Recently, people have begun asking whether I plan to create an AI version of myself, a “Digital Martha” who could answer any question, provide personalized daily coaching, or even continue my life’s work after I’ve left this mortal coil. The short answer is: No. 

The longer answer is that I believe that as spiritual beings having a human experience, our humanness is pretty much the whole point. Human beings need each other—we are social apes, after all—and I’m not interested in trading human connection for scale, speed, or immortality-via-software. I believe we are here to be connected in a world in which all of us are imperfect. 

Why I won’t be deputizing an “AI Martha” 

I can see why the idea of a digital clone is appealing. It would be available around the clock to countless people, simultaneously. It could speak in my voice, quote from my books, simulate my coaching methodology, and probably do it with the kind of instant total recall my human brain can only dream of having. The problem is, an AI trained on my work is not actually me. It would only be an echo. A map, not the terrain itself.

The key element of my work is not the transfer of information; it is open-hearted presence and connection. When someone comes to me or to one of my coaches with a grieving heart, a feeling of being stuck, or a tentative goal, what moves them forward is not some eloquently phrased platitude. It is the sense that another human being is there with you, listening deeply, and feeling what you’re feeling that makes the difference. No algorithm can experience that, no matter how advanced, so it cannot offer it to others.

An AI replica would be all style, no soul. AI can mimic empathy, but it cannot actually care about you. It can formulate sentences that sound like compassion, but it has no nervous system, no history of heartbreak, no nights lying awake wondering how to go on. The biggest breakthroughs in my life and work have come from nights like those.

Wayfinders will always be human

Every instructor in my Wayfinder Life Coach Training is a human being. Flesh and blood, brains and breath, quirks and all. We’re not offering a mere content pipeline. When you enter the training, you’re stepping into a web of real people who have wrestled with pain themselves and found practical tools that helped them create lives of joy and purpose.

We hold live virtual calls not because it’s the most scalable method, but because it’s the most authentic. Something happens when we gather on those calls that simply cannot occur in a digitally automated environment. People can see and read one another’s facial expressions. They can hear tone of voice. They can feel the silence when a realization lands for the group. They can laugh together. Perhaps most importantly, they can share a field of presence that defies physical explanation. The training is not just about learning skills, but about learning to be with one another in communion.

In a world that is rapidly automating every possible interaction, choosing human-led training is akin to a form of resistance. Your spiritual awakening is sacred, and I believe your journey of transformation deserves the presence of actual human beings.

The importance of human connection

My commitment to genuine human connection continues long after the training ends. Growth doesn’t happen in one breakthrough moment; it unfolds over time in shared practice and community. That’s why we offer classes in the community with actual human beings.

Our gatherings are places where you can ask questions live, feel the energy of a group, and notice how your body responds when someone else speaks from their integrity.

In the Wayfinder Coaches’ Community, we hold monthly calls that are free for all graduates of the program. The word “community” comes from the Latin “communitas,” which refers to the spiritual sense of communion that arises between people who feel connected. 

A safe, loving, mutually supportive community of fellow human beings is probably the most important thing we can ever have. No one is a “user” interacting with a product. We’re all participants relating to each other’s hearts, minds, and souls.

AI may have the ability to host an infinite number of community spaces, but without the unpredictable, inconvenient, sometimes messy presence of actual humans, those spaces would be hollow silos. In our individualistic, fragmenting society, we long to experience moments of connection where everyone feels lifted by everyone else. This kind of community is a basic human need.

I’ve spoken before about creating community by first becoming your own good company. This is something AI simply cannot do. (It’s doubtful it would even understand the prompt.) Real community is not meant to be efficient. People might take too long to tell their story. They might break down in tears. They might say something awkward that nevertheless provides clarity. When we gather together, we can feel wild with hope and art and beauty, and we can dance—yet another thing AI can’t do.

Showing up live in Wilder

In Wilder, the online community I started with my partner Ro, I relish connecting with others as my full, imperfectly human self. I regularly show up there live—not as some digitized presence delivering letter-perfect sound bites, but as an authentic person in real time, with bad hair days (a bad hair life), impromptu jokes, and moments where I have to pause to think and feel before speaking.

Why is that better than “perfect”? Because so much of our online life now is performative, optimized, and edited beyond recognition. AI will only accelerate and amplify this tendency, offering endlessly smooth, always-on, never-vulnerable avatars that can say the “right” thing without ever taking a risk. In Wilder, we want the opposite of that. We want spaces where everyone can experiment with being real, rather than impressive.

My way of working is to be in perpetual creative response to whatever is present. So when I’m with you live, I’m affected by you. Your questions influence the conversation. Your feedback sparks my curiosity so I can find new ways to help. You guide me as much as I guide you. That reciprocity is the essence of human relationship. An AI replica of me would never be moved by you, but I am.

The work I believe in

None of this means that AI is “evil” or that it has no place in the world. Like any tool, it can be used for harm or for help. It can free up time, offer creative prompts, or handle tedious tasks so that humans can spend more time in direct connection with each other and the work that serves their true purpose. (Personally I’d like to see it used to solve climate change instead of mimicking celebrities, but that’s a topic for another day.)

Creating a simulated “Martha” would move us away from that direct connection. It would ask you to substitute a facsimile of a relationship for the difficult, beautiful, sometimes uncomfortable reality of actual human contact. It would say, “Here, this is good enough.” I say, “No, it really isn’t.”

As the world rushes toward more automation, I want my work to be a countercurrent. I want Wayfinder Life Coach Training, our ongoing classes, our monthly community calls, and our gatherings in Wilder to be living proof that human presence still matters, now more than ever. When you reach out to my community, I want you to feel assured that living, breathing humans will reach back.

So, that’s why “AI Martha” will not be making its debut. Instead, there will continue to be this Martha—aging, learning, listening, stumbling, laughing, crying, and offering you my open-hearted presence as long as this human body allows. After that, my teachings may linger, my books may remain, my tools may be passed on by the coaches I’ve trained. But the essence of what I stand for will always be the same: real human beings offering our real human presence to each other, right here, right now.

This is the work I’ve been called to do.