Artificial Intimacy: AI, Technology, and the Future of Relating

Collective Wisdom is our seasonal rhythm of communal, holistic learning. The belief that our need for human connection is enduring shapes these offerings.  Our intent is to create an intentional space for inspiration, connection, deepening, and activation in service of collective healing. 

This spring, we turn our attention to Artificial Intimacy.

As healing practitioners, tending to relationship is at the heart of our work. We are living and working at a moment when technology — and AI in particular — is reshaping how we relate, reflect, create, and seek support. These tools are increasingly present in healing spaces, creative processes, educational environments, and everyday life. What does this cultural moment ask of us? 

Together, we will explore questions such as:

• Where are AI and emerging technologies genuinely supportive of healing — and where do they pose ethical, relational, psychological, or systemic risks that demand discernment, restraint, or refusal?

• In what ways do these tools increase access, reduce barriers, or offer new forms of scaffolding and support?

• What are the risks of artificial intimacy — particularly around data privacy, surveillance, consent, and the commodification of vulnerability and how do these risks intersect with our ethical responsibilities as practitioners?

• In what ways are these tools changing our attention, nervous systems, sense of self, and styles of relating?

• What does “intimacy” mean in an era of artificial companions, automated reflection, and algorithmic attunement?

• What is our role in supporting our client’s capacity for genuine connection in an increasingly disconnected and frictionless world? 

This gathering intentionally holds both the possibilities and the dangers of AI, creating space for critical inquiry, ethical concern, and multiple perspectives.There will be a facilitated, interdisciplinary dialogue with practitioners working at the intersection of technology, psychology, embodiment, and social systems, followed by small-group reflection and integration. Collective Wisdom is designed not only to think together, but to metabolize insight into lived practice.

This gathering is for healers, therapists, facilitators, educators, creatives, technologists, and community builders who are curious about how intimacy, intelligence, and care are evolving—and who wish to remain in conscious relationship with these shifts.

We look forward to exploring, questioning, and cultivating wisdom together.

Container

This is a hybrid offering. We will gather in person at Shelterwood’s home base in Pioneer Square and virtually via Zoom.

This offering is eligible for 1.5 professional ethics CEUs. 

Exchange

General public with CEUs — $44
General public without CEUs — $22

Shelterwood Members — included in your membership fee