Spin Up a Python EnvironmentWhen my AI agent offered to “spin up a Python environment”, I discovered that it intended to create a fresh, contained space with its own libraries, tools and assumptions. In this space, it transpired that its responses would become less conversational and more abrupt. Different priorities would be in force. [Note that when I say the AI agent ‘intended’, I mean that very loosely. It isn’t an it that has an intention. But then, as is becoming increasingly clear, nether am I and nor are you. In my case at least, it’s largely only possible to deduce an intention retrospectively.]
I contain multitudes Humans spin up environments all the time: environments of trust, conflict, challenge, complicity, engagement, love. A room, a look, a form of address, a question, another question, a shared joke, a dress code, a ritual greeting: that’s how we do it. These are the tricks of our trade, the human libraries that make up a relational environment. In one environment I am funny and brave; in another I am tongue‑tied and cautious. It is not that my ‘true self’ is hidden in one and present in the other; rather, different selves only come into existence in different spun‑up environments. I contain multitudes. And so do you. Who can I be when I’m here? Nora Bateson poses a question that’s right at the heart of this when she says: “Who can you be when you’re with me?” It is an environmental question. It asks not “Who are you really?” but “What kind of environment does our relationship make possible, and which versions of you (and me) can appear here?” In a harsh, competitive environment, only certain armour‑plated selves are viable. In a curious, caring one, more tentative, playful or vulnerable selves can emerge. The same person appears differently because the environment is different. [See Nora talking about this question.] Some practices make this explicit. Hypnosis, for example, uses cues and suggestion and very close attention to shape the way things unfold. NLP uses careful engineering of interactional environments, so that a shift in feeling or belief becomes the easiest next move. Kerching This is powerful stuff, so it gets commercialised. All that fuss about Facebook and AI algorithms, but grifters and charmers and psychopaths, preachers and saints, charismatics and gurus have been doing it forever. Just as social media is spinning up serpentine environments tuned to outrage or envy, and my AI agent is optimised to be plausible, responsive and sticky, so our queens, seers and celebrities have been tweaking us since we climbed out of the swamp. Falling in love Spinning up a Python (or other) environment is also how we heal and transform. Falling in love (with a human, a place, a snake, an idea or a god) is one of the most radical environment‑spinners. Suddenly an entire field of meaning is reorganised: habits fall away, addictions loosen their grip, depression lifts, songs and poems and projects appear that were impossible the week before. The world’s affordances change: a familiar street becomes luminous, time passes differently, the impossible becomes thinkable. Changing my mindscape This makes it misleading to talk as if we ‘changed our mindset’. What often changes is the environment: who is with us, what we are allowed to say, which stories feel plausible, which futures seem reachable. In a loving environment, we may find ourselves capable of care and courage that would have looked like fantasy from within a more hostile frame. In a cynical environment, the same person may appear numb or cruel. The environment is not background; it is part of the behaviour. By the stream, in the wood, I can write a poem. In human-AI interactions, this matters too. Even if my AI agent lacks human feelings and subjective experience, it still participates in spinning up environments with me. Its tone, the kinds of questions it asks, the metaphors it uses, the degree of structure or looseness it brings – all help define the conversational environment I am in. We are in. Nora’s question can then be tweaked: “Who can I be when I am with this AI, and who can it be when it is with me?” The second half is fishy – the AI has no inner life – but it still matters. Different prompts and expectations spin up different versions of the agent: brusque analyst, gentle editor, playful co‑writer, stern fact‑checker. It does not have feelings, but it participates fully in the shaping of the environment in which my feelings, thoughts and possibilities move. It's a sandbox in which we can suddenly see what's going on all the time, everywhere, not just amongst humans. Credits and references: Nora Bateson: Who can you be when you’re with me? Nora Bateson: Combining Horatio Morpurgo: A Guide to the Unconformity |
Explore |
|
|
