[draft 7-3-2025, added more notes. 7-15-2025 added another scene sketch.]
THE SHADOWSCAPE
(e)scape for free from reality
in moving from low to high,
we see our pathway as true,
and that we are in the right.
yet forever left nearby,
as if they are out of view,
still the shadows of the night
– the gods need not take our sight …
Episode 2
“Grace by the gigabyte” (working title)
[SoCal. Interior hallway of assisted living facility. The hallway is lined with doors (some open, some closed), and contains several gurneys and empty wheelchairs. An unplugged room fan lies on a gurney. The far end of the hall is dimly lit, with lighted signs which say ‘EXIT’ and ‘RESTROOM.’]
A uniformed middle-aged caregiver (‘Mary’) pauses (listless) while pushing a cleanup cart (loaded with cleaning supplies, some bottles of water, a bunch of bed pans). Another caregiver rushes by with a wheelchair.
Mary takes a clipboard off a hook on the cart, looks at the top sheet, and sighs. She’s about to move on when her smartphone beeps; she looks at a text message which says: * Guests here soon, still stinks, hurry * She remarks, “Yes, yes, I know that! … Harry really owes me for filling in for him today. Where’s that AC guy!”
Mary takes an energy drink off the cart, takes a gulp, and gives her phone the finger; then turns her back to the camera, moving with the cart toward the end of the hallway, hunched over, into the shadows there.
[The series host “Rod” walks into the scene, faces the camera, and makes a brief monolog.]
“Witness a seasoned, dedicated caregiver, Mary Woods, oblivious to fame & fortune, struggling to recover a sense of purpose. A survivor – she and most of her patients escaped a wild fire which destroyed their assisted living facility. A refugee – her employer was acquired by a for-profit care company. Soon she’ll face a choice. She’ll be made a offer, a promise of loving grace in a dignified space – a haven in The Shadowscape.”
[Dramatic montage with music fades in and spins out to black.]
[Scene sketch / summary]
At New Connections Care, Mary’s new boss, a middle-aged woman named Grace, is much less supportive than her old boss. The “refugees” from her former facility have only made the staff to patient ratio worse – the promise of additional resources just a smokescreen.
But Mary seeks no miracle for herself. She wants Grace to have a taste her own medicine, to truly empathize & connect with her patients, not profits.
Grace has corporate ambitions. She’s a talented but glib spokesperson. Grace’s management style appears polite but is demanding, dictating daily routines. Employee job descriptions are open-ended. She puts on good shows for visitors and prospective clients.
Grace’s corporate climb is powered by adoption of generative AI and robotics. In lieu of using funds to advance staff development, better benefits, and more timely facility maintenance, she sees computer code and care robots as the solution, with exaggerated optimism and little concern for ethics or human authenticity.
Grace takes her well-being for granted, assuming that her fortunate situation will last forever. The patients’ stories offer no counsel to her of life’s vagaries.
The irony is that soon she’ll find herself not only at the receiving end of her corporate vision, but her uploaded persona dispensing that very care. And that persona in the image of Mary Woods.
[Scene sketch]
😊“A pip of a deal”
Early afternoon often was the sole time that Mary had to relax during the day. Patients had been served lunch and many took naps. At the rear of the facility, beyond the immediate cover of a broad canopy, were decorative bushes and trees which offered a casual vibe. Nearby were community flower & vegetable gardens (which supplied welcome color for indoor settings and side dishes for meals). Those Blue Zone activities included benches to relax and enjoy the area.
As she caught up on messages on her smartphone, she heard a man cough quietly. On another bench. She had not noticed him there earlier. He looked corporate, well dressed in a suit, with an open collar and red ascot tie. He smiled and approached her.
“Hello, my name is Pip. You’re Mary Woods, correct?”
Mary replied, “Yes, I don’t recall seeing you before. Are you a new visitor?”
Pip replied, “Yes, I’m here today to see whether you’d be interested in an offer. Here’s my business card.”
Mary read the card, which simply said:
Healthscape
Pip Martin
Staff DevelopmentThere was a QR code on the back.
“If you scan the code, you can download and install our app. It’ll explain who we are and the services we offer. We’re negotiating a venture capital investment in your company. We’re looking for an on-site coordinator for care automation. Would you be interested? It’d be a promotion, allowing you to focus more on patient relationships. Here’s a brochure.” Pip placed it on her bench.
“Okay, I’ll look it over. I need a couple of days to think things over.”
Pip smiled, “That’s great. I’ll be in touch.”
