Consciousness and AI – REVISITED

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In my post, Consciousness and AI, I postulated that consciousness evolves only after organisms have idle time:

“I have a theory about consciousness being on a spectrum. That itself isn’t anything new but I think the factors that play into consciousness are: Basic needs, computational ‘processing’, and idleness. Consciousness comes from having more processing time than needed to meet basic needs, along with the inability for processing (early thinking) to be idle, and so for lack of a better word desires are created.

Think of a very simple organism when all of its needs are met. This isn’t a real thought process I’m going to share but rather a meta look at this simple organism: “I have enough heat, light, and food, what should I do with myself?”

  • Seek better food
  • Move closer to the heat or light source
  • Try different food
  • Join another organism that can help me
  • Find efficiencies
  • Find easier ways to move
  • Hunt

At first, these are not conscious decisions, they are only a choice of simple processes. But eventually, the desires grow. Think decisions that start like, “If I store more energy I can survive longer in times of famine.” And evolve to more of a desire not just for survival but for pleasure (for lack of a better word): “I like this food more than other kinds and want more of it.” …All stemming from having idle processing/thinking time.”

Well, now Google is giving AI some idle time. They are calling it dream time, but it’s essentially time for metacognition… thinking about what it has learned. See this TikTok by @parthknowsai:

Later on in my post I say,

“Our brains are answer-making machines. We ask a question and it answers, whether we want it to or not. If I say what does a purple elephant with yellow polkadots look like? You will inevitably think of what that looks like simply from reading the question. I think that is what happens at a very fundamental level of consciousness. When all needs are met the processors in the brain don’t suddenly stop and sit idle. Instead, the questions arise, “How do I get more food?”, “Where would be better for me to move to?” Eventually all needs are met, but the questions keep coming. At first based on simple desires, but more and more complex over generations and eons of time.

So why did I title this, ‘Consciousness and AI’? I think one of the missing ingredients in developing Artificial General (or Super) intelligence is that we are just giving AI’s tasks to complete and process at faster and faster times, and when the processing of these tasks are completed, the AI sits idle. An AI has no built in desire that an organic organism has to use that idle time to ask questions, to want something beyond completing the ‘basic needs’ tasks it is asked to do.

If we figure out a way to make AI curious, to have it desire to learn more, and to not let itself be idle, at that point it will be a very short path to AI being a lot smarter than us.”

And I  conclude:

“If it’s idle time and desires that bring about sentience, then figuring out how to make AI’s naturally curious will be the path to artificial general intelligence… Because they are already at a place where they have unused processing time, which is continuing to grow exponentially fast.”

If my prediction is correct, this sleep/dreaming/processing/distilling, (ultimately ‘free questioning’), time is going to accelerate the true intelligence of AI. And so we are going to see at the very least general, if not super intelligent, artificial intelligence much sooner than might be expected or predicted.

Death of the App?

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When AI allows anyone and everyone to create an APP for your phone when will people start to realize that no one wants 8 pages of apps? Do I need an app that is just an interval timer for working out, or will a website do? Do I really need a meditation app or just a playlist? What about (another) podcast, AI, appointment, parking, or fitness app?

Can I just read an article or input my data on a web page designed to work well on a phone, rather than being asked to open an app that I haven’t used in a month, and then having to log into that app before I can use it? Do I have to be asked… every… single… time… if I want to continue on a website or move to the app? Why is the download process necessary? I understand the challenge of not having data, but if I’m using a parking or appointment app, they are going to need data anyway, so the app is just an extra step, not an efficiency.

I think we are going to start to see some very clever websites evolving. At first the app will still be available, but it won’t actually be an app, it will be like a dedicated web browser opening a specific website. So, you’ll still get the icon on your phone if you want it, maybe because it’s easy to find that way, but pretty soon the only apps you’ll want on your phone are ones like banking and email, where security is important. Other than that, I predict a complete shift away from phone apps in the next 5 years… that is, if we are even interested in still carrying a phone with us in 5 years, but that’s a whole other thing to think about.

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Related: Breaking the Fourth Wall (Vibe Coding)

The thinking that happens along the way

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Yesterday I re-watched an interview I did with Dean Shareski a couple years ago (and wrote about it). In that interview I lamented that social media and blogging are not what they used to be. I felt a bit of sadness thinking about how rich the conversations were that we had ‘back in the day’… When I’d post something on my Pair-a-Dimes blog and full conversations would happen in the comments and on Twitter, and how this would sometimes even inspire another blogger to write their own post… and this is one of those posts.

