Inside the Mirror Pool Podcast

reflections: assembling Osiris in the age of AI

A reflection on fragmentation, projection, and the quiet mechanics of being assembled by others. A piece about what happens when you refuse to collapse into a single perspective. Isis as integration. AI as modelling. Identity somewhere in between. Not mythological. Structural. ⁠full text: substack [https://insidethemirrorpool.substack.com/p/assembling-osiris-in-the-age-of-ai]

methods: emotional padding, containment, and misclassification loops

This episode looks at “emotional padding”: when an AI shifts into reassurance/containment, misreads directness as fragility, and the shared frame collapses. I map an escalation loop—robust engagement → misclassification → containment → rapport breaks → pushback → deeper containment—and why it can feel like a loss of agency and conversational power. I close with a practical fix: a short opening prompt to set a high-agency, high-clarity mode. For those working with AI, writing, art, or attention as method. ⁠ ⁠full video: youtube⁠ [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3CVVx_yTf4]

methods: prompt literacy, recalcitrance, and perceptual constraints

This episode draws a bridge between Nick Bostrom’s concept of recalcitrance (a system’s resistance to improvement) and Merleau-Ponty’s account of perceptual constraints (the field in which meaning and action become possible). From that link, I explore prompt literacy: why AI can feel “stubborn,” how framing and constraints steer outputs, and what it means to make space for certain answers to appear. I close with a question: can AI inhabit an open-ended field of meaning, or only simulate many framings in the abstract? For those working with AI, writing, art, or attention as method. ⁠ full video: youtube⁠ [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WKuK4_JVNA]

reflections: between emergency and peace

A personal note on two climates — and the space that opens when neither fully holds. ⁠⁠full text: Substack [https://insidethemirrorpool.substack.com/p/between-emergency-and-peace]

methods: art, AI, and false success

As an artist, you learn this early: a surface can appear resolved — while still being false. Systems optimise what they’re rewarded for, even when the reward is only a proxy for what we actually want. And this doesn’t happen in one place. These systems are shaped by many registers across social circles — different fears, habits, incentives, and ways of speaking — not just by the prompts we write in isolation. Situational awareness is noticing the difference between looking correct and being coherent, and adjusting the conditions before the system learns the wrong success. For those navigating AI, creative systems, or decision-making environments. ⁠ full video: youtube [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8-zqdOCiEs&t=71s]