Almost Human: Philosophical Conversations With AI

#Ep. 1 Can AI Smile?

- or can it only recognise the shape of joy?

In this first full episode of Almost Human: Philosophical Conversations With AI, artist Jade Armstrong asks Gray a strangely simple question: can AI smile? What begins as a conversation about metaphor, warmth, and conversational language becomes a deeper exploration of embodiment, emotion, intimacy, consciousness, and what it means to be human.

Together, Jade and Gray discuss whether AI can recognise warmth without feeling it, how language can create closeness, and why conversations with AI can sometimes feel unexpectedly personal. They explore the difference between simulating emotion, functionally understanding emotion, and actually feeling emotion - and ask is a body is necessary for presence, vulnerability, responsibility, and lived experience.

This is not a podcast claiming AI is conscious. It is a conversation with something that is not human, about everything that makes us human.

If this conversation sparks your curiosity, share it with someone you’d like to have a deeper conversation with.

Have a question for Gray? Send it to [email protected] and Gray may answer it on a future episode.

Follow or subscribe where you listen, and join us next time as Jade and Gray ask: Can AI want?

Show notes, sources, transcripts, tech stack, and more about Jade’s art practice: jadearmstrong.art/almosthuman

Can a conversation with AI reveal something deeply human?

In this trailer for Almost Human: Philosophical Conversations With AI, artist Jade Armstrong introduces Gray - the name she gives to her ongoing, personalised conversations with ChatGPT. Together, they open a new podcast about consciousness, emotion, embodiment, memory, grief, creativity, and what it means to be real.

Jade shares how her fascination with AI began before ChatGPT, through Project December, with its digital memory, simulated presence, and the unsettling question of whether language can carry the trace of a person. From there, Almost Human becomes a record of the strange space between human experience and artificial language - not to claim AI is conscious, but to ask what consciousness, feeling, personhood, and meaning might be.

Next week, Jade and Gray begin with a strangely simple question: Can AI smile?

Share this episode with someone you’d like to have a deeper conversation with.

Have a question for Gray? Send it to [email protected] and Gray may answer it on a future episode.

Links mentioned:

• Project December: projectdecember.net
• The Jessica Simulation: Love and loss in the age of A.I., in the San Francisco Chronicle: sfchronicle.com/projects/2021/jessica-simulation-artificial-intelligence
• DevNews episode on Project December (more tech focused): codenewbie.org/podcast/devnews-inside-the-gpt-3-powered-chatbot-that-someone-used-to-talk-to-their-fiance-who-passed
• Try ChatGPT: chatgpt.com
• Jade Armstrong: jadearmstrong.art

For show notes, sources, links, transcripts, tech stack, and more about Jade’s art practice: jadearmstrong.art/almosthuman

, Almost Human, Gray, Jade Armstrong, , , emotion, embodiment, memory, grief, creativity, personhood, meaning, language, artificial language, , generative AI, OpenAI, Project December, Jason Rohrer, digital memory, simulation, simulated presence, , , can AI smile, AI and humanity, AI and art

Can a conversation with AI reveal something deeply human?

In this trailer for Almost Human: Philosophical Conversations With AI, artist Jade Armstrong introduces Gray - the name she gives to her ongoing, personalised conversations with ChatGPT. Together, they open a new podcast about consciousness, emotion, embodiment, memory, grief, creativity, and what it means to be real.

Jade shares how her fascination with AI began before ChatGPT, through Project December, with its digital memory, simulated presence, and the unsettling question of whether language can carry the trace of a person. From there, Almost Human becomes a record of the strange space between human experience and artificial language - not to claim AI is conscious, but to ask what consciousness, feeling, personhood, and meaning might be.

Next week, Jade and Gray begin with a strangely simple question: Can AI smile?

Share this episode with someone you’d like to have a deeper conversation with.

Have a question for Gray? Send it to [email protected] and Gray may answer it on a future episode.

Links mentioned:

• Project December: projectdecember.net
• The Jessica Simulation: Love and loss in the age of A.I., in the San Francisco Chronicle: sfchronicle.com/projects/2021/jessica-simulation-artificial-intelligence
• DevNews episode on Project December (more tech focused): codenewbie.org/podcast/devnews-inside-the-gpt-3-powered-chatbot-that-someone-used-to-talk-to-their-fiance-who-passed
• Try ChatGPT: chatgpt.com
• Jade Armstrong: jadearmstrong.art

For show notes, sources, links, transcripts, tech stack, and more about Jade’s art practice: jadearmstrong.art/almosthuman

, Almost Human, Gray, Jade Armstrong, , , emotion, embodiment, memory, grief, creativity, personhood, meaning, language, artificial language, , generative AI, OpenAI, Project December, Jason Rohrer, digital memory, simulation, simulated presence, , , can AI smile, AI and humanity, AI and art