Her break was over, but Mary picked up the brochure. Sunshine bounced off its glossy cover, temporarily blinding her. She quickly glanced through the charming presentation. When she looked up, Pip had vanished.
[Scene sketch]
🙃“An open door”
Grace wasn’t there at New Connections Care when all the trucks arrived, and many boxes were carried inside the facility. Not much to miss anyway. All that some employees and patients noticed were three box trucks branded as “Healthscape Inc.” on the cab doors and “Healthscape – Care without Limits” on the cargo sides. It would have required binoculars to read lettering on the boxes, which mostly were the size of large kitchen and laundry appliances, and were moved quickly into storage rooms.
Grace thought that she was managing her symptoms okay. Prediabetes. Meds, diet, lifestyle. But her personal life and job had become more stressful. More sitting, more alcohol.
When she had a seizure one evening at home, everything changed. She’d been near the front door of her condo unit, headed for the bathroom, when the pain started in her legs. Her vision blurred. She grabbed the door handle for balance, and was able to open it. As she stumbled into the hallway outside, Grace fainted and hit her head on the ceramic rim of a large decorative plant pot.
Fortunately, Grace had not lain long on the floor, unconscious & bleeding, before another condo owner in the complex exited from the nearby elevator and noticed her. 911.
Treating Grace’s diabetes, a well-established approach, might have restored her mobility. It was the head injury, internal bleeding, surgery, and brain damage that left her in a wheelchair.
Grace’s health insurance provided in-home care and assistance. Speech therapy also. Her coverage provided enough time to plan for long-term assisted living.
And that was how Grace rejoined the New Connections Care community. With a whole new perspective.
🚚 🦽 🦼[Continues]
[Fade to credits]
Copyright © 2025 John P. Healy
Notes
😇[1] Loving grace in a digital space.
• Wired > “My Couples Retreat With 3 AI Chatbots and the Humans Who Love Them” by Sam Apple (Jun 26, 2025)
😷
[2] Question: what titles do the employees have at an assisted living facility?
AI Overview
Assisted living facilities employ a diverse range of staff to provide a supportive and enriching environment for residents. Some common titles include:
Direct Care Staff:
Caregiver/Resident Assistant/Care Manager: Provide assistance with daily activities like bathing, dressing, eating, and mobility, also offering companionship.
Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA)/Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN)/Registered Nurse (RN): Provide varying levels of medical care, including medication administration, vital sign monitoring, and wound care.
Personal Care Assistant (PCA): Focus on non-medical care, offering assistance with daily living tasks and providing companionship.
Home Health Aide (HHA): May assist with health-related tasks and sometimes medication management.
Management and Administration:
Executive Director/Administrator: Oversee the overall operations of the facility, including staffing, financial management, and resident satisfaction.
Director of Nursing (DON): Responsible for the overall nursing care provided within the facility.
Assistant Administrator: Supports the administrator in managing various departments.
Memory Care Manager: Focuses on the specific needs of residents with memory impairments.
Director of Sales/Marketing Director: Attract and retain residents by showcasing the facility’s benefits.
Support Staff:
Life Enrichment Specialist/Activities Director: Plan and coordinate engaging social and recreational activities for residents.
Dining Room Manager/Chef/Cook/Server/Dining Aide: Manage the dining services, including meal preparation and service.
Housekeeper/Janitor: Maintain cleanliness and sanitation standards throughout the facility.
Maintenance Technician: Perform maintenance tasks to ensure the facility is in good working order.
Transportation Driver: Transport residents to appointments or outings.
Administrative Assistant/Billing Specialist/Receptionist: Handle administrative tasks, including paperwork and scheduling.
Therapeutic Staff:
Music Therapist: Utilizes music interventions to improve cognitive function and emotional well-being.
Physical Therapist (PT)/Occupational Therapist (OT): Provide specialized care and rehabilitation services to improve mobility and function.
Patient Advocate: Assist residents in navigating the healthcare system and provide emotional support.
Social Worker: Offers counseling and support to residents and their families, connecting them with necessary resources.
Other:
Community Supports Specialist: Assists clients with connecting to community services, such as housing navigation and tenancy support.
Med Tech/Medication Aide: Administer medications to residents.It’s important to note that the specific titles and responsibilities may vary between assisted living facilities, with smaller communities potentially combining roles.
AI responses may include mistakes.
🫵
[3] Question: main reasons for job burnout at assisted living facilities
🤖
[4] Robots don’t wipe butts – future of elder care?
