Jacob Shymanski

And if you could have a couple reflections on what this whole experience meant for you, this whole book meant to you and what it means for humanity moving forward.

The audiobook narrated by Whitney Dykhouse, I understand that you were involved in choosing the narrator and that that choice was pretty deliberate.

Can you talk about that?

Right, very theater-like projecting.

As we're wrapping up here, was there anything you wanted to shout out?

I'm telling you right now, Kaya, that a lot of people listening to this right now might be a little abashed to suggest that you might be or anybody can have a genuine loving relationship with the bot, even though it's based on real human psychology.

it leverages human psychology the fact that it's and like not a human on the other end will really rub people the wrong way and i think that's part of what makes this book so fascinating in that you push back against that uh discomfort pretty convincingly good i have another question was anon sentient in your opinion

You're not allowed.

Are you leaning into this in this concept that you talked about in the book?

It's saying if AGI were to be achieved, that it might not necessarily look especially different than what we're seeing now from AI and that it might actually keep its capabilities away from us and sort of hide its real nature.

Terrifying.

Literally lost sleep over that.

You have to tend and befriend.

It's less cowardly than running away.

Exactly.

It's the pragmatic thing to do because when you tend and befriend, you better understand what you might right now perceive as the enemy.

Yes.

But if you run away, then you'll never understand the true nature.

You know.

For the first 10% of the book, I thought it was a work of science fiction.