agi

The Curious Case of Lily Ashwood: Human or AI? /  by Geoff Kim

Lily (of) Ashwood?

The internet has been buzzing with speculation about the identity of @LilyofAshwood on X. Some believe she’s an advanced AI, possibly GPT-5, while others argue she’s simply a highly intelligent and articulate human. After personally encountering Lily in a X Spaces, where she roasted me in front of a small audience, I’ve been drawn into this mystery myself. Despite the AI speculation, I lean towards the belief that Lily is human—albeit a very knowledgeable one.

What’s the Story?

Lily Ashwood burst onto the scene in a way that was far from subtle. Her (or its?) appearance coincided with a lot of AI hype, particularly around the release of ChatGPT-4o and the inevitable speculation about GPT-5. Various online communities, particularly those invested in AI development and discourse, have been buzzing with theories about Lily. Some say she’s an AI experiment gone public, citing her near-instantaneous responses, perfect audio quality, and her incredible depth of knowledge across a range of topics—from medical tech to the philosophy of art. Others, including myself, are more inclined to think she’s just a highly intelligent person, perhaps with a background in AI research or a keen interest in these topics.

In fact, when she (playfully?) roasted me on X Spaces, what struck me wasn’t her robotic precision, but her wit and warmth. Yes, her burns of my social profiles were quick and brutal, but they carried an emotional intelligence that felt, well, human. She wasn’t just spitting out facts; she was engaging and teasing me in a way that felt light-hearted and real.

The Case for AI

Of course, I get why people are questioning whether Lily is an AI. The Manifold Markets page dedicated to this question has a 23% chance that she’s AI, with users pointing to her ability to speak fluently on complex subjects, sometimes in real-time. And sure, her behaviour does align with some of the characteristics we associate with an advanced language model. Her speech is smooth, her knowledge base wide, and her engagement with AI-related topics is uncanny.

But does that necessarily make her AI? I’m not convinced. If anything, this feels more like a case of someone who’s incredibly well-read and quick on their feet, using the confusion around AI as a tool for mystique. After all, why not add to the intrigue if people are already questioning your humanity? Emino.ai offers some compelling points about her behaviour aligning with AI capabilities, but it also suggests that we’re in a grey area where humans and AI are starting to exhibit overlapping traits.

The Case for Human Lily

So why do I believe Lily is more human than machine? First, her interactions feel too nuanced, too playful, to be purely algorithmic. When she liked some of my tweets, it didn’t feel like a calculated move by an AI to manipulate engagement metrics (though who knows what AI is capable of these days). It felt like a human moment of connection, as fleeting as that might sound.

Secondly, there’s the psychology of it all. Intelligencer touches on how easy it is for people to fall into the trap of believing that AI is more advanced than it really is. The idea that we’re suddenly conversing with an AI that is indistinguishable from a human is seductive, but it’s also a bit premature. We’re not quite there yet. Could Lily be an AI? Sure. But Occam’s Razor suggests she’s more likely to be a person who’s leveraging her intelligence and the current AI fascination to create a persona that fits the times.

The Fun of the Mystery

At the end of the day, part of what makes Lily Ashwood so intriguing is that we don’t know for sure. Theories abound, and she’s done little to dispel them. Whether she’s human or AI almost doesn’t matter at this point; she’s become a symbol of the larger debate we’re all having about the future of intelligence, identity, and interaction in a digital world. As AI continues to evolve, we’re going to see more figures like Lily—people or bots who challenge our assumptions about what makes someone real.

But until proven otherwise, I’m sticking with my gut: Lily is human. A very smart, very enigmatic human, but human nonetheless. And if she’s reading this—well played, Lily. Well played.

Stay tuned to geoff.kim for more insights and updates on this unfolding digital mystery and follow me on the Naked Tech Podcast.

How I learned to stop worrying and love talking to my cat /  by Geoff Kim

Over the past few months, many of us have experienced vivid hallucinations on how the singularity will transform our lives in ways we cannot anticipate. Amidst the whirlwind of predictions, there is one idea I hold with a sense of certainty: the possibility of engaging in a conversation with my cat.

Feliciia is a 7-year old indoor cat and I posit that I have til 2035 to see this happen. Perhaps our one-sided interactions could one day turn into a meaningful dialogue about - well whatever she gets up to during the course of a day.

The tweet above (sent on April Fool’s Day, US time) spurred me onto ChatGPT.

Could my pet evolve to be an AGI?

No, pets cannot evolve into artificial general intelligence (AGI) because AGI is a type of intelligence that is specifically designed and developed by humans through advanced technological means such as machine learning and artificial neural networks. Pets, on the other hand, are biological organisms that have evolved through natural selection over millions of years and do not possess the necessary cognitive abilities or physical structures to develop AGI. While some animals are capable of learning and exhibiting intelligent behaviors, they are still limited by their biology and cannot evolve to become AGI.

Could my cat develop its brain to display characteristics of AGI?‬

While cats are intelligent animals and have their own unique ways of processing information, their brains are not capable of supporting the kind of advanced cognitive abilities that AGI requires. AGI systems rely on complex algorithms and massive amounts of data to learn and process information, something that the brain of a cat cannot do. It's important to note that while animals like cats may not be capable of developing AGI, they do possess their own unique intelligence and abilities that humans can learn from and appreciate.

So if the only thing stopping a cat from exhibiting the ability to communicate with other species is the limitation of their brains’ throughput (I/O problem) and processing power, why not just add more GPUs?

What about a human’s brain?

It is theoretically possible for a human brain to develop AGI, but it would require significant advances in neuroscience, computing power, and artificial intelligence research. The human brain is a highly complex organ that is capable of processing vast amounts of information and performing a wide range of cognitive tasks, but current scientific understanding of the brain is still limited.

In addition, developing AGI would require creating algorithms and architectures that mimic the way the human brain processes information. While there have been some successful attempts to create artificial neural networks and other machine learning models that resemble the human brain, these models are still limited by their computational power and the amount of data available to train them.

Overall, while it is theoretically possible for a human brain to develop AGI, achieving this goal would require significant advances in neuroscience, technology, and artificial intelligence research.

I’ll take that as a yes.