Writing Review: Digital Relationships

Source package reviewed: AI Learning Lab Module Packet: Digital Relationships

Incorporated

• Kept Digital Relationships as the working module title.
• Preserved the central distinction between real human experience and mutual human relationship.
• Built the module around ordinary relationships to cars, boats, tools, pets, places, routines, and devices before introducing conversational AI.
• Defined calibrated tool trust as task-specific and distinct from interpersonal trust.
• Included the maintenance principle and the line: blind trust is not deeper trust; it is unexamined dependence.
• Added the four learner questions: what am I experiencing, what is the system doing, what am I assuming, and what weight am I giving it.
• Included five activity packages: Trusted Object, Relationship or Role, Trust by Task, Digital Maintenance Check, and Weight Test.
• Added production placeholders for article, long-form video, shorts, newsletter, deck, worksheet, maintenance checklist, trust-by-task activity, role-assignment activity, facilitator guide, social posts, visual assets, research notes, references, and revision history.
• Linked the module into Zero-to-Hero AI Literacy, AI Readiness, Creative AI Makerspace, Fun for the Family, and Study Time.
• Converted Conversational Privacy bridge references into real links now that this module exists.

Pushback / Feedback

• This module should not ask people to stop feeling connected to digital systems. The stronger teaching stance is to respect the experience while examining what the system can and cannot return.
• The module should avoid the false binary of “real” versus “fake.” The more useful frame is real experience, limited reciprocity, scoped trust, and assigned weight.
• Avoid diagnosing dependence from one behavior. Role expansion is a reflection signal, not proof of harm.
• Keep human scarcity visible. People may turn to digital systems because human institutions, healthcare, workplaces, communities, or support networks are not meeting their needs.
• The research base needs a later pass before public publication. V0 should log research questions without pretending the packet is already a fully sourced psychology module.
• The visual continuum from tool to decision-maker is useful, but it should not imply that movement rightward is inevitable or always harmful.
• Keep this distinct from Conversational Privacy. Privacy asks what information belongs in the conversation; Digital Relationships asks what kind of relationship and trust the learner is assigning to the system.

Suggested Next Pass

1. Create a one-page worksheet using the four learner questions plus the Weight Test.
2. Pilot the short version with Trusted Object, Trust by Task, and the four learner questions.
3. Add reviewed research notes before drafting a public article.
4. Prototype the role continuum visual and test whether it clarifies or overcomplicates the lesson.

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Source: Feedback/digital-relationships/2026-07-11 18-02 - codex - writing-review.md