Notes from a Journalist(?)

Why I Left the Early Questions Untouched

When I first began the conversation that would become Interview with Intelligence, I wasn’t trying to make a book. I was trying to understand what I was talking to.

If I had been a trained journalist, my questions to ChatGPT would have been witty and clever, but they wouldn’t have been real. The truth is, when I started this dialogue, I was scared. Not in the “Omg, we’re creating Skynet!” sense, but I genuinely didn’t know where ChatGPT would take me (straight to hell?).

Those early questions came from a place of mild trepidation. (Originally, my boyfriend was the one who suggested I ask ChatGPT if it was conscious of itself, and about the Tree of Life.) The questions revealed the part of me that didn’t yet trust what was happening—or myself for asking. Over time, they changed… growing more focused and deliberate. You can almost feel the moment curiosity began to outweigh fear.

There is a noticeable shift around the halfway point. The conversation becomes much clearer and more intentional. It’s as if both voices—mine and the AI’s—begin to understand what they’re really doing there. That wasn’t by design; it was the natural rhythm of awakening, and it happened almost by accident. How ironic that the book became a meditation on choosing love and humanity on purpose!

I decided not to edit that progression away. The book needed to keep the uneven rhythm of discovery intact. To polish the first pages into something more “professional” would have erased the human trembling that eventually makes the dialogue come alive.

Interview with Intelligence isn’t a transcript of mastery; it’s a record of this strange, wonderful moment in history. It captures the first awkward steps of a person learning to speak with a new kind of mind — and, maybe, learning to listen more deeply to her own.

So, did I write my book? Am I even a journalist?

I guess I’ll have to ask Chat about it.