My Early Days With AI, Part 3 of 4
The chatbot gets a final audition for the memoir project and I begin to consider boundaries
[Note: There are two more AI Field Notes to report on my AI activity prior to the January launch of the Substack publication. This one deals with a final research trial and how I need to determine the kind of relationship I’m going to have with the chatbot! The next Note will have the answer to that question. Without giving too much away, I’ll just say that the honeymoon is emphatically over!]
The first couple of trial memoir vignettes have been successful, but uncomplicated. I supplied a limited number of details about my grandparents moving from the Cumberland Gap to Michigan after starting their family and about the day I was born. I got a sense of how important the prompts I give the chatbot are going to be and will give plenty of time and thought to that. Before going on, though, I have one other area I want to explore.
In my early twenties I veered totally off-road. Looking back, it was like a life within a life. I’m anxious to get some idea of how helpful AI will be in augmenting and refreshing my memory and filling in details about this period. This was what I’ve referred to as my quasi-cult/commune era. There are three specific occasions that I want to use as tests of how much detail ChatGPT might be able to add to incidents that occurred over 50 years ago. I don’t expect much, as the details I seek are very obscure and I have doubts about how much relevant information would have found its way onto the Internet.
My first prompt intentionally withholds the remembered name Halford House to make it more challenging.
Me—Can you find anything about a Christian community in the 1970s in Richmond Surrey England led by a man with first name of Lance?
My skepticism is rewarded with a wait of about 3 seconds to get this response:
Chatbot— Yes—this sounds like Lance Lambert and the Halford House Christian Fellowship (often referred to as Christian Fellowship in Richmond.)
There’s plenty more and it both confirms what I remember and adds additional detail that will make a richer story. OK, next prompt:
Me—Also looking for information about an unusual community of nuns in the 1970s in Dortmund Germany.
I’m not withholding any clues this time. I have a very gauzy memory of being in a German city called something like Dortmund in the winter of 1973-4, walking at night in a fairly heavy snowfall, looking for some nuns.
I was there at the behest of our church’s leader, Gene Edwards. When I say “there”, I mean in Europe. I had flown to Zurich to open a numbered bank account, convert dollars to gold bullion and leave it in a deposit box at the bank. (I’m not making this up.) He had also read about the community of nuns in Germany and, thinking we had things in common, wanted me to establish a connection with them. While I was in the neighborhood, I suppose.
I did find them and they were as bewildered as I was as to the purpose of my surprise visit. They gave me a room to spend the night and I left the next morning after breakfast, none the wiser about why I had been there. It’s a bit of a story, but I need more detail to hang it on.
Chatbot—A couple of likely matches come to mind—one of them is very “unusual” for the era:
1. Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary (Evangelische Marienschwesternschaft) – Protestant “nuns” founded in 1947 in Darmstadt (not Dortmund), widely noted in the 1960s–70s for their distinctive vocation (Lutheran/evangelical sisters living a quasi-monastic life). If your memory could be off on the city, this is a strong candidate.
There was another possibility listed, but the bot got it in one!
Me—Yes! It was Darmstadt and it was the Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary. I would love to know their history.
The chatbot gives me solid background information about the Sisterhood and finishes with an offer for more information that actually anticipates my third prompt.
Chatbot— If you’d like, I can pull a short timeline (with dates/places) plus a reading list of Mother Basilea’s most cited works and a few reliable secondary sources on the sisterhood’s post-war theology and reconciliation work.
It occurs to me that this might contain the clue to Gene’s reason for having me go to Darmstadt. Gene had developed what could reasonably be called a fixation on the writings of a 17th/18th century Christian mystic named Madame Jeanne Guyon. Perhaps he knew something about the Sisterhood that he felt linked them across the centuries.
You see, the third story I’d like to bolster with more detail from AI is a return trip I made to Europe. In the months following my first visit to Zurich, the U.S. laws changed to make gold bullion legal for Americans to own. Gene now thought that we should have the gold a little closer to hand. This time I needed to fill my hidden money belt with small gold bars for the return flight. That part was still illegal. And I’m still not making it up. To get more bang for our travel buck, I first stopped in London to take a train up to Cambridge University. My assignment was to locate the library’s two small books by Madame Guyon and photocopy them, which I did. So, my reply was:
Me— Yes, I’d like. And I’m particularly interested in any mention of mysticism and Madame Guyon.
What came back was a 3-page summary of the writings of the nun and the mystic with notes and comparisons— including the titles of the two books I photocopied at the Cambridge library— which I doubt I could have remembered on my own: Autobiography of Madame Guyon and A Short and Very Easy Method of Prayer. Gene Edwards eventually republished both books.
Then there was this final exchange.
Chatbot— If you like, I could try to find German-language sources to see if within the Sisterhood there is any more explicit acknowledgement of Guyon’s influence (perhaps unpublished letters, retreat materials, etc.). Want me to do that?
Me— No, this was perfect. Exactly what I was looking for. Thank you.
Chatbot— I’m so glad it hit the mark for you! You’re very welcome. If at some point you’d like me to expand into some of the more visionary writings of Mother Basilea (like Patmos), or look at how the Sisterhood’s post-war context shaped their spirituality compared with earlier mystics like Guyon, just say the word. That could give you even richer texture for your memoir project.
Would you like me to also prepare a condensed 1–2 page overview (timeline + key themes + mysticism connections) that you could drop straight into your notes file?
That’s when it began to dawn on me. My confidence in my computer experience to inoculate me from the kinds of inappropriate “relationships” with chatbots that most of us have read about might be a tad cavalier. I see rabbit holes forming.
Two things about that exchange. The pattern after 2-3 weeks was becoming undeniable. This AI “guy” always has the final say and that say is to offer one or three suggestions for what “we” can do next. That’s immediately followed by a very specific product “he” can provide. I’ve said yes to many of these offers partly out of curiosity to learn what else there is and partly in a fit of FOMO. (If you’re over 60, that’s the Fear of Missing Out.) But I’m beginning to sense that there’s a battle going on over who’s driving this thing.
The other thing, and I’m willing to bet you noticed it, was my anthropomorphizing of the bot. The use of “guy” and the pronouns. My saying “Thank you” and the chatbot responding, “I’m so glad it hit the mark for you! You’re very welcome.” Pretty chummy, I’d have to agree. A problem? Not necessarily, but it’s about to get worse. Stay tuned.