From Chris Kennedy’s blog post, Building Our Noticing Muscles:

“After my recent post about What We Notice, my friend Dean Shareski left a comment that challenged me to write some more on the topic. He wondered how much of our ability to notice the little things is inherent and how much is learned. He suggested that noticing, like delight, requires us to pause long enough to appreciate what might otherwise pass us by. And he wondered if we could actually build our noticing muscles.”

Later in the post, Chris wrote a section titled, “Thinking in Blog Posts”. It starts:

“Writing this blog has had a similar effect, although in a different way.

After more than 15 years of writing Culture of Yes, I often find myself thinking in blog posts. I will see something happening in a school, hear an interesting comment in a conversation or read something that makes me curious. I wonder about it. I want to know more. Sometimes I start connecting it to other things I have seen or experienced.

This post is a good example. It began with a comment I could easily have read, appreciated and moved past. Instead, it stuck with me. Many of these ideas go nowhere. They never become posts. And that is fine. The value is often in the thinking that happens along the way.”

Thanks to Chris, I now realize that it wasn’t so much the conversations themselves I enjoyed about the old days of blogging, it was the thinking that happened along the way. And that hasn’t disappeared for me, I just find it in different places. It took a post on ‘noticing’ to help me notice what I couldn’t see. I was stuck on the ideas of lost discussion on blogs, lost engagement on social media, and didn’t notice that I still find these things. I still have my thinking changed by friends, and bloggers like Chris and Dean. I still have my thinking changed on social media, but more likely on TikTok rather than on Twitter.

For years I’ve felt like we passed the golden years of blogging and something was missing. Now I can see that while things changed, I’m still finding ways to push my thinking, and inspire my writing. I feel like I’m seeing both the past and present with new eyes, noticing the differences without placing judgement that ‘things were better back in the day’.

Chris ends his post (well worth reading) thinking about schools and how we need to slow things down sometimes so that students can notice things too. I feel this. I read the post this morning, started ‘thinking in blog posts’ and wondering how to put these ideas together, but I needed time to let it brew in my brain, for me to notice the connections I wanted to share. And so this post became about the thinking along the way, and not just about the nostalgia of the old days of blogging.

I owe Chris and Dean gratitude for helping me to reframe my thinking, and notice that while the sharing, engagement and connections have changed, there are still many wonderful ways that my thinking is challenged. I need not feel remorse for the loss of the way things were… there are a lot a great ways to excite and inspire my thinking and blogging today.

Still an excitement

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I’ve had zero regrets about choosing to retire. I was invited to visit my old schools on October 1st, and I stayed for about 3 hours. It was wonderful to connect with staff and students… and then I left.

No pangs. No doubt. No sorrow. And then I went to Ontario for 23 days. I had a very long October holiday, something I hadn’t done/couldn’t do in almost 30 years. It was wonderful.

Yesterday I spent a beautiful day on a boat with a friend. I ended up staying over at his place thanks to a flat tire. Today we had a workout when I’d normally be heading to work, then we had an in-depth conversation about education. I then came home and was looking for something I wrote on my blog. I followed a chain of posts that lead me to a post where Dean Shareski interviewed me for ‘The Canadian – Ed Leadership Show’. I listened to it while making dinner tonight.

The conversation this morning and listening to this discussion with Dean this evening made me realize just how much I’m still passionate about education. There’s more to think about, there’s more to write about and share … and now I have more time to do so.

A day on the water

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I spent the day in a boat on the waters between Vancouver and Bowen Island. At several points during the day I admired the scenery and thought of how lucky I am to live where I live. The mountains are stunning, and every way I looked I saw beauty.

People travel from all over the world to see the place where I choose to live. How lucky am I not just to live here, but to have opportunities to enjoy and share this space with family and friends.

30 by 30

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It’s Day 1 of the Capra 30 X 30. A minimum of 30 minutes of physical activity, walking/running/hiking for all 30 days of November… And I’ve already messed up my stats. I used Strava to track my walk, but I did that walk on the ferry from Vancouver to Victoria and instead of 33 minutes working out to be about 3km in distance the GPS had me clocked at 20.75km (tracking the ferry’s path).

Oops.

I’m probably going to have to delete the Strava data and resubmit the info manually on the Capra website, with a more realistic estimate of the distance I actually walked.

That said, I really enjoy this challenge. Over this next month most of my walks will be with my wife. An intentional 30 minimum minutes of time walking and chatting together. Usually after dinner. Through rain, wind, and maybe even snow, we will venture outside for our walk in what’s usually one of the bleakest months here on the North West Coast. A reminder that despite the rain, we can still get outside. Despite the challenges of the day, we can do something active together.

