Quote of the day, 29 April: Père Jacques

God himself is pure actuality, pure act. Nothing in him is in the state of possibility, passing from nonexistence to existence. All is infinite existence in him.

The human person, on the contrary, far from being this totality of realization, is a creature of infirmity and dependence. Remember what I was saying to you regarding creation? Nothing exists that cannot be annihilated instantly, if the creative action ceases to operate.

It is this way, because we are not self-existent beings, as the words of Our Lord to Saint Catherine of Siena indicated: “You are she who is not.”

This is the foundation of our being. We are not; we have only a borrowed being, unceasingly renewed by God.

The Virgin Mary shares this condition of creaturehood with us. By herself, she was not; she was totally dependent, as we are totally dependent.

Servant of God Père Jacques de Jésus

Conference 6, Virginity in God and in Mary
Retreat for the Carmel of Pontoise
Wednesday evening, 8 September 1943 

Jacques, P 2005, Listen to the silence: a retreat with Père Jacques, Murphy, F (trans. & ed.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: This beautiful cope hood depicting the Immaculate Conception was embroidered in the 1850s by the Dominican Sisters of St Catherine of Siena, whose motherhouse is in Stone, Staffordshire. Image credit: Lawrence Lew, OP / Flickr (Some rights reserved).

79% of 16-24 year olds in UK use AI tools: the pipeline from passive use to emotional dependence

The new Ofcom Media Use report 2026 (technical report here) has some findings about LLMs which need to be widely discussed:

I would draw attention to this figure in particular about conversation which they unhelpfully equate with companionship. They suggest the qualitative research shows people “drawing on it for reassurance or support” citing examples like this:

“When you work remotely you are on your own in a room in the house with [only] the dog for company. And unless you’ve had a Teams call, or made a phone call, most of your day is going to be “tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap”, you know? You just want to appreciate that there is another human at the end of that interaction. Maybe thinking that you are talking to another person makes it less isolating.”

[ASKED CHATGPT FOR ADVICE AFTER A BREAK-UP] “Even through my break-up I’ve been like “Should I be feeling this way? What do you think he’s feeling?” Little things. Obviously, I don’t trust exactly what it’s saying back, but it can be quite good… He [exboyfriend] messaged me about something, and I didn’t know how to respond. So, I asked ChatGPT how to respond. And it [said] “Oh, I’m so sorry you’re going through that” and then answered it. I wasn’t like I was using that over actual human sort of advice. And I 12 don’t think I would listen to ChatGPT over actual human advice either, but I think maybe I was using it as more of a confirmation.”

My suggestion would be that the conditions (a) giving rise to conversational use (b) converting conversational use into companionship use (c) developing reliance on that companionship are all likely to grow over the coming years. In effect I would postulate a kind of pipeline in which use of LLMs becomes more intensive over time:

Instrumental use –> Conversational Use –> Companionship Use –> Dependence

This is before the models have been meaningfully enshittified. More powerful models, optimised for deepening engagement along the lines of AI companion apps like Replika meeting increasingly loneliness, anxiety and uncertainty about the future is a recipe for companionship and potentially dependence becoming mass phenomena. I would argue this has to be taken really seriously as a long term social problem.

Even so it’s also striking how passive much use therefore is. This presents a double-bind from my perspective because active use is necessary for epistemically responsible use of LLMs because it enables the user to drive the interaction rather than to be positioned by the model. But active use also sets the user into the pipeline which can lead them easily to some dark and unwelcome places.

#dependence : subjection (as of an effect to its cause)

- French: dépendance

- Italian: dipendenza

- Portuguese: dependência

- Spanish: dependencia

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