A.I. is Changing How We Think & Relate to Each Other

Have you ever noticed how quickly we’ve adapted to having answers available instantly?

You can ask AI a question, explore an idea, even work through something personal, and within seconds, you have a response. Clear, thoughtful, and often surprisingly helpful. In so many ways, that’s incredible.

But it also raises a deeper question: what happens when the way we get answers starts to change how we think?

In this week’s episode of Next Door Neuro, I sit down with Lori Robbins (Head of AI Strategy at Denison University and founder of Herizon AI) to explore how AI is reshaping not just how we work, but how we learn, reflect, and relate to other people.

We start with a simple experiment. Lori stepped away from AI for a week, and what she found was surprisingly revealing - not just in what became harder, but in what came back into her life. The friction of searching. The return to human conversation. The depth that comes from lived experience. And perhaps most interestingly, the realization that AI doesn’t just give us answers, it changes the process of getting to them.

And that idea stuck with me. Because when the process of learning changes, the outcome often does too: how we understand something, what we remember, what feels meaningful, and even how we relate both to ideas and to each other.

Importantly, this conversation isn’t about whether AI is good or bad. It’s about something more practical: how do we use it well?

Because there’s real upside! For many people, AI is creating access to conversation, reflection, and a sense of support that was not readily available before. But as Lori points out, that only works if we understand its limitations… and right now, many of us don’t.

In this conversation, we also explore why AI can feel like a “thought partner,” where that experience breaks down, and what it means for a generation growing up alongside this technology. From the “Yes-Bot effect” to the role of AI in learning, relationships, and decision-making, this conversation sits at the intersection of innovation, behavior, and human connection.