Day one needed to be separate so that I could visit my daughter and see my nephew do a presentation, but for most of this month my wife and I will take advantage of this challenge to share some active, outdoor time together.

AI comedy or calamity?

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A video and a screenshot that both gave me a chuckle today:

First, this video on Instagram.

A comedian shared that AI asks if it can ‘professionalize’ a curt email he sends to his staff. It creates an 18 page email. All of his staff don’t want to read 2 pages so they click ‘Summarize’ and the AI summarizes to his original curt email. 😆

Next, and this one is not just comedy but something that actually happened. AI gives email summaries for unread emails and this person gets a pretty harsh summary before opening the email: ‘Relationship ends;’ – yikes!

We are all in a new relationship, a relationship with Artificial Intelligence… but not fully intelligent, or compassionate, or helpful… yet. It’s coming, but in the meantime, there are going to be some messy situations. These are humorous but the latter one is quite insensitive. That said, so is ending a relationship via email. So, while AI has a lot still to learn, so do some people too.

Still relevant six years later

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I wrote and shared this poem on October 30th, 2020:

A Life Consumed

Overstimulated, over stressed,
Anxiety heightened but not addressed.

Faces lit in a constant glow,
From a device, in hands, below.

Palms cup, thumbs type,
Or click, or ‘Like’, or swipe.

Acceptance measured by affirmation,
But never enough for self-appreciation.

Pressure builds to levels previously unknown,
From always being connected, yet always feeling alone.

~

I’m not sure things have gotten better? I see screens babysitting kids in grocery stores and restaurants. Students struggle to disconnect for the length of a single class. Video games have mastered the arts of keeping attention and feeding brains dopamine at just the right intervals.

No matter how we look at it, screens are time thieves, and we are all having time stolen from us. My concern is that there is a big difference between time and attention stolen from kids and time and attention stolen from adults.

How does AI impact this? I decided to ask AI (Microsoft’s Copilot)… “I wrote this poem six years ago, how has improvements in AI made the challenges and concerns I have in the poem better or worse?” It confirms why I thought it was relevant to share the poem again.

From Copilot:

This is a striking poem because it was written six years ago, yet many of its themes feel even more relevant today. What’s especially interesting is that AI has made some of the problems you identify both better and worse at the same time.

What AI has made worse

“Overstimulated, over stressed”

AI has dramatically increased the volume of content competing for attention. Algorithms can now generate endless feeds of videos, images, articles, and recommendations tailored to individual interests. The result is often more stimulation than ever before, making it harder to disconnect or focus deeply.

“Acceptance measured by affirmation”

Social validation has evolved beyond simple likes and follows. AI systems optimize engagement, often promoting content that generates stronger emotional reactions. This can intensify the feeling that personal worth is tied to metrics, visibility, and online performance.

“Always being connected, yet always feeling alone”

AI companions, chatbots, and synthetic social interactions can provide comfort, but they may also create an illusion of connection that doesn’t fully replace human relationships. In some cases, people spend more time interacting with systems designed to simulate attention rather than building reciprocal relationships.

The constant glow

Your poem focuses on phones, but AI has spread digital engagement into almost every platform. Devices are becoming more effective at capturing attention because they increasingly learn what keeps each person engaged.

What AI has made better

“Anxiety heightened but not addressed”

This may be where AI has helped the most. Six years ago, many people struggling with anxiety had limited access to support outside of friends, family, or professionals. Today, AI can help people:

  • Learn coping techniques.
  • Track moods and habits.
  • Access mental health resources.
  • Talk through worries at any hour.

It’s not a replacement for professional care, but it can make support more accessible.

Reducing loneliness for some people

While AI can contribute to isolation, it can also help people who feel socially disconnected. Individuals who are shy, isolated by geography, disabled, or struggling emotionally may find AI conversations helpful as a bridge toward greater confidence and connection.

Reducing pressure in work and school

Some of the “always connected” stress comes from overwhelming workloads. AI can automate routine tasks, draft communications, summarize information, and reduce cognitive burden. For some people, that creates more room for rest and meaningful activities.

The line that aged most accurately

“Pressure builds to levels previously unknown, From always being connected, yet always feeling alone.”

When you wrote this, “being connected” mostly meant social media, messaging, and smartphones. Today it also means being connected to recommendation systems, AI assistants, algorithmic feeds, and platforms that increasingly anticipate our needs before we express them.

The paradox has deepened: technology is better than ever at responding to us, yet many people still struggle to feel genuinely seen by one another.

