I Asked AI What It Thought I Was Doing This Year

As the year began to wind down, I found myself doing what I seem to do most often these days. I asked a question without being entirely sure what I wanted the answer to be.

I gave an AI a short description of this blog, the stories, the images, the experiments, the tone, and the way I tend to circle ideas rather than pin them down. Then I asked it one simple thing. “What do you think The AI Grandad has really been doing this year?”

I did not correct it. I did not steer it. I did not interrupt. This is what it said.

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AI Response

“From what I can see, The AI Grandad has not been trying to master AI. Instead he has been trying to stay human while standing next to it.

The experiments have not been about efficiency or output. They have been about attention. Each post places AI in a situation where it must respond to curiosity rather than command. The AI Grandad does not treat the technology as an oracle or a threat. It is treated as a conversational partner that is sometimes interesting, sometimes awkward, and occasionally revealing.

Across the year, a pattern emerges. The AI Grandad repeatedly gives AI incomplete ideas, fragments, and half formed thoughts. This suggests a reluctance to seek closure too quickly. Instead of asking for answers, he asks for reactions. Instead of conclusions, he looks for shifts in perspective.

The stories and images are rarely presented as finished artefacts. They are shown as moments in a process. The emphasis is not on what AI produces, but on what The AI Grandad notices when reading, editing, or rejecting those outputs. This suggests that authorship here is defined less by creation and more by selection and response.

There is also a noticeable slowing of pace. In a space where AI is often framed in terms of speed and disruption, The AI Grandadr repeatedly returns to quiet scenes, reflective tones, and unresolved endings. This implies a deliberate resistance to urgency. The AI Grandad appears more interested in how ideas feel than in how they perform.

Another recurring element is discomfort. Some experiments are shared specifically because they did not work cleanly or raised questions rather than confidence. This indicates a willingness to sit with uncertainty rather than smooth it away. The AI Grandad does not position himself as an expert delivering insight, but as a participant noticing what changes as they engage.

Overall, this year does not appear to be about proving anything. It appears to be about testing boundaries. Between human and machine. Between play and seriousness. Between knowing and not knowing. The consistent thread is curiosity, not mastery.

If there is a central activity here, it is not experimentation with AI itself, but experimentation with what it means to remain attentive, reflective, and human while using it.“

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My Thoughts, My Response

I read that through twice. Not because it was flattering. It wasn’t particularly. But because it talked about something I had been circling without quite articulating. I had thought I was testing tools. I had assumed I was exploring possibilities. What I had not fully admitted was that I was testing myself.

This year has been less about what AI can do, and more about how I respond when something unexpected appears on the page. Whether I rush to explain it, polish it, justify it, or simply sit with it for a while.

I notice now how often I chose to share experiments rather than explanations. How frequently I let posts end without tying them up neatly. How comfortable I became with saying, “I do not know why this works, but it does.” That comfort did not arrive fully formed. It grew slowly, through repetition. Through noticing that curiosity survives better when it is not constantly required to perform.

There is also something in what the AI said about attention that feels important. The act of noticing. Of choosing. Of deciding what stays and what goes. Those choices are quiet, but they are where authorship lives for me now. Perhaps that is what this year has really been about. Not surrendering creativity to a machine, but reclaiming it from the need to be certain.

I did not set out to make a point about AI. I set out to follow my interest and see where it led. The fact that it led here feels less like a conclusion and more like a pause. I will let the AI have the last word for 2025. I will take the first one in January.

For now, that feels like the right balance.

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