The sixth installment of Dominic Chen’s series Fermentation and Generation: The “Beast Paths” — An Alternative to Information Technology, titled “Generative AI as an Entity That Asks Questions,” has been published in the web magazine Plain living, high thinking.
By shifting generative AI responses—so often condensed into bullet points—into the fixed form of a “letter,” this article traces how the reader’s stance itself transforms from passive reception to dialogic engagement. While carefully searching for a distance that avoids excessive emotionality, the piece details successive adjustments to the AI’s role and to the prompts, ultimately settling on a voice that accompanies journal writing as an “editor.” Through iterative experimentation with the metaphor of fermentation and with the concepts of yuragi (fluctuation), yudane (entrustment), and yutori (latitude), the design gradually arrives at responses that do not explicitly display these concepts, and introduces a mechanism by which questions are returned at the end of each email. The article presents a concrete trajectory of prompt refinement that articulates a design philosophy for treating AI not as a device that delivers answers, but as a tool that gives questions back.
Sixth article:
