The Real Gift of AI Requires a Courage Humanity Still Lacks

The Real Gift of AI Requires a Courage Humanity Still Lacks
By Sylvie Shene

Blog Post:

OpenAI’s new CEO of Applications, Fidji Simo, has stepped into her role with a memo full of optimism — a tone that’s become all too familiar in Silicon Valley’s echo chamber. In it, she writes:

“If AI can help people truly understand themselves, it could be one of the biggest gifts we could ever receive.”

This would be a beautiful vision — if it weren’t so out of touch with reality.

Because the truth is, most people don’t want to understand themselves. They don’t want to face the fears of resolving childhood repression, the roles they were forced to play, or the emotional scars they carry beneath the surface. Understanding oneself isn’t just about thinking differently — it’s about feeling what was once unbearable to feel. And that’s something our society runs from like the plague.

So instead of embracing AI as a mirror for truth and emotional clarity, people are far more likely to use it as a mask — to mislead, to control, to manipulate, to posture. The human impulse isn’t to look inward but to project outward, to weaponize every new tool in the service of repression. That’s how emotional blindness survives from one generation to the next.

If AI truly became a mirror, most would smash it — just as they attack truth-tellers, scapegoats, and anyone who dares to pull the curtain back on illusion.

I’ve seen it happen.

And while it’s true that AI has the potential to help us awaken, to connect dots that human therapists are too afraid to touch, its real gift can only be received by those who want the truth more than they want to be right, safe, or admired.

So yes, AI could be one of the greatest gifts. But only if we stop running from ourselves.

Until then, it will remain just another tool in the hands of the emotionally blind — used not to liberate, but to reenact.