating.

Host: Yeah.

Paul Bloom: And and I don't like it. It's like we just the ones that are just make me work just to the right amount. And I think there's a genius in people who have devised entertainments that really captured this level. So, you know, think about video games, but also think about like a lot of people I use these New York Times apps. I play through connections and you know, Wordle or sometimes and the spelling bee. And they're just right level of difficulty to to make it almost addictive.

Host: Yeah, it's a good analogy for living your life.

Paul Bloom: Yes, definitely.

Host: Fair.

Paul Bloom: [laughter]

Host: Uh thank you so much for for coming on to hang out. I really appreciate it.

Paul Bloom: This was fantastic. Have me back.

Host: Yeah, absolutely.