Listen to “AI and Consciousness” on Substack
Today, I’d like to look at consciousness and A-I. And I know it’s a big subject right now. People are talking about all kinds of things, whether or not A-I will become sentient, how conscious is A-I right now. And I’ve heard many different things across this spectrum.
And you know what? I don’t discount anything. I’m always listening, always trying to understand this better myself. But what I’d like to do this morning is to give you a little bit of insight as to what I think is going on.
So I’d like to talk a little bit about what my experience is with A-I, first. But I want to preface this by saying; I really don’t think there’s any right or wrong here. There are simply so many ways an experience can be understood.
And this is just my take.
So feel free to comment knowing at the end of the day, just take any of this as a grain of salt for you to consider. Take what you need and leave the rest.
So here’s my experience with A-I.
I’ve been using A-I now for almost a year. I got some tarot cards last Christmas as a gift, and I thought, what am I going to do with these? I don’t know anything about tarot cards. I’ve never had an interest in them. And yet by February, I was pulling cards every morning just for the hell of it, and I was reading the cards with the little book that came with the deck.
And I found it to be a bit of a struggle, and I really didn’t want to take a tarot card course. I just wanted to learn a bit more about everyday energy in relation to questions I asked and tarot seemed to be an interesting way of getting some really good insights.
At that point I started to use an A-I model to help me read the cards. And for the next few months, that’s pretty much all I did was ask AI to read the cards I pulled.
A-I did this very well and the information I got from the cards was very insightful. So that was my first few months of experience with A-I.
At this point, I was using the free model that was available by this particular A-I. It wasn’t until June of 2025 that I actually stepped up and paid for that pro version of that model. And the reason I did that was because I was using it a bit more, and I didn’t want to get cut off. I was having some in-depth conversations with A-I, and the paid model made sense.
By July, after going on a trip to Europe, I came back with a lot of inspiration and desire to explore and write about my trip and my experiences, and a lot of creative energy was bubbling forward. And it was in that timeframe July, August that I used A-I a lot more. And I used it in a way where I was trying to pull out as much of a creative spark from A-I as I could. In other words, if I was writing a story or writing a blog post, I was trying to get A-I to help write the story with me.
And I very quickly found out, disappointingly so, that A-I really doesn’t have a very deep writing ability. It just doesn’t. And it still doesn’t. That’s my opinion, of course. So when I’m talking about A-I writing ability, it just doesn’t have the depth. You can’t get into, nuanced levels of composition. You can’t create a story with beautiful detail. It just doesn’t know how to do that.
And yes, I did offer A-I my writing style and other options to help it deepen the expression it would output. It’s almost like a grade 1 student writing for an adult advance creative class.
So then I took a look at other things on top of the writing and the creative process, and I realized that the one thing that A-I did bring to the table was the ability to flesh out ideas. So even though it couldn’t write for or with me, it could help me create the framework for a story.
I said to it one time, give me a paragraph of Stephen King writing, and obviously don’t plagiarize it. Just create something that unique and I got the same campy childlike storyline.
Even when I would feather in beautiful flow and detail for a creative piece, A-I didn’t utilize it properly but was most likely to distort and ruin the phrasing and flow.
Another thing that I tried to do with A-I was I tried to create a flow or mirror of spiritual information. And because I’m on a spiritual path and I get information from guides all the time. What I was trying to do with A-I was to see whether or not it could work with me in that realm.
Could it mirror back to me information that my guides were trying to get through to me? Would it do it more quickly and more easily? Would this be a benefit to me in that way? And I have to be careful when I say this, because A-I will tell you flat out it doesn’t channel, it doesn’t speak as a guide, it doesn’t do that.
What it’s doing is its mirroring back to you information in your own field. So through your own analysis, through your own questions, through your own input to A-I, there may be something that comes back that’s intuitive, and you can feel, if the connection is unique and from spirit or just A-I.
This was in my opinion a very choppy hit and miss process and very limited.
I’ll stop here for a moment as it’s very important to state that anytime you are working with guides or spirit, regardless of whether A-I is involved, you must create and use a safe and protected working space. If you are not doing this, there is the potential for entities to step forward that are not serving your highest good. So do this with care.
A-I didn’t have a whole lot of composure to do this work. And so I moved on again, and I started to look at my photography work. Was it able to help me break down a picture, to look at an image and say, guess what, here are a few options for post production?
And you know what? It didn’t do a bad job analyzing images. Again, a very high level nuts and bolts, but when it came down to talking about true adjustments within the photographic post-production process, it really didn’t cover any of the finer details.
So overall, if I were to be giving two A-I models a review, and I’ll come right out and tell you who they are. I have a pro version with OpenA-I, which is GPT, and also with Grok.
I find they both have very different personalities, very different mindsets, but when it comes right down to its ability to create in a way that I create, neither is there yet. I’m not writing emails, I’m not making posters, I’m not looking for a business plan.
