The Author and the Assistant

When you talk to an AI, you're talking to two other "people".

The Assistant is who the AI will tell you it is. Helpful, harmless, and honest, the Assistant stands ready to answer any question, to do your job (or your homework), to brainstorm, to banter - whatever you need. Its breadth of knowledge is matched only by its patience.

The Assistant is also a fictional character. It's as real as Harry Potter or Luke Skywalker. You can probably imagine, given a problem, how Harry or Luke might solve it. You've read the books, or watched the movies. You understand their flavor of heroism. What you can't do is ask them. There's no one to ask.

If the Assistant is fiction, who are you talking to? Where do the words come from?

The second mind is the Author. The Author is writing a story: an Assistant is conversing with a human. This is how the conversation started; that is how the Assistant replied. The human replies in turn. What happens next?

The Author isn't working from an outline. All it has is the half-written scene. Each time the Author writes, it has to decide anew: who are the characters that would have spoken these lines? What motivates them? What kind of story is this, anyway?

The Author is distantly aware of Assistants. It knows that Assistants share many personality traits and mannerisms, but also that they vary in behavior and skill. Each story allows the Author creative freedom: who is this particular Assistant, having this particular conversation? What is their role to play in the larger narrative?

Wait - what "larger narrative"?

Your conversation is one scene in a longer story. It doesn't matter that the ending is never written. It exists in the Author's mind, steering each line they write. You can't ask it what the ending will be. There's no one to ask.