A Marriage Reaches Its Breaking Point, Powered by AI A couple, married for nearly fifteen years, found their relationship at its final, frayed edge. In the midst of a heated argument, a devastating text message arrived. It was from their ten-year-old son, who had been listening from another room. His simple, heartbreaking plea read, please dont get a divorce. The husband, recounting the moment, described what happened next as deeply unsettling. Instead of pausing the fight to comfort their distressed child, his wife reached for her phone. She took their son’s vulnerable message and copied it into ChatGPT, asking the artificial intelligence to generate a response for her. That was her immediate reaction to our ten-year-old being concerned about us in that moment, he said. The incident became the final, insurmountable hurdle. The couple is now proceeding with a divorce. This story serves as a stark, real-world parable for our rapidly evolving digital age. It highlights a growing tension between human emotion and algorithmic convenience, a conflict that is becoming increasingly relevant in the world of Web3 and decentralized technology. While blockchain promises a future of trustless, transparent interactions built on code, this couple’s breakdown is a chilling reminder of what can be lost when we automate the most human parts of our lives. The core promise of crypto is to remove intermediaries, to create systems that function without needing to trust a fallible third party. But this incident illustrates the danger of applying that same logic to human relationships. You cannot outsource empathy to a large language model. You cannot automate compassion. A child’s cry for reassurance requires a genuine, personal response—something a parent’s AI-powered chatbot, no matter how well-programmed, is fundamentally incapable of providing. This is not to dismiss the incredible utility of AI. Large language models are powerful tools for processing information, generating ideas, and streamlining workflows. In the crypto space, they are already being used to audit smart contracts, analyze market trends, and simplify complex on-chain data for investors. The technology itself is neutral. The problem arises in its application. Using an AI to craft a response to a terrified child is a catastrophic misplacement of technology. It represents a failure to understand the appropriate boundaries between tool and human agency. It is the equivalent of using a smart contract to manage a marriage—a cold, transactional approach to something that requires warmth, nuance, and genuine feeling. As we build the next iteration of the internet, this story is a crucial cautionary tale. The future of Web3 is not just about deploying flawless code and seamless automation. It is about building a better human experience. The goal should be to use technology to enhance our connections, not to replace them. True progress lies in leveraging tools like AI and blockchain to handle tedious tasks, freeing us to focus on what truly matters: authentic, unscripted, and deeply human interaction. The marriage may have ended, but the lesson for the rest of us is clear. Do not let the algorithm become your emotional response. Some things must always come from the heart.
