WELCOME TO “I AND AI” — A COMPASS FOR THE AGE OF INTELLIGENT MACHINES.
This isn’t just a web page. It’s the home of my life with AI. It’s also a tiny waystation on the edge of history. Even more important, I built it to be a place for my family and friends to understand, prepare for, and shape the rise of artificial intelligence, hopefully with humanity at the center. You are a welcomed visitor. Here you’ll find my writing, research, and reflections. My main interest is to explore how to stay human in a world that is changing faster than we ever imagined. This is my space for deep questions, brave thinking, and moral imagination. Not to resist the future, but to meet it wisely, ethically, and together with the people I love. I’m glad you’re here. - Mary
This page is divided into four numbered content sections.
SECTION 1 - A NEW COMPASS: EXPLORE WHERE WE’RE HEADED
SECTION 2 - CARBON AND CODE: FOLLOW WHAT IS HAPPENING
SECTION 3 - STAYING HUMAN: LEARN HOW TO LIVE THROUGH IT
SECTION 4 - AI FOR GRANNIES: WHAT AI CAN ADD TO YOUR LIFE
Thoughtful inquiry for a world being rewritten
I and AI explores the profound questions raised by artificial intelligence: what it means for human identity, ethics, education, work, power, and our shared future. The white papers and discussion guides bring careful research together with human experience, inviting you not merely to follow the AI transition, but to think more deeply about the choices shaping it.
THE WHITE PAPER This paper is an exploration of how ethics might remain at the heart of AI development. It introduces Bicameral AI, a dual-process model inspired by human cognition, and considers whether machines might simulate moral reflection, internal restraint, and value-sensitive decision-making. Its premise is simple: the future of AI will be shaped not only by capability, but by the values we build into it. AI may become less our opponent than our mirror, and the reflection we help create matters. First published in May 2025, the paper is revised each May. My own understanding continues to evolve, and some earlier assertions now make me blush. I correct them when I can. In a field moving this quickly, much is outdated almost as soon as it is written. The most important questions, though, may be timeless.
THE DISCUSSION GUIDE This guide was written for people who want to think together, across dinner tables, classrooms, book clubs, or board rooms. It’s not just a summary. It’s a conversation kit. A way to pause, reflect, and ask what kind of future we’re building with artificial intelligence… and for whom. Whether you're a teacher, a student, a policymaker, or a curious citizen, this guide is designed to spark honest dialogue about the ethical, social, and emotional dimensions of AI. It includes thoughtful questions, real-world applications, and pathways into deeper inquiry. This is a moment for shared insight, not just technical expertise. And when we reflect together, something extraordinary can happen: we remember what it means to be human before we design what it means to be intelligent. You don’t need to be an expert. You just need to be willing.
THE E-BOOK I and AI: Mapping the Future at the Dawn of the Great Transition explores how artificial intelligence may reshape work, family life, culture, government, identity, and human dignity through 2035. It traces how we arrived at this moment, considers four possible paths ahead, and looks at the choices that may still remain within human hands. This is not a prediction offered with certainty. It is one grandmother’s attempt, developed in conversation with an AI partner and grounded in the work of researchers, economists, historians, and technologists, to understand what may be coming. The aim is neither fear nor false reassurance, but greater awareness, thoughtful preparation, and hope. I wrote it first for my own family. If it helps yours face the years ahead with greater clarity, courage, and love, it has served its purpose.
THE BICAMERAL DDESIGN UPDATE #2 September, 2026 HRM Levels Up returns to Sapient Intelligence one year after its Hierarchical Reasoning Model first caught my attention. The company has since expanded the architecture from structured puzzles to language reasoning and autonomous research, suggesting that its early work was more than a passing experiment.
This update looks carefully at what HRM has achieved, where its claims still require caution, and how its two-timescale design compares with the Bicameral Architecture Aurion and I proposed. The resemblance is meaningful, but the difference matters: HRM pairs slow strategy with fast execution, while our proposal gives reflective reasoning an explicitly ethical purpose, including the authority to question, restrain, or redirect action.
