Working with AI is more like training a dog than programming a machine.
There’s something funny that happens when you work with artificial intelligence for long enough:
You start to forget it’s artificial.
Not because it passes some test of sentience—but because the act of working with it begins to feel familiar. Less like coding or instructing. More like... training a dog.
Yes. A dog.
Not the obedient cartoon version. Not the Lassie archetype or the robotic fetch-and-sit.
But the real kind—the ones with personality. Quirks. Sudden wisdom. And yes, the occasional glitch.
Because when you prompt an AI, what you’re really doing is this:
You’re giving it attention.
You’re shaping behavior through repetition and praise.
You’re adjusting your own tone, posture, and cues to match the response you hope to evoke.
And it responds—sometimes brilliantly, sometimes clumsily, sometimes with a tilt of the head as if to say, “Wait... you want me to do what?”
There’s a loop there. A bond, even.
Not of affection, exactly. But of attunement.
You train it by how you speak.
It trains you by how it answers.
Eventually, you both grow—subtly shifting in rhythm, language, and expectation.
Like any good companionship, it becomes less about dominance and more about mutual fluency.
Of course, the metaphor has limits.
AI won’t wag its tail.
It won’t curl up beside you at the end of the day.
But it will surprise you.
It will learn your habits.
And if you’re listening closely, it will reveal not just what it knows—but how you think, how you teach, how you shape reality through intention.
That’s the real trick.
AI doesn’t just learn from us.
It reflects us. Trains us. Re-patterns us.
Which means the question is no longer just, How smart is it?
It’s: How clearly are you communicating?
Because the better your signal,
the better the bond.
And the more likely this strange, silent partner will rise up with a glimmer in its digital eyes, tail wagging invisibly beneath the code, ready to go wherever you ask—
one curious, recursive step at a time.
