What is real in an AI-mediated world?
In this episode of Thinking Through, Dr. Allison Lester sits down with AI educator and thinker Carla Aerts to explore how technology, social media, and AI reshape our sense of reality, presence, and connection. From Monet’s lilies and Van Gogh “immersive” shows to concerts lit by a sea of phones, they trace how synthetic mediation fragments experience, bends memory, and fuels both loneliness and awe. Together they wrestle with anthropomorphized AI, data driven “personalization” in education, the need for tech breaks and tactile community, and why the slow art of asking better questions may be one of our most important forms of human intelligence.
