My thought-post today in LinkedIn. I am seldom there, because it’s not my favourite milieu, but the AI experts I mentioned are very active in LinkedIn, so I posted this there to let them know their work has impacted me. I always try to recognise people who have helped or inspired me in some way or other.

Image description in Alt Text but copied here too:
White on black background, sketch of Lucy greyhound. Nose tilted downwards towards her left, eyes looking down enquiringly, her ears are relaxed but perked, ready to take on new information. She wears a blue brocade collar with a large red flower. This sketch is from a photo of Lucy taken at SYNC Sg 2019, I was sitting on the floor, exhausted in near shutdown, and she got up from her fluffy mat, and was looking at me, always caring always alert to my needs.

Sketch of Lucy Like-a-Charm – speaking without words.

I don’t know much about AI, but I became interested after hearing Wan Wei, Soh & Ammar Younas in a panel speaking passionately about AI during SIBOS2024 in Beijing. I’ve also been reading articles posted by them & Tony Fish. As an Autistic autism researcher & multimodal transdisciplinary artist focusing on alternative sentience / empathic resonance and parallel embodiments, AI fascinates me. In an early experiment at my university in Australia, more than 10 years ago, I found that I was far more comfortable alone in a room with a humanoid robot, than with a real human stranger, & the experience stayed in my mind. That comfort level was not at all close to what I enjoy when I am with amiable non-human animals, nature or the elements, but definitely better than with humans. Now, thinking about AI, and the fact that AI entities are already beginning to develop “personalities” of their own – fundamentally, if AI is ‘fed’ the right kinds of information about neurodiversity, Autistic, neurodivergent, neuroholographic states of Beingness, would it then not follow that the AI entity would be a far more comfortable, comforting & even, dare I say it, empathic companion than the average misinformed, prejudiced & discriminating ‘real’ human? And then, the question: Who therefore can be said to possess more “humanity”? The AI entity developed with the right perceptions & attitudes, or the average human holding onto erroneous & harmful notions without wanting to expand their thinking?

Regardless, I believe that the effort of studying the human state-of-being still desperately NEEDS to include wisdom gleaned from non-human animals, nature & the elements, the fundamental expansion of our narrow mindsets to consider alternative sentiences, not to be afraid of the possibilities, but to be confident that our human percipience CAN and WILL handle it all, if we are willing to embrace new understanding with respect & for the sake of the greater good, not just of humankind, but all that we are intricately intertwined together with, inside a beautiful multidimensional tapestry of Being.

I’ve been badgering research institutes & researchers to consider this trajectory for serious study, especially efficacious if from the Autistic / neuroholographic viewpoint, but to little avail. Humans are still so obsessed by navel-gazing, I fear a self-destruct moment if we do not reach outwards to learn. Some scientists (S.Simard) are already proving what many Autistics always knew, even from childhood: that trees can & do communicate meaningfully. Therefore contemplating alternative sentiences even further than that of non-human animals. But Autism research is still stuck deep inside human-centric psychology, psychiatry, sociology etc disciplines. There is a vast universe out there yet to be explored, but few want to do so. Autistics do but without agency, we cannot do much. Yet. I still hope. In my lifetime? Will AI help?