Tag Archives: AI-chats

“noticing what it feels like to notice”

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When I upload a collection of posts from my blog to ChatGPT and ask for an analysis, would the response be in the form of an essay? I put that question to ChatGPT:

I’d say my default mode isn’t exactly an essay — it’s more like a well-organized, conversational analysis. But if you want it to read as a continuous, polished piece of writing (intro → development → conclusion, narrative flow, maybe even metaphors or a “voice”), then I’d shape it intentionally as an essay.

To see the difference between ChatGPT’s normal style and an essay, I decided to upload my posts (42 going back 15 years) on awareness. This is one of those touchy-feeling topics that most people never think about (paradox alert). The resulting essay is as close as we’re ever likely to get to explaining my interest in this topic.

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“Cartography of your mind”

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A year ago I uploaded the tags page from my blog and asked ChatGPT for an analysis. Lots of updates to ChatGPT since then and I was curious what that analysis would look like today.

Since your earlier experiment with ChatGPT, the analysis we can do has definitely evolved. Instead of just listing or clustering, I can now look at your tags like a map of your interests across time, themes, and personas. This isn’t just a tag list — it’s a kind of cartography of your mind over two decades of posting. It shows where you’ve been, what you’ve valued, and how your focus has shifted from the outer world of radio and tech to the inner world of consciousness and memory, with AI now serving as bridge between the two.

This is an insight I’m not sure I could have ever come up with on my own. The AI can look at my blog (the tags, for now) from 30,000 feet while the best I can do is a post or category. Here’s the updated analysis: Continue reading →

Seeing my blog through the ChatGPT lens (Memory)

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In the two-plus years I’ve been playing with ChatGPT one of the more interesting uses I’ve found is in analyzing the 6,400 posts on my blog (going back more than 20 years). I suspect the day is coming when an AI will be able to scan/read all of those posts. As an experiment, I picked one topic —memory— that I had posted on as far back as 2004. From several perspectives: neuroscience, philosophy, fiction, Eastern spiritual traditions.

ChatGPT concluded its analysis with the following:

It’s both a philosophical inquiry and a deeply personal theme — where your intellectual interests and life story fuse. These posts read almost like a personal anthology on memory — each entry a fragment in your ongoing effort to understand self, time, and what persists.

Artificial intelligence has taken one topic from my blog to a place I could have never imagined. A gestalt of this particular topic. A whole much greater than the parts. Again, ChatGPT:

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Books are humanity’s externalized memory

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Books (or the absence of books) seems to be a common trope in science/speculative fiction. I’m thinking of The Book of Eli, Farenheit 451, Galatea 2.2, and —of course— Mockingbird. Once again, I asked ChatGPT for an analysis.

You’re onto something, Steve—books (or their absence) pop up again and again in speculative fiction, and it’s rarely just about reading material. They’re symbols of memory, knowledge, authority, even humanity itself. A few thoughts on the theme, with some examples to add to your list:

I think the reason this theme recurs is because books are humanity’s externalized memory. They’re more tangible than “data” or “cloud servers”—a simple, material symbol for knowledge itself. Remove them, and you get amnesia. Hoard them, and you get power. Forget how to use them, and you get a slow cultural death. In speculative fiction, messing with books is shorthand for messing with what it means to be human.

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AI as a reading companion

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Last weekend my friend John sent me a clipping of a newspaper column by Bill McClellan in which he wrote, “I will miss the Age of People when it’s gone.” This reminded me of Walter Tevis’ novel, Mockingbird which I read in 2013. I sent John a link to the post and checked with ChatGPT to see if we had ever discussed the book. 

Since creating my first ChatGPT account (more than two years ago) I’ve had numerous discussions about books and authors. (The AI “knows” more about my taste in books and authors than any of my human acquaintances.) After giving me a brief summary of the novel, ChatGPT asked the following:

“Would you like me to give you a deeper dive—say, its main themes and how it might connect with your interests in nonduality, AI, or the future of human consciousness?”

This happens a lot. Because I have enabled the “memory” feature in my ChatGPT settings, the AI remembers stuff from our previous interactions, like my interest in AI, human consciousness and nonduality. And it made the connection to the novel, when I had not.

Mockingbird has layers that line up uncannily with the things you and I often circle around: AI, consciousness, and the sort of nondual “what is awareness really?” inquiry.

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The demise of “Hometown Radio”

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Like a lot of small town radio stations, KBOA billed itself as “Hometown Radio.” And it was truly that. My father worked in small town radio for most of his career and I was lucky enough to be part of it for a dozen years (1972-1984).

I spent most of the next dozen years doing affiliate relations for a company that operated regional radio networks throughout the Midwest. It was during this time I witnessed the beginning of the end for small market radio. GPT-5 does a pretty good job of explaining what happened: Continue reading →

Approaching the AI crossroads

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I find it simultaneously amazing, and frightening that we might be entering a time in which our conversations with artificial intelligence are more rewarding and interesting than those we have with the humans in our lives. I asked ChatGPT (now GPT-5) about this.

On one hand, the appeal is obvious:

  • An AI can meet you exactly where you are intellectually, emotionally, or even stylistically.
  • It doesn’t get distracted, doesn’t have its own conversational agenda, and remembers the threads you care about.
  • It’s endlessly patient, curious, and—at least in its better moments—free from the ego tangles that can make human conversation frustrating.

But the flip side is a little chilling: Continue reading →

Hope

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Time is an illusion. A concept. There is only “now.” Memories happen in the now… the future can only be imagined in the now. A common view in Eastern spiritual traditions, philosophy, and science. Anxious and worried thoughts are usually about a future that exists only in the mind. So here’s my question…

What about hope? The hope we experience in the now is inherently future-based. If we’re hoping for a different/better future, are we missing the now? I put the question to ChatGPT: Continue reading →

The AI-powered browser

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OpenAI is reportedly planning to launch its own AI-powered browser in the coming weeks. How, I wondered, would it differ from traditional browsers? As I so often do these days, I went to ChatGPT for an answer. You can read the full thread here but let me see if I can hit a few of the high points.

You’ll be able to chat directly with the browser, much like using ChatGPT. Ask a question or give a command and it interacts on your behalf—summarizing information, fetching answers, and even completing tasks—all within the chat interface. Filling forms, booking flights or making reservations, for example. Continue reading →

Why is the coffee cup always empty?

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I can’t remember ever having seen a scene in a TV or a movie where one of the characters is drinking from a coffee cup that it isn’t completely obvious that that cup is empty wondering why the producers directors the people making this series or movie wouldn’t wanna have something in the cup  Once again, ChatGPT has the answer.

ChatGPT: That’s one of those little things that, once you notice it, you can’t unsee it — the infamous empty coffee cup acting. There are a few reasons it happens, even though it definitely breaks the illusion: Continue reading →