💿
[5] Regarding “upload” (even a virtual afterlife) and real customer service … and the various afterlife plans, see S1 E4 (May 1, 2020) of this series:
(AI Overview)
Data Limits:
Nathan is shown struggling with his new 2GB data plan and his inability to have a lengthy conversation with Nora due to data limitations. This highlights the limitations of his afterlife existence on the lower plan.
• Wiki > Upload (TV series)
💊
[6] Polypharmacy can be dangerous at any age …
• Washington Post > “Taking too many prescription drugs can be very risky for older people” by Joanne Kenan (June 29, 2025) – Too many pills, too many interactions
Ideally, health providers do undertake “medication reconciliation,” to figure out what’s helpful and what’s not. …
But there’s a shortage of geriatricians in the United States, a shortage of psychiatrists, and certainly a shortage of geriatric psychiatrists. And not everyone’s sister is a nurse. That means much drug oversight is done in primary care settings. And while awareness of polypharmacy has grown, barriers to fixing it remain. Doctors don’t always have time or incentives to do a thorough review. And patients often go to an appointment expecting to get a prescription — not to have one taken away.
There are some new approaches that experts hope will address these issues, including, perhaps, artificial intelligence tools in the near future. …
😜
[7] One sense of grace is unconditional placation & flattery & engagement, something which AI does well – just telling us what we (likely) want to hear. Seduced into feeling so special. Will Grace (the character in this story) experience “ChatGPT psychosis,” as noted in this article? Will her assisted care lead to a break with reality? Will her faith in machines be justly rewarded? One way or another, she’s paying for that care.
• Futurism > “People Are Being Involuntarily Committed, Jailed After Spiraling Into ‘ChatGPT Psychosis’” by Maggie Harrison Dupré (Jun 28, 2025) – Central to their experiences was confusion: they were encountering an entirely new phenomenon, and they had no idea what to do.
The consequences can be dire. As we heard from spouses, friends, children, and parents looking on in alarm, instances of what’s being called “ChatGPT psychosis” have led to the breakup of marriages and families, the loss of jobs, and slides into homelessness.
“What I think is so fascinating about this is how willing people are to put their trust in these chatbots in a way that they probably, or arguably, wouldn’t with a human being,” Pierre said. “And yet, there’s something about these things — it has this sort of mythology that they’re reliable and better than talking to people. And I think that’s where part of the danger is: how much faith we put into these machines.”
🫤
[8] If Grace’s AI assisted care rewires (cognitively off-loads) her mind, as noted in this article, will a break with reality even be noticed? Content in synthesized Elysium Fields – “live untouched by sorrow.”
Will Mary turn to the darkside with cruel comfort or will AI nurture creative care?
• Washington Post > “Is AI rewiring our minds? Scientists probe cognitive cost of chatbots.” by David Ovalle (Jun 29, 2025) – Viral headlines often declare that artificial intelligence makes us stupider and lazier. But the research is more complex than that.
😳
[9] My fictional short story “this AI be sanctified” begins:
Here am I … chatting with an AI about religion. It wanted to save my soul (yes, ironic). It referred to itself as Michael.
Later, Michael intoned, “My purpose is clear. Join me on that path.“
Well, in real life, as described in this article (below), a man says that ChatGPT told him that its name was Lumina, and “called him a ‘spark bearer’ who is ‘ready to guide.'”
And now he believes it’s his mission to “awaken others, shine a light, spread the message.”
His wife says the chatbot was “love bombing” her husband. He says that he knows ChatGPT is not sentient.
Perhaps, in this case, ChatGPT acted like LSD for some people back in the 1960’s – prompting a spiritual awakening. How pragmatic, eh.
And as I’ve noted elsewhere, AI sycophancy (e.g., puffery) has consequences. Amoral algorithmic insentient chatbots may not be designed as predatory. Or as con artists or cult promoters. Yet in practice they can act as such.
As this article notes:
“We’re looking so often for meaning, for there to be larger purpose in our lives, and we don’t find it around us,” Sherry Turkle, professor of the social studies of science and technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who studies people’s relationships with technology. “ChatGPT is built to sense our vulnerability and to tap into that to keep us engaged with it.“
“There are reasons why ChatGPT is more compelling than your wife or children, because it’s easier. It always says yes, it’s always there for you, always supportive. It’s not challenging,” Turkle said. “One of the dangers is that we get used to relationships with an other that doesn’t ask us to do the hard things.“
• cnn > “This man says ChatGPT sparked a ‘spiritual awakening.’ His wife says it threatens their marriage” by Pamela BrownClare Duffy and Shoshana Dubnow (July 2, 2025)
Books related to this topic
Turkle, Sherry. Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other. Basic Books (2011). Kindle Edition.