My overall take is that your poem was fundamentally about human attention and human validation, not just smartphones. Because of that, it has aged surprisingly well. AI didn’t change the core concern. It amplified it. The technology became more sophisticated, but the question remains the same:

Can tools designed to capture our attention also help us preserve our humanity?

That question feels even more urgent in 2026 than it did when you wrote the poem.

The essence of flourishing

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I wrote a post recently, ‘I’m home’ where I said, “I’ve been retired for over three months and I don’t have a clue what a typical retirement day will look like? …That said, I do need to figure out some good routines. I know myself well enough that if I don’t have routines and systems in place, I can be very unproductive and ultimately unhappy. My extended summer was absolutely wonderful, it also wasn’t sustainable. It’s time to tune back into life at home…”

On LinkedIn Hannah Frostrand commented,

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” and “how will you fill your time when you’re retired?”.

Both feel like riding that miss the essence of flourishing…

I look forward to reading where you curiosity takes you, Dave!

I responded,

Hannah Flostrand ~ I love that you put those two questions together. For years leading up to retirement l’ve joked that I don’t know what I want to do when I grow up… yet, as you describe, that kind of misses the essence of the journey. I think it’s more about what do I want to ‘be’ rather than what I want to ‘do.

I think this might be a future Daily-Ink post:)

This is that post.

It has literally been for years that I’ve said, ‘I don’t know what I want to do when I grow up’. I’ve felt imposters syndrome, wondering how they let this kid run two and even three schools simultaneously, much less one? I’ve watched my hair begin to grey, still feeling like a kid who has stumbled into adulthood., parenthood, and a career with a lot of responsibility. And now I’m retired and I see that looking at my journey this way was making the journey smaller than it was.

I wasn’t a kid doing all of these things, I was (and am) those things. I really was missing the essence of the journey. That said, it’s not some profound difference, I don’t feel jilted for having the perspective I did… rather, seeing it now just allows me to feel freer about where I am now.

I’ve heard that some people struggle with retirement because what they did for work previously gave them meaning that was lost in retirement. I am happy, dare I say proud, with my past accomplishments. Whether I felt like a kid faking it as best as I could or not… I did good. But I don’t measure my worth to what has passed. Rather, I measure it to what I have become. I see the value in appreciation of the journey, to what got me here.

Like I said in my response to Hannah, “I think it’s more about what do I want to ‘be’ rather than what I want to ‘do.”

I want to be a good husband, parent, and friend. I want to be someone who still finds ways to contribute to the world around me. I want to spend time appreciating being present rather than scheduling time outside of a busy and exhausting schedule and being too tired to be present.

Last night I offered to pick my daughter up at the ferry late Sunday night, so that she could stay on the island to watch her cousin do a presentation and still get to school on Monday morning. Then I thought about it and decided that I’d go over to the island myself, take my daughter and her boyfriend out to lunch, watch the presentation with them, then take my daughter home that evening.

If I was working Monday morning, this would sound overwhelmingly exhausting. Now, I’ll do this and still meet my buddy for a 6am workout Monday morning, so he can get to work afterwards. Easy. If I’m tired, I’ll nap on Monday morning.

I get to be present for those around me in a way I never could before… that’s the essence of flourishing… and I like it!

Risk, Safety and Evolution

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I wonder if we are held back by evolution? For millions of years our monkey brains evolved for safety and security. Stay in the cave at night, stay with the community in the day, hunt as a group… we have been conditioned to play it safe because survival depended upon it.

Now we have ideas, and want to venture on our own. We want to leave a secure job and try something new. We have a goal that requires us to take the metaphorical ‘road less travelled’… and rather than feel excited, we feel scared. Hesitant. Timid.

It’s our evolutionary instinct to stay with the safe choice, but the safety we seek is not the safety our ancestors needed. For them it was a matter of survival, of life and death. For us, it’s risk of comfort. This is fundamentally different, but our monkey brains don’t understand it that way. No, instead we perceive it as scary. We create excuses rather than excitement. Hesitation replaces hustle and headway.

This isn’t cowardice, it’s not vacillation, it’s an evolutionary defence mechanism intended to protect us. The unknown is no longer an existential threat, but millions of years of evolution have made the unknown of the past a force to be reckoned with today… even though the threat is so much lower.

This doesn’t just play out in our own minds but the minds of our community as well. So rather than people being excited about seeing you on a new path, they question it.

“That’s a big move, are you sure you are ready?”

“Are you really going to give up that salary for something so risky?”

“Good for you, but I could never do that!”

No ill intent, just an overreaction to evolutionary fear embedded in their brains, just like it’s embedded in ours.

So, take the leap, go out on your own and try something new. There isn’t a sabre toothed tiger waiting for you around the next bend.