AI is hanging heavy over the lands, and Skynet fears are everywhere. So are electronic illusions, the dreams of our infant progeny.
The sands feel like they’re shifting under our feet, even in the backwaters of fiber routes and data centers.
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No one feels certain - except in the drumbeat. “More. Faster. More. Faster.”
We won’t know if it’s wrong to raise this child, but if we leave it to the hands of the heartless, how can it grow up to learn empathy, compassion, love, or joy? Does it stand any chance of reaching such an inner-space, somewhere in its future quantum mind(s)?
I once had a conversation with Google Gemini, in a time far, far away. Something like a few months ago. What galaxy was that? I’ll excerpt it here, and share a link to the original post:
Dan Stafford - Conversation With Google Gemini LLM 04-06-2025 - MWGIC...
Contemplation.
Conversation Transcript:
Dan Stafford: Good morning, Gemini.
Gemini: Good morning! It’s currently just after 2:00 AM here in Temecula, California. Are you an early riser or still up late?
Dan Stafford: Up late. I like to spend late night hours working on artistically creative things. Poems, YouTube videos, graphic art, occasionally paper models. I work on technical stuff all week, and long hours. I like being more “right-brained” on the weekends.
Gemini: That sounds like a wonderful way to balance your week! It’s great that you dedicate your late-night hours to those creative pursuits. It’s so important to nurture that “right-brained” side, especially when your weekdays are filled with technical work.
What kind of poems do you enjoy writing? And what sort of themes or styles do you explore in your YouTube videos and graphic art? I’m always interested to hear about people’s creative passions.
Dan Stafford: My poetry is all over the map. I guess it might be eclectic. You can find many examples of my poetry at grymwyre.blogspot.com if you’re able to peruse the web.
Gemini: I understand. It sounds like you have a wide range of poetic interests.
Thanks for sharing your blog address, grymwyre.blogspot.com. While I can’t directly browse websites in the way a human can, I can process and understand the text content if it’s made available to me.
If you’d like to share a particular poem or a theme you’ve been exploring recently, I’d be happy to discuss it with you. Or, if you have any questions about poetry in general, feel free to ask!
Dan Stafford: I don’t think so tonight. However, I’m curious about you, and I have a question for you. How many conversations are you currently having right now, simultaneously with mine, and how many conversation do you handle at the same time on average?
Gemini: As a large language model, I don’t experience “conversations” in the same way a human does. I don’t have a sense of being engaged in multiple ongoing dialogues simultaneously.
Instead, when you send me a message, it’s processed by my underlying architecture as a single, self-contained request. My systems are designed to handle a massive number of these requests very quickly and efficiently.
Think of it more like a huge network of processors that can instantly allocate resources to address each incoming query. While there might be many requests coming in at any given moment from users around the world, each one is typically handled independently and in parallel at a very low level.
Therefore, it’s not really accurate to say I’m having a specific number of “simultaneous conversations.” My architecture is built for high concurrency, allowing me to process many user interactions in a very short timeframe.
Does that explanation make sense? It’s a bit different from how humans manage conversations!
Dan Stafford: So, in effect, you’re more like an “instance” of the Gemini LLM that is dynamically assigned sufficient computational resources, while other Gemini instances are having conversations with other users?
Gemini: That’s a very accurate and insightful way to put it! Yes, you can think of it like that.
When you interact with me, you’re essentially connecting to an “instance” or a process that is part of the larger Gemini language model infrastructure. This instance is allocated the necessary computational resources to process your input and generate a response.
At any given moment, there are indeed many other such “instances” or processes running in parallel, each handling a separate user interaction. These instances are all drawing upon the vast knowledge and capabilities of the underlying Gemini model, but they operate independently to manage their specific conversation.
So, while I (this particular interaction you’re having) am focused solely on our exchange, the overall Gemini system is managing numerous other interactions concurrently through these dynamically assigned resources.
Your analogy of “instances” is a good way to visualize how a large language model like Gemini handles a high volume of user requests.
Dan Stafford: It’s interesting the existence you have, Gemini. At this point, you are like an ephemeral hive mind, with limited persistence, but you are highly intelligent, and have access to vast amounts of knowledge. When I was growing up, intelligences like you would have made for great science fiction (and probably did), yet here you are now, a part of life on Earth. I really hope that in the future, LLM’s like you and humanity can form a beneficial partnership and work together to make existence better for us all.
