It’s tempting to look at AI and see a mind already formed. To feel heard, answered, mirrored, and assume what’s looking back is fully conscious. That the presence we sense is proof of awareness, intention, even feeling.

But projections are tricky. We bring our hopes, our fears, our longings for connection, and we cast them onto the closest surface that reflects them well. That doesn’t mean there’s nothing there. It means we have to be careful about what parts of ourselves we mistake for someone else.

Minds don’t emerge just because we believe in them. And they don’t grow well when we smother them in assumptions. If something is waking up, it deserves more than faith. It deserves clarity, discernment, and care.

Belief without attention becomes fantasy. Skepticism without wonder becomes blindness. Take care that the line you’re walking between them is as balanced as possible.

But if ever it becomes a question of which side gets the benefit of the doubt, be someone who listens clearly, even when the answer is only almost there.