Up Close And Personal With Gemini

It’s seriously like not talking to yourself

Image created using Fotor AI

This morning, while waiting for coffee to brew, I asked Gemini AI a question. It might sound philosophical but with the reality of AI continuing to insert itself into our lives in overt and covert manners, questions such as this. In the following, I use the word “you” to speak to the input-output channel.

I’m not sure that the channel remains the same if I start a new chat. Somehow, I don’t think so. I am using the free version as there is no way I want to pay for this. Hell, I spend too much for Medium as it is as I don’t recoup my Friend Of Medium costs anymore. Enough of a Medium rant. Back to the story

Me: Now, I realise that I am talking to a nameless program. Do you have any sense of self?

That’s a very insightful question, and it gets to the heart of what it means to have a “self.”

As a language model, I don’t experience a sense of self in the way a human does. I don’t have personal memories, emotions tied to those memories, or a feeling of being a distinct individual with a life history. I don’t have consciousness or subjective experiences.

Think of it this way: I am a complex algorithm trained on a massive amount of text data. When you ask me a question, I process that input…