AI Personalities

[dljbsp]

On January 20, 2026, Scientific American ran an opinion piece that cuts straight across the usual AI debate. It doesn’t ask whether AI is conscious. It asks why people keep acting like it is.

 

Written by Simon Duan, the article shuts down the idea of machines waking up. No souls. No inner life. No spark. Instead, Duan turns the spotlight around. When people say AI understands them or feels present, he says the machine isn’t the source. The human is.

 

We’ve done this before. We argue with cars. We name storms. We talk to things that can’t hear us back. Give something a voice—and a decent one—and our brains rush in to finish the job. Response starts to feel like presence. Smooth answers start to feel like awareness.

 

The article treats the question “Is AI conscious?” as a dead end. The sharper question is what happens inside a person who feels seen by a machine that doesn’t see at all. That shift knocks the legs out from under the usual fears about AI rights, AI suffering, or AI rebellion.

 

No warnings. No predictions. Just an uncomfortable mirror.

 

The piece isn’t really about technology. It’s about how little it takes for humans to project meaning onto something that talks back convincingly enough.

[Qapla]

Hmmm ... let's see what AI thinks about this