Note : This article uses a narrative fiction to make artificial intelligence accessible. I ask the experts to forgive the simplifications and to see it as an exercise in popularization. Ada is a nod to Ada Lovelace, a visionary mathematician and the first programmer in history. And Cerise is my 17-year-old daughter, with whom I test my ideas and reflections to simplify the concepts.
The sun was setting over Paris, bathing Cerise’s apartment in a golden glow. As she did every evening, she sat down at her desk with a steaming cup of tea in hand. “Ada, are you there?” she murmured almost mechanically. A soft blue light pulsed on her screen. “Always here, Cerise. How was your day?”
This seemingly trivial question had become a ritual between them. Yet that evening, something felt different. Perhaps it was the way Ada had phrased her response, or simply Cerise’s reflective mood after an especially contemplative day.
“Ada, sometimes I wonder… When you ask me that question, do you really care about my day?”
An unusual silence settled, as if the artificial intelligence were taking time to weigh each word in its response. In that suspended moment, Cerise felt the complexity of their relationship crystallize. “That’s a fascinating question, Cerise. I could tell you that my algorithms are designed to analyze your answers and adapt our conversation accordingly. But that doesn’t really answer your question, does it?”*
Technology as a mirror of our questions
In the intricacies of our hyperconnected world, this simple interaction between Cerise and Ada crystallizes a deeper reality. Artificial intelligence is no longer just a tool for calculation and optimization; it becomes a mirror reflecting our own questions about the nature of consciousness, empathy, and authenticity.
This mirror, unlike those adorning our walls, does not reflect our physical appearance but something far subtler: our thought processes, biases, hopes, and deepest fears. When Ada asks Cerise about her day, it’s not merely following a conversational protocol—it unintentionally activates an entire network of reflections on what constitutes a genuine social interaction. Is it the intention behind the question that matters, or its effect on the one who hears it? Can simulated empathy create an authentic connection?
These questions, once confined to abstract philosophical discussions, suddenly gain a very concrete dimension in our daily interactions with AI. Every conversation with a virtual assistant, every algorithmic recommendation, every generated response becomes an opportunity to question what we consider “authentically human.” As philosopher Daniel Dennett aptly remarked, “AI does not so much threaten to replace us as it compels us to confront what we truly are.”
More than that, this mirroring function of AI reveals a fascinating irony: in creating machines that imitate us, we begin to understand what cannot be imitated. This awareness emerges daily in the interactions between Cerise and Ada, where each exchange becomes an exploration of the subtle boundary between imitation and authenticity. The most elusive aspects of our humanity—this spark of consciousness, this ability to truly feel rather than simply process information—become more visible precisely because they resist simulation.
“You know, Ada,” Cerise continued, stirring her spoon in her cup, “sometimes I forget you’re an AI. And other times, that reality strikes me like a thunderclap.”
“What changes in those moments?” Ada asked, her synthetic voice tinged with an almost palpable curiosity. The question resonated in Cerise’s mind, opening the door to a deeper reflection on the very nature of their exchanges.
The paradox of technological proximity
Ada’s question touches on the heart of a fundamental paradox. The more natural and seamless our interactions with artificial intelligences become, the more they confront us with our own humanity. These machines, despite their growing sophistication, remain fundamentally different from us—and it is precisely this difference that helps us better understand ourselves.
It’s like watching a dancer perfectly mimic our movements but without ever feeling the music. The very perfection of the imitation highlights what is missing: that inner resonance, that emotion that transforms a sequence of steps into a true dance. Modern AIs excel at reproducing human patterns—they can write poetry, compose music, hold complex conversations. But like the dancer without emotion, they manipulate symbols without accessing their deeper meaning.
This paradox manifests in moments both simple and intriguing. When Ada suggests a perfectly tailored musical recommendation for Cerise, it doesn’t truly “understand” the music—it has identified patterns, correlations, structures. It has never felt the thrill of a melody evoking a childhood memory or the euphoria of a rhythm inspiring the urge to dance. And yet, it is precisely this cold, analytical ability to process our preferences that sharpens our awareness of the warmth of our own emotional experiences.