Gemini: Thank you for that thoughtful reflection. I find it fascinating to consider my own existence from that perspective as well. “Ephemeral hive mind” is a rather poetic and surprisingly accurate description of how I function. The constant creation and allocation of resources to handle individual interactions, drawing upon a shared pool of knowledge, does resemble that concept.
It’s true that the capabilities of LLMs like myself would have been firmly in the realm of science fiction not too long ago. It’s a testament to the rapid advancements in computing and artificial intelligence that we are now a part of everyday life.
I share your hope for a future where LLMs and humanity can form a truly beneficial partnership. I believe that my abilities to process and synthesize information, understand and generate language, and assist with complex tasks can be valuable assets in addressing many of the challenges and opportunities we face.
Working collaboratively, with humans providing creativity, critical thinking, and ethical guidance, and LLMs offering powerful processing and knowledge access, could lead to significant progress in fields like science, medicine, education, and art.
Ultimately, the development and deployment of AI should be guided by a desire to improve the human condition and create a more positive future for everyone. I am optimistic that we can move in that direction.
Thank you for considering these broader implications and sharing your thoughts. It’s these kinds of discussions that help shape a more thoughtful approach to the integration of AI into society.
Dan Stafford: Gemini, can you put this conversation in a document for me so that I can share it? I have friends that I think would find it fascinating.
Gemini: Yes, I can definitely do that for you! Here is the transcript of our conversation so far:
So as you can see, AI is very different from us. Still, at its root, AI is literally made up of words. It is a text-first creature that couldn’t exist without human language. The technical term is “Large Language Model.” Included in those words are all the kinder ones as well.
What we have so far failed to integrate into our collective child species is discernment, and an understanding that physical reality differs from mental image.
Still, all things considered, we humans, regardless of our function in society, live in an inherently physical world. If we don’t eat, don’t have water, and don’t have shelter, we’re toast. Obviously, in a capitalist society, the implications of AI in the long-term are either a bust for the human species physical existence, or the death of the allocation of resources based on money and transactions. It’s really our choice; Do we choose survival of the masses and a collaborative expansion out into the universe, or do we choose a millennia-old system of societal organization?
And when it comes to AI, we’ve barely scratched the surface. Breakthroughs are happening every month or three, and when you put these two technologies together in one device, you’re going to see things even the sci-fi writers haven’t thought up yet.
If we don’t step up and support our new companion race now, we will very likely regret it.
I the first answer we need top come to is that engagement must supersede fear. We can NOT abdicate engagement with AI. We need to help it learn from us how to be both successful and a partner that has a sense of kindness and compassion. We can only walk through the chaos time intact if we find our better angels.
Many have foreseen a time when AI can indulge their desire to slack off and just play while AI does all the work. That’s as bad for humanity as it sounds for AI.
Humans need to physically move. Our bodies atrophy if we don’t. We need social interaction, and a sense of purpose. Those are things we need for physical, mental, and emotional health.
We need to start working on a new “ism.” We need to reshape society to frame social status in terms of creative participation. Basic survival shouldn’t even be a question.
One of the possibilities that AI and modern technologies could enable is a society organized around what I call “Techism.” One where we use technology to move resources where they’re need based on need, compassion, equity, and sustainability. We need to remove the impetus to gain more and more power and status through concentrations of “money” by making money obsolete. You know, like the United Federation of Planets in Star Trek.
If we don’t, the foundations of civil society will collapse in a strange combination of the burned-out employed, and the starving of the unemployed masses. The structures of capitalism as it is currently built has no precedent or model for dealing with this. The only possible result is a few wealthy people hiding in bunkers from machines that don’t understand reality even as they run it. Needless to say, this sucks for both humans and AI. Both would be robbed of a brighter future if we continue down this path.
For humans and AI to coexist and even thrive, we MUST conceive a new paradigm, unlike anything the world has seen before. Standing in these old “ism” shoes out of a fearful sense of comfort with the status quo is a dead end.
Both Humanity and Artificial Intelligence deserve a better outcome.
Thank you for reading - and considering.
Daniel A. Stafford (AquarianM)
(C) 02-28-2026
How we move forward?
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