We built AI in our own image. Why are we so afraid of it?

AI is taught as foreign and frightening when it is neither — it is a mirror of the brain, born from human thought, and best understood through the same tools we use to understand ourselves: art, humor, and beauty. The gap between how AI is currently taught and what it actually is reveals something important about how we misunderstand both AI and ourselves.

OK, so who are you?

I am Jaime Church. I am a designer, a cognitive scientist, and a student of everything in between. This summer, summer 2026, I am conducting an independent design residency exploring what AI actually is, why we teach it wrong, and what it would mean to teach it humanely. I am calling it the Humane Machines Residency.

Humane Machines Residency

Say Hello