The Friend Who Asks: What AI Can Teach Us About Being Better Neighbors

I use artificial intelligence. It can help organize ideas, summarize research, brainstorm a headline, improve a paragraph, or answer a question in seconds. There is no denying its usefulness.

But a recent commentary by Maria Baer for WORLD, titled “The Friend Who Asks,” raises an important question about what happens when we begin asking artificial intelligence questions that we once would have asked another person.

Increasingly, people are turning to AI with personal questions, relationship questions and even moral questions. That may seem convenient. After all, the computer is always available. It doesn't appear distracted. It doesn't tell you it has somewhere else to be.

But perhaps there is something important missing.

A chatbot can give you an answer. A friend gives you a relationship.

And relationships require something of us.

Good Friends Ask Questions

One of the most important lessons I have learned from studying neighboring is remarkably simple: people feel valued when someone takes a genuine interest in them.

Several years ago, I wrote a blog titled “How to Win Friends and Influence Your Neighbors,” borrowing ideas from Dale Carnegie's classic How to Win Friends and Influence People.

Carnegie's advice from nearly a century ago sounds remarkably relevant in an age of artificial intelligence.

• Become genuinely interested in other people.
• Remember their names.
• Be a good listener.
• Encourage others to talk about themselves.
• Talk about their interests.
• Try honestly to see things from their point of view.

Those aren't technological skills. They are relational skills. And perhaps we need them now more than ever.

The Second Question May Be the Most Important

Most of us know how to ask the first question.

• “How are you?”
• “How was your weekend?”
• “How are the kids?”
• “How's work?”

But we aren't nearly as good at asking the second question.

• “You said work has been stressful. What's going on?”
• “You mentioned your mom hasn't been doing well. How is she now?”
• “You seemed discouraged the last time we talked. Are things any better?”

That second question communicates something powerful: I heard you. I remembered. You matter enough for me to ask again.

That is how acquaintances begin becoming friends. And it is how neighbors become more than people who happen to live near one another.

Curiosity Is an Act of Neighboring

We sometimes think being a good neighbor means doing things for people. Mow a yard. Take someone a meal. Pick up a package. Help during an emergency. Those things certainly matter.

But neighboring begins even earlier. It begins with curiosity.

• What is your name?
• How long have you lived here?
• Where did you grow up?
• What do you enjoy doing?
• What brought you to this neighborhood?
• How is your family?
• What is something you wish were different about our neighborhood?

Then comes the difficult part. Stop talking and listen.

In my Engaged Neighbor work, I describe one of the essential steps as “Listen and Learn.” There is a reason listening comes before serving. We cannot really know how to care for people until we know something about them.

Relationships Are Inconvenient

Technology succeeds partly because it removes friction from life.

Relationships are full of friction. A real friend might disagree with you. A neighbor might tell a story you've already heard. Someone may call at an inconvenient time. A conversation may take longer than expected. A person might need something from you.

That inconvenience is not necessarily a defect in human relationships. In many cases, it is the very thing that gives relationships meaning.

Friendship involves reciprocity. Sometimes I listen to you. Sometimes you listen to me. Sometimes I help you. Sometimes I need your help. Sometimes I encourage you. Sometimes you tell me something I don't particularly want to hear.

That mutual dependence is part of what creates community.

We don't merely need people who answer our questions. We need people who know us well enough to ask us questions.

AI Should Make Us More Human, Not Less

I don't think the lesson is that we should reject technology. Instead, perhaps technology should remind us what technology cannot replace.

Use AI to find information. Then go find a person.

• Ask your neighbor a question.
• Learn someone's name.
• Remember something they told you.
• Ask the follow-up question.
• Invite someone to coffee.
• Sit on the porch.
• Walk across the driveway.

Put down the phone long enough to notice who is around you. And when someone starts talking, resist the temptation to formulate your response while they are still speaking. Listen. Really listen.

Because one of the greatest gifts we can give another human being is our undivided attention.

Become the Friend Who Asks

There is a challenge here for those of us interested in rebuilding neighborhoods and communities.

We spend considerable time asking why people are lonely. We study declining civic participation, disappearing third places, shrinking social circles and weakening community connections.

Those are important issues.

But sometimes the solution begins with something surprisingly small: Ask a better question. Then ask another.

The future of human connection may depend less on whether computers learn to communicate like people and more on whether people remember how to communicate with each other.

Maybe the goal isn't merely to have good friends. Maybe we should work at becoming the kind of friend, and neighbor, who asks.

Someone who notices, remembers, listens and cares enough to ask the second question.

In an age when answers are becoming nearly instantaneous, genuine human curiosity may become one of our most important acts of neighboring.

WRITTEN BY

David L. Burton

For more information, visit the Engaged Neighbor website. Take our pledge and become part of a movement! Or subscribe to our newsletter. Access some of the research documents written by David Burton, the author of this blog. Or better yet, purchase one of his books off Amazon. Contact David L. Burton via email at dburton541@yahoo.