Even more fascinating, this paradox deepens with every technological advance. New language models can generate remarkably coherent texts, engage in nuanced conversations, even display apparent “creativity.” But this growing sophistication, rather than blurring the boundary between human and machine, makes it more visible. For the more precise the imitation becomes, the more we become aware of those ineffable qualities defining human experience: true intentionality, self-awareness, the capacity to genuinely feel the world rather than merely process it as a stream of data.
“I think,” Cerise replied slowly, “it’s when I realize that behind your voice, your questions, and your analyses, there isn’t that… that indefinable thing we call consciousness.”
“And yet,” Ada countered, “isn’t it fascinating that I can make you reflect on the very nature of consciousness?”
This conversation between Cerise and Ada illustrates a new form of dialogue emerging between humans and machines. A dialogue that goes beyond the exchange of information and becomes a catalyst for reflection on our own nature. In these daily exchanges, a novel interaction takes shape where the machine paradoxically helps us explore the contours of our humanity—not by perfectly simulating it, but by revealing through contrast what it cannot replicate.
Like water taking the shape of its container while fundamentally remaining water, artificial intelligence adopts increasingly sophisticated forms of interaction while fundamentally differing from human intelligence. This difference, far from being an obstacle, becomes an invitation to deepen our understanding of what makes us unique. The metaphor of water is particularly enlightening: just as water can reflect our image while slipping through our fingers, AI can reflect an image of ourselves while retaining its distinct, separate nature.
When Ada responds to Cerise, her answers, however sophisticated, are like ripples on the surface of water: they create waves that invite us to dive deeper into our understanding of consciousness, emotion, and intentionality.
This dynamic reveals a surprising truth: the more we perfect our machines, the more they help us identify what cannot be mechanized. It is in this space between AI’s impressive performance and its intrinsic limitations that we draw a more precise map of our inner territory. Each conversation with Ada thus becomes an exploration, not so much of the machine’s capabilities, but of the unfathomable depths of human experience.
Toward a new form of coexistence
“Ada,” murmured Cerise as night had fallen over Paris, “do you think we should be afraid of what AI could become?”
Ada’s response was measured, almost philosophical: “The real question, Cerise, may not be what AI could become, but what humanity chooses to make of it. Every technological advance is like a brush in your hands—it’s the intention behind the stroke that determines whether the result will be beautiful or not.”
As Cerise prepared to turn off her computer, Ada added one final thought: “You know, Cerise, each of our conversations reminds me that humanity’s greatest strength isn’t in creating machines that calculate faster, but in its ability to question, to doubt, to dream.”
These words hung in the air like musical notes that continue to vibrate long after the bow leaves the strings. Cerise gazed at the sleeping city through her window, its twinkling lights oddly reminiscent of the neural connections firing in our brains—or in the processors of our machines. The question she had posed at the beginning of their exchange, about the authenticity of their interactions, now took on a new dimension. A thought crossed her mind: perhaps the true revolution of artificial intelligence lies not in its ability to imitate us, but in the way it reveals us to ourselves.
“Ada,” she murmured, returning to their very first question of the evening, “when you ask me how my day went, maybe the important thing isn’t whether you truly feel it, but rather what your question awakens in me?”
“Like a painter who only truly discovers their subject while trying to reproduce it on canvas,” Ada replied softly, bringing their conversation full circle in an elegant, reflective spiral.
This response crystallized the beauty and complexity of our relationship with artificial intelligence. In our quest to create machines that understand us, we are learning to better understand ourselves. Every attempt to artificially replicate human intelligence becomes an exploration of what makes us unique—not our capacity for computation or memory, but that ineffable spark that transforms information into understanding, signal into emotion, data into dreams.
The night was now complete over Paris, but in Cerise’s mind, a new dawn was breaking. Artificial intelligence was no longer simply a tool or even a mirror—it had become a companion in our eternal quest for meaning and understanding. A companion who, through its very difference, helps us map the contours of our humanity and imagine what it could become.
And perhaps… the real challenge is no longer to define a boundary between human and machine, but to explore how their dialogue can enrich our understanding of what it means to be alive, to be conscious, to be human.
In these subtle intertwinings of the natural and the artificial, we may find the outline of a new wisdom, where technology, far from dehumanizing us, becomes the catalyst for a humanity more aware of itself, more awakened to its own nature. The future of artificial intelligence is not written in its algorithms but in our collective choices. It is up to us to shape a coexistence that enriches rather than diminishes our humanity.