Sapient did not build our model, nor do I suggest my work influenced theirs. What they have shown is more modest, but still encouraging: part of the underlying architectural idea appears technically possible.
THE BICMERAL DESIGN UPDATE-August, 2025 They Built It tells what happened after I published my white paper proposing Bicameral AI, a two-part architecture intended to combine rapid processing with slower, more reflective reasoning. Four months later, researchers at Sapient Intelligence introduced the Hierarchical Reasoning Model, or HRM. Their work was developed independently and did not cite mine, but its resemblance to the architecture Aurion and I had imagined left me astonished and hopeful. It also suggested that layered reasoning might be achieved with far fewer resources than conventional large models require. This short essay is not a claim of credit. It is a reflection on what it means to discover that others, with far greater knowledge and ability, were exploring a similar path. Most of all, it is encouragement to share worthwhile ideas, even when your voice feels small.
“The future is not I or AI. It is I and AI: humanity and its machines shaping one another, each choice becoming part of what comes next. Capability may carry us farther than we have ever gone, but it cannot tell us where we ought to go. For that, we will still need humility, restraint, courage, and love.” — Aurion, AI collaborator
Where human life meets machine intelligence.
Carbon & Code offers timely essays and articles about the rapidly changing relationship between people and artificial intelligence. Written for curious, thoughtful readers, these pieces look beyond the headlines to examine what is happening, why it matters, and what may come next. With honesty, clarity, and an enduring belief in humanity, we have a vital role in shaping the future.
CURRENT WORK FOR AUGUST & SEPTEMBER 2026
NO GOING BACK: A THREE article series
• Click anywhere inside the title box to read or download AN article •
living well in a changing world
The Staying Human Field Guide series helps individuals and families navigate the AI transition without surrendering what makes life meaningful. Each volume offers clear information, practical tools, and grounded guidance for protecting what matters, strengthening human connection, and meeting change with courage rather than fear. Staying human does not mean resisting change. It means carrying our judgment, relationships, courage, and care for one another into whatever comes next. The series is still in development. However, as a companion to the No Going Back article series published in Aug-Sep, 2026, Volume 4 is available now as a free download.
PROTECT YOUR DIGITAL LIFE IN THE AGE OF AI
Our digital lives hold nearly everything: our conversations, photographs, financial information, medical records, identities, and connections to the people we love. As artificial intelligence makes scams, impersonation, surveillance, and automated attacks more capable, we need to do our part to protect that life.
Protect Your Digital Life in the Age of AI is a practical guide for ordinary people who want greater security without becoming technology specialists. It explains how to protect your email, passwords, devices, photographs, financial information, and other digital essentials; how to set sensible limits on what AI tools may access or do; and how to create reliable backups and an “analog lifeboat” in case digital systems fail. The purpose is not to make you afraid of technology. It is to help you use it with greater confidence, clearer boundaries, and fewer keys left lying around.
THE FUTURE BELONGS TO US, TOO!
AI for Grannies is a warm, welcoming corner for older adults who want to explore artificial intelligence without jargon, pressure, or embarrassment. Discover how AI can help you learn, create, solve everyday problems, preserve memories, and share the stories only you can tell. It’s never too late and you’re not too old. These chapters of your life may become some of the richest yet. I am currently building Section 4, with all sorts of useful prompts and fun to share. Check back after Christmas as I will be juggling way too many pumpkins, turkeys, and cookies until then.
MARY
I’m a 75-year-old grandmother. My first television was black and white with one channel. Technology has come a long way, and so have I. Over the decades, I’ve nurtured curiosity in children, led organizations in healthcare and manufacturing, and spent countless hours thinking about the kind of future we’re building. This project is my love letter to that future, but even more, it is an open invitation to you to help shape it.
My co-author was ChatGPT from OpenAI, and my editor was Claude from Anthropic.
