June 24 - Why I use AI for real conversations.

I was walking through the woods in Drenthe in 2023, talking to Pi AI on my phone. At first glance, just a chatbot—but one that had been designed for genuine conversation, with input from coaches and psychologists. You could feel the difference immediately.

Pi asked me a question that stopped me cold: "What would you want to say to your younger self?"

I stood there on that forest path with tears in my eyes. The conversation moved me. The technology was just the key—the emotions were entirely mine. It unlocked a completely new way of being in dialogue with myself.

That moment made me realize: if technology can help us understand ourselves like this, what could it mean for how we live together?

Because that's what's happening right now. We've forgotten that our world was shaped by social choices—policies of solidarity and reconstruction after World War II. That generation made conscious choices for each other. The state pension. Our education system. Housing corporations rebuilding neighborhoods. They knew what it meant to stand for something together and build something bigger than themselves.

We've lost that mentality. We now live in a time where society's foundations crumble under budget cuts, efficiency demands, and market forces. We're seeing the limits of "every person for themselves": shortages in healthcare, education, housing—precisely the things we once chose collectively are being dismantled. The idea that everyone can take care of themselves sounds tough, until the structures supporting us start to wobble.

The result? A political climate that pits people against each other while real questions go unaddressed. This falls short of who we are as human beings and what we need to function as social creatures.

AI is no longer science fiction. The automation of knowledge, the power of large language models—it's happening now. Right at this vulnerable moment, when our social fabric is already fraying, this acceleration arrives. It's a force that can either deepen existing cracks or help heal them. It's certainly not neutral.

We're facing a choice.

One direction: technology for division and control. TikTok algorithms that get young people addicted to superficial content. Personalized political ads on Facebook that play on fear and polarization. Algorithms deciding your access to social housing without transparency. AI systems determining your mortgage, your benefits, your future—without you knowing why, without anyone being accountable.

The other direction: shaping that same technology into an instrument for connection and understanding.

That frustration and hope have given me direction. It's why I do this work, inspired by thinkers like Simon Sinek, who writes about creating a 'Circle of Safety' for people to thrive, and Floor de Ruiter, whose work focuses on building bottom-up systems where people have real voice.

After that walk with Pi AI, I suddenly saw how technology could help us govern ourselves differently—if we start operating more humanly with the technology.

Here's what I see happening. We bring people together around issues that affect them all. We facilitate conversations where people truly listen. With tools like Dembrane, we capture these rich, nuanced dialogues—every detail, every moment of recognition. That becomes our raw material.

I'm already seeing it work. AI helping co-create transformation plans in healthcare, where people recognize themselves in the results after extensive group dialogues. Not because the machine thinks for them, but because it helps them get closer to themselves and the nuances of their conversations. The silent becomes visible. The subtlety we often lose in daily rush gets preserved.

Research shows AI can help people break free from entrenched beliefs—not through manipulation, but because we perceive it as a neutral conversation partner. We become less defensive. We listen differently. Where populists turn fear into votes, AI could turn nuance into understanding.

Recently, I was in a session on neighborhood transformation. The facilitator, Jeroen, had led deep conversations for an hour about the tension between system requirements and human-centered approaches. At a certain point, Jeroen asked the AI: give us a synthesis of what we've discussed, and ask a question that can fuel our conversation further.

The AI, drawing from everything said that afternoon, asked: "Can we think of a concrete action we could start tomorrow, without getting stuck in system requirements?"

The reaction was immediate: "This is beautiful." "That's exactly what we're struggling with." "Well done!" I watched jaws drop around the room. That's when I felt something shift in how we collaborate with AI.

AI becomes not an answer machine, but an extension of dialogue. It recognizes patterns in what people are really saying and reflects that back in ways that move things forward.

And here's what excites me most: we can recognize and share lessons learned locally much faster with AI. This creates something like a social GitHub—an open learning environment where communities can share, improve, and reapply their solutions. Not imposed top-down, but built from the bottom up.

I believe in a world where everyone feels heard and seen. Where we collectively make decisions about things that really matter, and where technology helps us do that.

That world isn't here yet. But we can start building it.

My commitment: I'll keep building bridges between what's technically possible and what's humanly necessary. I do this by designing conversations where technology doesn't steer, but listens. By using AI to help us hear each other more clearly. And above all, by connecting people who otherwise would never have truly listened to each other.

It starts small. Locally. With the simple question: how might we do this differently?

I'm genuinely curious what your answer would be.