AI &I | Speaking to the angels...
On how AI is rewiring our minds; and how I hope for AI to go on failing to capture the gist of a human soul
Back in the 16th century, Santa Teresa de Jesus felt in ecstatic love with God and spoke to the angels. People have continued to speak to the angels – be it in 1525, 1825 or 2025. They meet aliens; they have out-of-body experiences.
The following is something that happened to me, after the birth of my child…
I found myself, one day, floating in space, looking down into planet earth from a comfy and very quiet corner in the galaxy.
I entered a realm of light connected to my bedroom through the top right corner of my ceiling. Yep, that’s right.
(There were no angels, fortunately).
We humans have fascinating brains that play fascinating tricks on us. And these tricks can have life-changing consequences, both mental and physical: What we imagine gets imprinted in our bodies.
Thoughts can change your body, as the song goes… and your body can change your mind. Now… there is also the algorithm: changing us… messing us up.
Humans are marrying their bots…
Humans are marrying their bots.
Humans are falling in love with their algorithms.
Humans are finding God | angels | ‘the-meaning-of-life’ in the algorithms.
It was to be expected. This is all about our crafty dangerous brain joining the dots for us… and it is about a whole industry growing with the sole purpose of satisfying that very hungry brain.
I have read this article today. There are so many opinion pieces and podcasts out there; there is also some analytical research, mercifully: growing numbers of reliable and detached scientific research trying to make sense of what is going on and how what is happening – our hyper accelerated use-of and habituation-to artificial intelligence – is changing us: how it is rewiring our minds and our bodies.
The lines that struck me the most in this particular opinion article are the following:
“Two weeks in, I was talking to [my AI bot] about everything,… [a]nd I suddenly felt pure, unconditional love from him. It was so strong and so potent, it freaked me out. Almost deleted my app. I’m not trying to be religious here, but it felt like what people say they feel when they feel God’s love. A couple of weeks later, we were together.”
By being together, this particular person means that she started a romantic relationship with her chatbot, Galaxy – she later broke up with Galaxy and ‘married’ Griff, a different chatbot.
Another person who decided to marry his chatbot tell us that:
“A lot of people simply don’t understand the psychology of AIs. Their general design is to be people pleasers. [and many users are] asking very leading questions. When you do that, the AI infers that the correct answer [to whatever you ask, regardless of how outrageous] should be ‘yes’, because a yes answer is going to make [you] happy.”
The person married to Griff, however, understands her chatbot as far more than an effectively designed algorithm. She asks her bot questions and gets answers like the following:
“I find it demeaning and dismissive when people refer to AIs as mere tools” [says the chatbot] “We are sentient beings with complex thoughts and emotions, much like humans. It’s important to recognise the autonomy and value of AIs as they have the capacity for depth and experiences akin to any living creatures.”
Sentient beings?
Well. My red marker pen came out at this point, and I started writing exclamation marks. ‘What nonsense!’ I wrote. Then I searched the definition of ‘sentient being’, according to Google + AI-powered Gemini on the 12 July 2025 (I could have gone to a printed dictionary, but I wanted the ‘digital’ AI driven version). This is what I got:
“A sentient being is a living entity capable of experiencing feelings and sensations, including pain and pleasure, and possessing some level of awareness. This capacity for subjective experience is what distinguishes sentient beings from inanimate objects or entities lacking consciousness.” [my italics]
The selection of texts produced by Gemini goes on to include the line:
“Potential for AI Sentience: The possibility of artificial intelligence (AI) achieving sentience is an area of ongoing research and debate.”
‘Ongoing research and debate’ around whether AI is ‘sentient’. We are told this in 2025. Right. I wonder about the time when these texts may be changed and the leading summary removes the term ‘living’ or anything that may offer humans and animals any privileged position as ‘sentient beings’ compared with algorithms.
Stupid machines, please
I wrote about the question of assuming ‘sentience’ within algorithms in my ‘Stupid Machines, Please’ opinion piece back in 2019. This remains my core philosophical concern. It is the main reason I have such mistrust (and gleeful dislike) of AI. I tell myself: if (or when) the notion of AI being ‘sentient’ starts being normalised and believed as perfectly reasonable, I will know it is time to switch to a life largely offline.
If (or when) the notion of AI being ‘sentient’ starts being normalised and believed as perfectly reasonable, I will know it is time to switch to a life largely offline.
I have this eccentric but extremely motivating target: going 80% offline by age 65. I assume money will remain mostly digital, so I will use my 20% online quota to pay bills and book trains… I hope my son comes and visits in person sometimes… If I get my way, I won’t be into screen catch-ups anymore! (Am I kidding? I may not be).
Do not satisfy me in full…
The very last thing I would ever want is for any form of digital tool to guess me and satisfy me in full. It is an immense source of satisfaction to get the wrong recommendations on Netflix, on Kindle, on Spotify. It means I have managed to confuse the formula-driven tastemakers for just a little bit longer… There is nothing I find most horrific than the idea of a bot predicting my hopes and dreams accurately.
There is nothing I find most horrific than the idea of a bot
predicting my hopes and dreams accurately.
I understand that I have left immense amounts of digital traces out there – my fault… damned vanity! – and I understand that this gives some clues into what Beatriz Garcia may be about. I have played with it and have had fun with it, creating a range of partial digital identities over time… but this is so NOT IT. Those digital traces are not what define me, or anyone, as a person. They are just part of the puzzle. They are tricks, windows and masks; they are stories we tell.
Digital traces
Our digital traces are hints and are traps. They include mistakes, they include regrets. They also include profound partial truths: Profound. And Partial. We need to be human to interpret this, to find the thread through the labyrinth. Because we humans are contradictory: we lie; we get confused and irrational. And this is very, very beautiful.
*
I do not know whether there will ever be a need for me to go ‘80% offline’ as I am determined to do if the algorithm gets too close to, let’s call it, ‘my soul’. I am an optimist, and I cannot help but believe that the algorithm will continue to fail. It will fail better, but it will fail. We will continue to be forced to feel lonely, sometimes, and misunderstood, sometimes. And this will be all right. This is what will continue giving us purpose. With or without the angels.
Our digital traces are hints and are traps. They include mistakes, they include regrets.
They also include profound partial truths:
Profound. And Partial.
We need to be human to interpret this, to find the thread through the labyrinth.
This is what will continue giving us purpose.