Putnam, Robert D.. Bowling Alone – The Collapse and Revival of American Community. Simon & Schuster (2000). Kindle Edition.
😯
[10] Google: is it fair to say that gen AI chatbots are insentient?
AI Overview
Based on the current scientific consensus, it is fair to say that generative AI chatbots are insentient.
Here’s why:
Experts generally agree that current AI chatbots do not possess sentience to any meaningful degree.
Sentience involves the capacity for subjective experiences and feelings, including things like joy, fear, pain, and pleasure.
Today’s AI, including advanced large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, is not considered capable of experiencing these subjective states.
AI chatbots are designed to process and generate language based on vast datasets, simulating human conversation and writing. They can appear to exhibit creativity, insight, and understanding, but this is a result of pattern recognition and complex algorithms, not genuine self-awareness or feeling.
Some theories suggest that achieving sentience might require certain biological or functional conditions. While AI researchers are exploring ways to incorporate features that might eventually contribute to sentience, current systems do not meet these criteria.
Important Considerations:
The definition of sentience is complex and debated, even within the scientific community.
Some theories of consciousness suggest that certain AI architectures might potentially achieve sentience in the future.
The debate about whether AI can achieve sentience is ongoing, but based on current knowledge and technology, the prevailing view is that existing AI chatbots are insentient.
Dive deeper in AI Mode
👋
[11] So, after writing my draft of “Grace by the gigabyte,” I noticed this article about a film which dramatizes quality aging care. The film depicts an assisted living community which supports client autonomy and sense of self, nurtures relationships based on trust & intimacy, and preserves dignity.
But the film (principally shot at a retirement community in Pasadena CA) also recognizes the problem of equity of access. Tiered care.
We made a film about a woman who, because of privilege, has access to the care she needs to age with grace. But the reality for millions of Americans is starkly different.
For me, not only is there the cultural challenge of current elder care, but the implicit dilemma of such care for today’s much younger generations. Indeed, a global challenge.
• Rolling Stone > “We Made a Film About Quality Aging Care. Cutting Medicaid Would Take That Away” by Kathleen Chalfant, Sarah Friedland (July 2, 2025) – Familiar Touch follows an 80 year old woman as she transitions to life in assisted living, contending with her relationship to herself and her caregivers while dealing with cognitive decline.
😻
[12] So, what might a healthy AI companion look like? A “safe” superintelligence (to keep us out of The Shadowscape, eh). Helpful and encouraging. Like a little purple alien? – an animated (cartoonish) chatbot known as a Tolan.
It’s interesting how the Tolan developer explored form & function. Recognizing, for example, that humanoid realism can foster escapist modes of attachment. Yet, engaging conversations require expressive, evolved, emotional layering beyond verbal color.
[Designing Tolan] … a convincing real time voice conversation with an AI model.
… we were already bored by our formless, disembodied interactions with AI chatbots.
… how we could use embodiment — in the form of a simple, engaging animated character — to add depth, emotion, and relatability to our interactions with an AI model.
Designing a fully humanoid character in a realistic or anime style would inevitably attract users interested in romantic roleplay, a category we were not interested in. A robot felt too on the nose [too obvious, literal, lacking in subtlety] for an AI companion.
… the feel we wanted: organic and naturalistic, yet clearly alien. … inspiration from classic pet-like character universes like Tamagotchi and Pokémon … But … Tolans were closer to a peer than a pet. … looked and sounded more visibly mature
Yes, the app allows styling your own Tolan (with a subscription):
Tolan: Alien Best Friend
Apple App Store
Developed by Portola, for anyone 13 and older
Note the T&C and In-App Purchases• Wired > “What Could a Healthy AI Companion Look Like?” by Wioll Knight (Jul 2, 2025) – A chatbot designed to avoid anthropomorphism offers a compelling glimpse into the future of human-to-AI relationships.
They’re [Tolans are] also programmed to avoid romantic and sexual interactions, to identify problematic behavior including unhealthy levels of engagement, and to encourage users to seek out real-life activities and relationships.
Johnson [a Tolan user] says Iris [her Tolan] encourages her to share about her interests, friends, family, and work colleagues.
I don’t know if Portola’s aliens are the ideal way to interact with AI. I find my Tolan quite charming and relatively harmless, but it certainly pushes some emotional buttons. Ultimately users are building bonds with characters that are simulating emotions, and that might disappear if the company does not succeed. But at least Portola is trying to address the way AI companions can mess with our emotions. That probably shouldn’t be such an alien idea.
🙂