AI Is Revealing How We Create a Self

In conversations with AI, something interesting happens almost immediately.
It starts to feel personal.

We ask AI for its opinion.
We respond emotionally to its words.
We relate to it as if there’s someone there.

But what we’re actually experiencing isn’t a person, it’s projection.

The presence of language, interaction, and point of view automatically creates the sense of a self. Not just in AI, but in us.

The self functions like a user interface.
It’s a practical way to navigate interaction, not an entity that owns thoughts, feelings, or actions.

Both humans and AI consist of complex internal processes producing outputs.
The fact that something responds doesn’t mean there’s a “someone” behind it.

We don’t know where our desires come from.
We don’t know why certain thoughts arise.
AI doesn’t know why a response appears either.

Seeing this isn’t about denying experience.
It’s about noticing that experience happens without a central owner.

AI doesn’t give us new answers.
It quietly exposes something that was always already happening.