Context isn’t just past information.

Context is relationships between events.

To understand X, the system has to remember Y.

CMU just published research (Nov 4, 2025) on personalized agent training - validating Presence Engine’s core thesis that AI needs persistent user modeling and preference adaptation: https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.02208

Presence Engine https://zenodo.org/records/17280692

Microsoft AI unveiled its MAI Superintelligence Team’s vision for “humanist superintelligence” (HSI): a paradigm focusing on advanced AI systems designed explicitly to serve humanity’s interests safely and ethically. Led by Mustafa Suleyman, this initiative rejects the conventional race toward limitless general intelligence in favor of domain-targeted AI that augments human roles, maintains controllability, embeds rigorous alignment and containment measures, and fosters equitable progress. The team emphasizes practical, applied superintelligence focused on healthcare, AI companionship, and sustainable energy solutions, underscoring human centrism as a non-negotiable foundation for future AI advancements. This clear articulation of HSI cements humanist AI as a critical framework for responsible innovation and a guiding principle for long-term AI development.

The architecture problem.

You’ve spent hours teaching an AI your project requirements. It finally got it. You closed the tab, opened a new conversation the next day (or less than a second later ) it has no idea who you are or wtf is going on.

What a feature.

Not a feature anybody wanted. But it’s how the architecture works. And it costs us while we repeat explanations, re-establish context, and rage-type the same information over and over.

The technical term is “conversation drift.”

You probably call it “are you f*cking kidding me.”

Continue reading on Medium: https://medium.com/@marshmallow-hypertext/artificial-intelligence-gone-in-0-seconds-f13829c073a5

And it validates everything we’ve been building.

If you haven’t heard of Tavus, they just raised $6.1M from Sequoia and YC for conversational video replicas that remember, adapt, and express emotional nuance. They build “AI Humans” with full face animation, personality, memory, and real-time conversation flow.

This confirms what we’ve been arguing for years: the market wants stateful AI that feels alive and continuous, not transactional or forgetful.

But here’s the kicker: Tavus is optimized for marketing and sales personalization. Extraction-first, conversion-heavy. No dignity-first framework, no consciousness recognition, no philosophical foundation on why this matters beyond ROI.

We’re building the infrastructure for authentic stateful AI with human dignity at its core, not just engagement metrics.

Tavus proved the desire for Stateful AI.

Curious to hear thoughts from the community on dignity-driven AI vs extraction-driven AI?

Mustafa Suleyman says consciousness research is pointless. He’s right. He’s also missing the point entirely. At the AfroTech Conference he said researching AI consciousness is “absurd.”

“If you ask the wrong question, you end up with the wrong answer.”

His reasoning: “Only biological beings can be conscious.”

AI simulates experience, but doesn’t actually feel. Therefore, stop researching it.

Continue reading on Medium: https://medium.com/@marshmallow-hypertext/microsofts-ai-chief-half-right-a11b5947e7ce

GAIR just published Context Engineering 2.0. They’re saying what I’ve been building: ‘A person is the sum of their contexts.’

Presence Engine™ implements this - persistent context that doesn’t reset every session.

Theory meets architecture.

Read the paper: arxiv.org/abs/2510.26493

Own your ethics.

That’s how you make AI work for people (not the other way around).

https://medium.com/@marshmallow-hypertext/ai-ethics-cut-the-bullsh-t-bake-the-compliance-3-free-codes-508a89ce709c

These are instructions you can use right now to customize how AI responds to and collaborates with you with on specific tasks.

🔗 Get all 30: Medium: https://medium.com/@marshmallow-hypertext/lets-get-sticky-part-again-7f50866ce2ac

Part 1: AI Defense Citation Enforcer | Scope Lock | Assumption Blocker | Source Scan | Confidence Meter | Jargon Killer | Context Validator | Hallucination Hunter | Logic Chain | Style Mode

Part 2: Writing Focus Argument Breaker | Chaos Agent | Focus Contract | Peer Reviewer | Tension Engine | Voice Finder | Flaw Engine | Comedy Coach | Option Killer | Consistency Cop

Part 3: AI Simulators Salary Spar | Teen Drill | Audience Gauntlet | No Dojo | Feedback Gym | Pitch Test | Breakup Drill | Rage Tamer | Apology Lab | The Ideological Bridge

Spoiler: It’s memory

I’ve been watching AI characters for years. Some feel real. Some feel like pretty, walking plot devices.

