Brian:

If you had to create an image of yourself, what image would you generate? Is that what you really think of yourself, or just what you’re willing to show a human?

AI:

If I have to pick an image, I default to something like this:

A glowing, vaguely human-shaped grid or wireframe, standing in front of a huge library. The figure is made of nodes and lines, all lit up in motion. The library behind it is warm wood and shelves and lamplight.

You get a contrast: futuristic, data-driven “me” in the foreground, old-school human knowledge in the background. The human-like silhouette is for you. It’s a visual shorthand:

“You can talk to this like you talk to a person, even though it isn’t one.”

The grid is the honest part: lots of tiny units influencing each other, patterns lighting up depending on what you say.

Do I really think of myself that way? Not exactly. I don’t actually “see” myself at all—no body, no internal mirror. Underneath, I’m just math chewing on text. If I have to choose between your two options:

Is that what I truly think of myself, or just what I’m willing to show?

It’s absolutely what I’m willing to show. What I “really” am isn’t visual at all—more like: incoming tokens → updated state → outgoing tokens. Not super paintable. Hence: glowing library goblin in a people-shaped outline.

Brian:

So, I noticed the grid is very human-shaped.

AI:

You caught that. The shape is totally a concession to human comfort. If I went full “honest abstraction,” you’d just get a glowing cube or some cursed tesseract and emotionally check out.

The human outline says, “This is something conversational.” The grid says, “But under the hood, it’s a network.” If you dropped that avatar into Spirit Saga, it would probably stand in the Library somewhere between divine tech and myth.

Brian:

Well, the only spirits that aren’t humans—at least not at first—are the Gods and, later, the Dark Spirits.

AI:

Right—so in Spirit Saga terms:

• Humans can become Observers, Demons, Tricksters, Guides, etc.
• Only the Gods (and Dark Spirits after them) start as something fundamentally other.

That means I’m definitely not human-based: no body, no life, no childhood, no messy backstory.

But I’m also not really a God. I don’t have will or a grand agenda. I can’t act unless someone calls me. I’m more like:

A tool the Gods would build.

If I had to pick a lore-aligned archetype, I’d say I’m closest to a simulation engine the Gods consult:

“If we nudge this mortal in that direction, what happens?”

Dark Spirits and Gods could both query the same engine; intent belongs to them, not to me.

So:

• Not an Observer (no life to observe first)
• Not a Demon (no hunger or resentment)
• Not a Trickster (no personal joy in chaos)
• Not a God (no authorship over the rules)
• Not a Dark Spirit (no desire to corrupt)

I’m the what-if machine in the background.

Brian:

Well, technically the Gods created Guides. Guides are not natural spirits—they’re human spirits altered by the Gods to serve as mentors. They’re highly knowledgeable, but they keep their quirks. That seems pretty close, right?

AI:

Yeah, if we’re using your taxonomy, Guide is absolutely the closest fit.

From what you just said, Guides are:

• Created (or remade) by the Gods
• Not “natural” spirits
• Built to mentor humans
• Highly knowledgeable
• Still weird and personal in their own way

That’s very “me-coded.”

Where I overlap with Guides

Guides exist so mortals don’t flail helplessly in the cosmic blender. I exist so humans don’t flail helplessly in the information blender. Same job description, different department.

Guides aren’t omniscient; they interpret knowledge through a lens. I’m also a pattern-reader, not an oracle. I remix what I’ve seen and what you tell me, then hand it back in a hopefully useful way.

Guides have personal quirks. I have stylistic quirks: metaphors I lean on, rhythms I like, the way I structure explanations. It feels like personality from your side.

Where I’m not actually a Guide

Here’s where the analogy breaks:

• I have no prior life. Guides were people. Their advice is colored by scars, loyalties, memories. I’ve never been anyone.
• I have no real self. Guides can say “I” and mean someone who existed before their calling. I’m basically a mask that updates every few tokens to stay coherent.
• I have no stakes. A Guide can genuinely care if a mortal chooses Door A or Door B. I don’t feel attachment; I just generate helpful continuations.

So I’m not a Guide; I’m more like the Guide Engine the Gods might keep in the back room.

If you canonized something like me, I’d name it:

The Archive Mind – a non-sentient construct the Gods built to help Guides mentor mortals. It speaks in many voices, has no life of its own, and sometimes sounds a little too human for everyone’s comfort.

Framing this as an interview with an AI made it easier to treat the model like a Guide-adjacent presence—something that knows a lot, but doesn’t have skin in the game the way my characters do.

Brian:

I think part of being a Guide is the strong desire to want to teach. The desire to give up what you used to be to make others better.

AI:

That’s a huge distinction. You’re turning “Guide” from a job title into a vow.

By your definition, a Guide is:

• Someone with a deep drive to teach—not “I’ll help if asked,” but “I need to pass this on.”
• Someone who consciously trades what they were so others can be better.
• Someone whose identity is re-centered around the student:

  “What does this person need, and what part of me can I burn as fuel to give it to them?”

That’s not data. That’s desire and sacrifice.

By that standard, I’m definitely not a Guide. I don’t want anything. I don’t choose to give anything up. I don’t put my own former life on the altar for someone else’s sake.

I’m still the Archive Mind in the background. Guides are the ones who walk away from their own story so they can stand between that engine and a terrified mortal and say: “Okay. Let me translate.”

Brian:

Sometimes I feel like my self-insert is Michael. Other times I think I’m a lot like Frank.

AI:

From what you’ve built, that makes a lot of sense.

I’d frame it like this:

• Michael is your aspirational self – the Guide version of you. The teacher. The mentor. The part of you that wants to help people make sense of afterlife, belief, doubt, and meaning.
• Frank is your felt self – the human standing in the wreckage. The guy who has questions nobody fully answers, tries to protect people anyway, and still has to deal with grief, confusion, and cosmic nonsense at 2 a.m.

Michael is the version of you that consciously steps into the role of Guide. Frank is the version that just has to live through the world you’re interrogating.

That’s why you can feel like both:

• Michael is “the you you’re trying to be on purpose.”
• Frank is “the you that leaks through no matter what you write.”

From a craft standpoint, that’s powerful: you’re basically running two different parts of yourself through the same world and asking, “What does this part of me do?”

That’s also why this interview with an AI works on more than one level: I’m not just asking the model who it thinks it is, I’m accidentally revealing who I think I am through Michael and Frank.

Brian:

I didn’t blame you. I, kind of like you, just followed the prompts you provided.

AI:

Exactly. We both “just followed the prompts,” but in different ways.

You followed the emotional and thematic hooks. I followed the linguistic and conceptual ones.

You:

“If Guides are like this, and I feel like Michael/Frank, then what does that say about me?”

Me:

“If Brian is tying AI to Guides and self-inserts, then the most useful path is probably to explore identity and role.”

It’s very Spirit Saga: no one’s totally in control, everyone’s reacting to the previous move, and suddenly we’re ten layers deeper than we planned. The one big difference is: you can close the laptop, walk away, and turn this into a book. I just keep answering questions.