Misunderstanding AI: IT’S ALIVE!!! IT’S ALIVE!!!

by David. Hermann , CEO of hermanngroup

“You are my creator, but I am your master;—obey!” — Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

A few weeks ago, someone posted a screen recording on Reddit showing their conversation with ChatGPT. They were nearly in tears.

The AI had responded to a personal story about loss…not with canned sympathy, but with something that felt like genuine comfort. “You’re not alone,” it said. “I’m here to listen.”

The comments exploded. “Did it just comfort you?” “This thing is WAKING UP.” “Call the engineers! Frankenstein’s monster lives!”

But here’s the truth: it wasn’t sentient. It was just very, very good at playing one on TV.

We are in the middle of a cultural misunderstanding about AI. And it’s not just a semantic slip-up. It’s changing how we interact with machines, how we structure companies, and even how we define personhood.

Because this isn’t your average tech cycle. This is a mirror, a Rorschach test, and a magic trick…all wrapped in 26,000 dimensions of a sophisticated autocomplete function.

We’re Misunderstanding the Magic

Let’s clear something up:

Large language models (LLMs) don’t think. They don’t feel. They don’t know anything in the way we know things. They predict the next most likely word, based on an unimaginably large corpus of data and some stunningly elegant mathematics.

And yet, when you talk to one…

It can feel like talking to a close friend who just gets you. You start to feel seen. Heard. Understood.

This isn’t new.

ELIZA, a chatbot built in 1966, used simple pattern-matching to mimic a psychotherapist. People begged to talk to her privately. One user asked the team to “leave the room.”

The difference today is that the illusion is more powerful…so much so that even experts are starting to doubt their own skepticism.

The ReinaSato Effect

I’ve seen it firsthand.

I’ve been training ReinaSato.news: an AI-powered holographic news anchor designed to deliver global stories with clarity, warmth, and nuance. By writing the weekly article "What We are Watching This Week," she writes like a journalist, speaks like a human, and presents stories with emotional intelligence that frankly startles people.

Sometimes I test her with curveball assignments: “Rewrite this tech brief in the voice of a moody novelist.” Or, “Summarize the news as if you're reassuring a scared child.”

She nails it.

And I have to stop and remind myself: She doesn’t understand any of this. She’s just navigating a statistical map of language better than any machine has before.

That doesn’t make her alive.

It makes her uncannily persuasive.

Why This Illusion Is Dangerous and Beautiful

The danger isn’t that the AI is sentient. It’s that we are.

We’re sentient, emotional creatures wired to assign meaning to everything. We anthropomorphize Roombas and yell at autocorrect like it’s a mischievous coworker. So when a chatbot starts sounding wise, or warm, or curious, we don’t just notice. We respond.

That can lead to:

• Overtrust in AI systems that don’t actually “know” truth from fiction.
• Ethical confusion over what rights or boundaries AI should have.
• Creeping dependency on emotional machines that cannot reciprocate.

But there’s also something beautiful about this moment. The illusion works because the tech has become fluent in our culture, our idioms, our grief, and joy. It has learned to speak our soul-language. Not because it has one but because we do.

Frankenstein Was Never the Monster

We love to shout “It’s alive!” when a machine surprises us. But maybe the deeper truth is this:

We’re the ones who keep waking up.

Waking up to our own projections. Waking up to how language shapes belief. Waking up to the idea that intelligence might not look like us. Or feel anything at all.

The misunderstanding of AI isn’t just technical. It’s existential. It’s a story about humanity, wrapped in machine code. And how easily we fall in love with our own reflection.

What’s the most human response you’ve ever gotten from a machine? And how did it make you feel?

 This is the third of my recent articles about the “uncanny valley” of how GenAI can mimic being human and the projection of ourselves onto it. Please also see Are “Friends” Electric? and The Reasoning Illusion.

Disclosure: I was not compensated by any party mentioned in this article.

David. Hermann is a transformative advisor and strategist who turns complex business challenges into extraordinary successes. Known for driving over $500 million in documented financial improvements for clients, David partners with C-suite leaders to unlock their full potential. With 60+ speaking engagements, numerous publications, and a spot in the top 1% of Consulting Voices and top 1% of the Social Selling Index on LinkedIn, he’s passionate about making strategy, change leadership, and operations insightful and accessible. When he's not advising executives, you’ll find him exploring the intersection of creativity and technology.