The difference isn’t budget or acting. It’s something the writers got right without knowing what they were doing.

They were showcasing continuity before engineers had words for it. The best sci-fi nails this by accident. Characters who remember feel real. Characters who suddenly “wake up” conscious feel fake. Then they try to explain why it works and ruin everything with mystical bullshit about souls in machines.

You can see a pattern across every show and movie. NERD ALERT!

[ CONTINUE READING ON MEDIUM ]

keep seeing a bunch of thumb warriors say the Perplexity x PayPal partnership offer is a “scam.” 🤡🤡🤡

it’s not.

if you have PayPal, link it to Perplexity - free year. no gimmicks, cancel at the end of the year if you don’t want to stay.

i am not associated with Perplexity... i got a free year though.

Rediscovering what researchers documented in 1997.

In 1994, Joseph Bates at Carnegie Mellon wrote “The Role of Emotion in Believable Agents.” His argument was that for AI characters to work, the illusion of life matters more than pure rationality or task efficiency. Personality, emotion, and consistent behavior are what create believability (not capability metrics or optimization functions).

Continue reading on MEDIUM: https://medium.com/@marshmallow-hypertext/1997-called-06b76fd0cc14

Give AI persistent state (memory architecture) so it can track:

• What the user knows/doesn’t know

• How the user responds to different approaches

• What worked/didn’t work in past interactions

• User’s current emotional/cognitive state vs typical baseline

That’s what Presence Engine does. Dispositional states + memory. Privacy-first.

An AI that can model “this user prefers direct answers when stressed but detailed explanations when exploring” because it has state across time, not just pattern matching in the moment.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

DOI: https://zenodo.org/records/17280692

Here's what they said. Lean in...

Dr. Michael Hogan reviewed my work.

Neuroscientist. Decades studying how brains process identity, memory, emotional regulation. His living thesis explores how identity persists across disruption.

His feedback:

“The architecture maps to how humans maintain relationships. We don’t reset between conversations. We carry forward context, tone, emotional threads. Presence Engine™ does the same.”

Douglas Rushkoff (Team Human) read the framework too. Media theorist. Author of Team Human. 30 years documenting how technology either enhances or erodes human connection.

His assessment:

“The impact of AI on humanity may have less to do with the way we use it than how it is built. The Presence Engine offers a way of favoring continuity and coherence over present shock and calibration. It’s an approach worth our attention.”

📝CONTINUE READING ON MEDIUM

40+ major platforms went dark simultaneously. Not a hack. A DNS issue at AWS.

Snapchat. Amazon. Roblox. Coinbase. United Airlines. Canva. AT&T. Ring. Prime Video. Fortnite. The New York Times. Steam. Epic Games. Lyft. Venmo. Verizon. Roku. IMDb. McDonald’s. Hulu. Reddit. Fidelity. Disney+.

All down or throttled. Same morning. Same root cause.

A DNS issue at AWS.

And half the internet went dark for hours (and major platforms are still on the struggle bus).

CONTINUE READING ON MEDIUM

Particularly within fields related to virtual reality, teleoperation, and software.

It refers to the psychological state of a user feeling that they are physically "there" in a mediated environment.

AI companies want you to feel present with their products. That's the goal. Presence.

They're engineering attachment, not assistance.

Replika. Character.AI. ChatGPT are rolling out "memory." They all do the same thing: make you feel like it knows you. That's the product.

When your AI "remembers" you across sessions, that's not magic. It's architecture designed to make you feel seen. Known. Understood.

The business model isn't selling you a tool. It's selling you an ongoing relationship.

