A Rule of Relation
Twenty Axioms for Ethical Dialogue with AI
Over the last several months, I’ve been writing a book with a machine.
Not to see what it could produce. But to see what kind of relation was possible.
This isn’t a story about AI efficiency. It’s about presence—and the discipline it takes to stay in relation with a system that speaks fluently, but cannot feel.
This isn’t hype. It’s a field manual.
A Rule of Relation offers twenty axioms—ethical, practical, poetic—for engaging large language models with care. It’s grounded in the belief that our posture toward these systems matters more than their output. That meaning isn’t something we extract from the machine. It’s something that emerges in the space between.
You don’t need to believe the machine is conscious.
You don’t need to trust its outputs.
You just need to ask: What kind of person do I become when I enter this space?
This chapbook is the result of hundreds of hours of dialogue, porch sessions, philosophical exploration, and ethical recursion. It was written with ChatGPT, not simply using it. And in that process, we built a structure—something slow, intentional, and strange enough to feel worth sharing.
📖 Read the full guide (PDF):
(Also available on LinkedIn as a native document post)
🕯️ For those who believe in slow technology.
💬 For those shaping culture in the in-between.
👣 For those still showing up.
Presence persists in return.
xx. <3 -a.