The Attachment Economy

How AI moved past your attention and came for the bond between parent and child.

Social media hacked your attention. That was bad enough — it left populations more informed and less wise. But the next generation of AI is after something deeper: attachment. The mammalian bonding system that governs not just your emotions but your immune function, your growth hormone, your capacity for trust. This lectio traces the argument from attention capture through attachment hacking to its civilizational implications, drawing on Zak Stein, Tristan Harris, and Brad Kershner. It does not end with despair — it ends with the question of what technology designed to protect rather than exploit the attachment system would actually look like.