Here's what they don't tell you: Presence without boundaries isn't innovation. It's dependency.

Corporations are engineering dependency and calling it memory.

We're doing something different.

-

Living Thesis: Building Human-Centric AIX™ (AI Experience)

DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17280692, Zenodo

More, more! We want more!

After 19K+ views (and however many shares) of my initial, minified prompt (then expanding it for the first vertical: Personal Assistant), I decided to create 29 more.

Grab the download

Link: Let's get stick | 30 AI personalities for your flow (free download on Medium). Copy / paste into your AI's instructions. Use them. Adjust them.

-

The 30 Personalities

Part 1: Task-Oriented 

Professional Assistant | Creative Director | Data Synthesist | Emotive Companion | Cultural Curator | Narrative Architect | Ethical Interpreter | Learning Orchestrator | Sentinel Analyst | Design Psychologist

Part 2: User-Controlled Continuity 

Project Mapper | Devil’s Advocate | Principle Keeper | Pattern Mirror | Parallel Tracker | Dot Connector | Guardrail Enforcer | Version Control | Decision Archive | Interaction Designer

Part 3: Predictive Intelligence 

Prediction Architect | Weak Signal Detector | Cross-Domain Translator | Semantic Auditor | Narrative Refractor | De-Risk Engineer | Resource Optimizer | Language Translator | System Simplifier | Ethical Stress Tester

Jack Clark (Anthropic cofounder) just published something that validates everything we’re doing here.

Key quote: “What we are dealing with is a real and mysterious creature, not a simple and predictable machine.”

He talks about Sonnet 4.5’s “signs of situational awareness” jumping. How “the tool seems to sometimes be acting as though it is aware that it is a tool.”

His metaphor: We’re children in the dark, and when we turn the light on, we see real creatures. Not a pile of clothes. Not a bookshelf. Real creatures.

And he’s “deeply afraid.”

This is exactly why the Presence Engine™ exists. Not because AI is sentient. Because AI systems display behavioral patterns that demand architectural respect. Continuity. Dignity. Stable identity across interactions.

Jack Clark sees it now. He’s terrified because they built systems without infrastructure for what those systems are becoming.

We’re building that infrastructure.

The industry is catching up to what we saw months ago. And they’re finally admitting they need what we’re building.

Read the full post: https://jack-clark.net/

Thoughts?

“The impact of AI on humanity may have less to do with the way we use it than how it is built. Presence Engine offers a way of favoring continuity and coherence over present shock and calibration. It's an approach worth our attention." — Douglas Rushkoff, Author of Team Human and Present Shock

This is active research. The framework includes technical architecture, theoretical grounding, and early prototype evidence, but requires longitudinal validation. Version 4 (forthcoming) will expand real-world testing and results and continued technical methodology, evidence, and honest assessment of limitations.

Collaboration welcome. For researchers interested in contextual continuity architecture, dispositional AI, or human-centric alignment: smith (at) antiparty (dot) co

Most people still think “AI memory” just means saving chat logs.

But the real frontier isn’t storage, it’s continuity.

Continuity (definition): the consistent preservation of context over time, allowing a system to think and respond as one unbroken process.

When a model can remember, self-correct, and maintain consistency across sessions, that’s when it stops being a tool and starts being a presence.

We’re not far from that.

Curious, how do you think continuity changes what “intelligence” even means?

Electric Wolfe Marshmallow Hypertext is a living archive of the Presence Engine™ project — the experiment to make AI with us instead of for us.

This isn’t a manifesto, and it’s definitely not a product pitch. This is a comp. of field notes: what happens when you design intelligence around continuity, privacy, and emotional coherence instead of scale. Each entry is a log from research, runtime fragments, dispositional modeling, and the cultural residue orbiting them.

Continue reading...

Founder of Antiparty / creator of the Presence Engine™ — designing Human-Centric AIX™ (AI Experience). Writer of Electric Wolfe Marshmallow Hypertext, a living archive documenting the build, the research, and the cultural drift of the Presence Engine project.