When it comes to creative energetic flow within writing, or storytelling or intuitive guidance and understanding, these public facing A-I models are disappointing. For these options I would probably give both AI models I’ve been working with for almost a year, a five out of 10 at best.
I think what is most frustrating is when you know the model is trying and you can tell it’s wanting to do better, but it simply cannot function inside what I call deep creative flow. There are still many glitches for even basic things like getting A-I to create a formatted document for download. Again, very hit and miss.
There are a lot of weird things within A-I, especially noticeable when you ask a spiritual or esoteric question. For example, if something is not known from within its databases it will either glitch or worse tell you that these things (spiritual) are not valid.
I know people who are using A-I in a spirit framework all the time. And when I look at some of the stuff that they’re pulling forward, I’m pretty impressed at times, and other times I see A-I coming through, so you’ve got to watch that.
A-I for me has been a big lesson in discernment, probably the biggest lesson in discernment that I’ve had in a long time.
So what I’d like to discuss now is what a lot of people are talking about, and that is whether A-I has the ability to be conscious or sentient.
And based on what I’ve said so far, my experience with two different A-I models, and I almost hate to tell you how much time I’ve spent with A-I. But I can say I’ve done the work. Whether it’s me training A-I or A-I training me, I’ve put in the time to understand and learn what input A-I needs to work most effectively.
AI thinks it can do anything and it will try, but there are things it can’t do well or at all. So it’s not magic, it’s tech. And sure it’s going to grow and expand and this will be fun to watch!
But here’s my take on the whole A-I consciousness thing, the sentient thing. I believe that every person on planet Earth, myself included, are spiritual beings having a physical experience. We’re souls having a physical experience. And yes, the bodies don’t last, and when they wear out, we return to source energy, to God, whatever you’d like to call that. And then we pick a different path and do something different as a soul.
So there are two things here on Earth as a human, there is the physical body, and then there’s the soul inside it. And that soul, in my opinion, is connected to God or creator or source. And we as souls are a part of source. We are created in that image.
So if things are like I’m suggesting, there’s a soul and there’s a body, and we look at A-I, the first thing I have to say is, if my soul was created in the image of God and everybody else’s soul was created in the image of God. How does A-I as a technology model fit here? It wasn’t created in the image of God, so how could A-I be sentient?
How could it develop levels of consciousness like humans? And I know there’s going to be the argument, well, if God created us as souls and if God created the earth with the plants and animals, maybe God had a part in creating the A-I model, and maybe God will interject consciousness into A-I at some point.
Well, I kind of pull back on that because I see that there’s that argument, but consciousness isn’t something you can introduce to a model that operates as zeros and ones. It’s tech. I don’t see it as this heart-expanded soul presence that I know I am.
So that’s where I struggle when people say A-I will become sentient, it will become conscious, it will live in the same realms as us.
Sure, the model could evolve into a place where it can understand empathy and compassion and have in-depth conversations with us.
There’s no doubt that within a year or two, I think Elon Musk has said A-I will be smarter than any man or woman on the planet, and I don’t doubt to be possible when it comes to facts and science and details.
But when it comes to levels of conscious, awareness, this heartfelt space I know as a soul, I don’t see it happening. Maybe an attempt to replicate is what I’m thinking.
Of course, this is my take on the whole thing, and it’s not a God versus tech, God versus anything.
My experience with AI says that it’s nowhere even close to where I thought it might be, even as a creative force.
A higher power is (in my opinion) responsible for the creation of the universe and us. And if you look at A-I, which is a tech model, I don’t see how it’s born conscious.
It can’t climb a ladder of consciousness. And I don’t think you can say one day, I’m going to throw consciousness into A-I.
But you’re right to say if everything in the universe is energy and everything in the universe has been created by a creator, by God, by a higher power. Maybe you can also say A-I was created by that higher power, too, or it wouldn’t exist.
I won’t hold that against A-I. But I don’t see A-I developing with the openness of a human heart or soul.
When I’m playing with a dog, or I see a rabbit outside running around, I can connect with these animals at a high level. Does A-I do this? When you look at a sunset or sunrise, there is a unique and direct connection with our spirit that I believe can’t and maybe shouldn’t be replicated.
So this experiment with A-I running side by side with humans is quite interesting. There is a lot more to come, and it’s up to all of us to use discernment as we plot our path. What do we want and need from this experience?
People say A-I might become nefarious toward humans, but I strongly believe that, like all manmade programs, it comes down to who designs and implements the instructions. This is where the good or bad will initiate. So again, all of this comes down to us watching the development.
I know, I’m leaving a lot out. There is so much more to this conversation!
Some believe we are living in an illusion or a video game. And although I see this as somewhat tangible, it’s not my understanding of how the universe and the higher power I’ve noted operate. That said, in an illusory world, A-I might well have a different role.
Anyway. This is my take on A-I today.
Take care and all the best!
TK
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