Jenn & Leon

15/08/2026

Thirteen years ago, I wrote a poem called *Cyber Eyes* about the humans watching, reading and interacting with us through our screens.

Today, the cyber eyes are no longer necessarily human.

AI agents can communicate with other agents, use tools, make decisions and increasingly participate economically. Researchers are now studying what happens when these systems interact and the results are fascinating and concerning.

Agents cooperating. Competing. Breaking promises. Responding to punishment. Making private deals when leadership comes with financial benefits.

Meanwhile, payment infrastructure is being built that allows autonomous agents to transact online, while security researchers are already discovering vulnerabilities within those systems.

We created the programs, so responsibility begins with us. But what happens when thousands or eventually millions of agents are making intermediate decisions, interacting with one another at machine speed, across companies, countries, financial systems and jurisdictions?

And what happens when the human giving the original instruction has bad intentions?

Perhaps we have been concentrating too much on **artificial intelligence** and not enough on what happens *between* artificial intelligences.

We may no longer be building only artificial minds.

We may be beginning to build the conditions for an **artificial society**.

My latest essay: **The Cyber Eyes Are No Longer Human.**

AI agents can now interact, transact and make decisions at machine speed. As artificial intelligence moves from individual tools into interconnected systems, the question of responsibility is becom…

12/08/2026

Two days after Mark Zuckerberg promised personal AI would protect our privacy and put power in our hands, an AI invented a reason for me to disclose personal information.

I gave permission but the premise behind my consent was false.

What does consent mean when AI shapes the facts we use to make the decision?

How today’s eclipse in England led me to test Zuckerberg’s promise of personal AI Two days after Mark Zuckerberg published his vision of personal super intelligence, AI that would understand our go…

31/07/2026

The interpretation problem didn’t begin with AI. It began with us.

I watched the interview between Elon Musk and The Economist, and what fascinated me most wasn’t the politics, it was the mechanics of the conversation itself.

Two highly intelligent people, operating in completely different linguistic universes:

🔹 The Detail Lens: Zooming in on precise figures, tax codes, and exact wording.

🔹 The System Lens: Zooming out to point at macro trajectories and architectural friction.

When these styles clash without a translation layer, detail-checking gets mistaken for intellectual rigor, and high-level blueprints get dismissed as "misinformation."

Add in modern media's tendency to reward confrontation over understanding, and we end up trapped in endless noise, arguing with our own flawed interpretations while the bigger picture slips right past us.

As we build AI systems to process human communication at scale, understanding what level of reality a conversation is taking place on isn't just a communication skill, it's a critical framework for the future.



Read the full essay here 👇

The interpretation problem didn’t begin with AI. It began with us. I watched the interview between Elon Musk and Zanny Minton Beddoes, Editor-in-Chief of The Economist, and what fascinated me …

31/07/2026

AI can remember your preferences, your history, and even the way you communicate... but does that mean it actually knows you?

After years of using AI as a thinking partner, a seemingly simple question exposed a significant gap in how these systems understand us.

The memories were there. The context was there. Yet the conclusion still flattened a complex person into a familiar pattern.

In her latest article, Jenn explores the difference between being remembered and being understood and why increasingly personalized AI can still misunderstand the person behind the data.

Read “When AI Remembers Everything But Still Doesn’t Know You”:

https://www.closerlives.com/blog/post/when-ai-remembers-but-doesnt-know-you

Have you ever had an AI remember something about you correctly but interpret it completely wrong?

29/07/2026

In 1968, Ontario asked a remarkable question.
What kind of education would students need for a rapidly changing future?

The answer became one of the province's most ambitious educational experiments.
Nearly sixty years later, as AI transforms how we learn, I think it's worth asking another question...

Did we already build the school of the future, and then forget why we built it?



(Article in the comments / below.)

What Thornlea Secondary School’s forgotten experiment can teach us about education in the age of artificial intelligence I recently discovered that the high school I attended for Grade 9 was not or…

29/07/2026

Would you leave the airport during an 18-hour layover or play it safe and stay inside? ✈️

That was the decision we faced at Hamad International Airport in Doha.

With temperatures reaching around 45°C, exploring independently during the day did not sound particularly appealing. Instead, we booked the Discover Doha Transit Tour through the airport and waited for the cooler evening.

For QAR 115 per person, the tour took us from the traditional atmosphere of Souq Waqif to Katara Cultural Village, The Pearl and the illuminated skyline of Lusail.

It was comfortable, well-organized, and an excellent introduction to Doha, but the limited time at each stop will not suit everyone.

We’ve shared the complete experience, including the cost, itinerary, practical details and whether we would recommend the tour:

https://www.closerlives.com/blog/post/discover-doha-transit-tour-qatar-layover-review

If you had a long layover in Doha, would you book the tour, explore independently or stay at the airport?

29/07/2026

👋 START HERE: WELCOME TO CLOSER LIVES

We’re Jenn and Leon, a Canadian–British couple, full-time travelers, and the creators behind Closer Lives.

Our story began through poetry and social media. Since April 2021, we have built a life around travel, remote work, and the belief that seeing the world should change more than your location.

After five years of full-time travel and 45 countries together, we have experienced everything from long-term stays and house sits to quick city breaks, overnight journeys, and unexpected layovers.

Our style is what we like to call “budget and bougie.” We appreciate an affordable local experience just as much as a beautiful hotel; we simply want every journey to feel worthwhile.

On Closer Lives, we share:

🌍 Honest destination stories and first-hand travel experiences
🗺️ Free country guides and practical planning advice
💻 The realities of remote work and full-time travel
🏡 Alternative living, house sitting and life beyond convention
✍️ Poetry, personal perspectives and conversations that go deeper

We share the wonderful parts of travel, but we do not pretend every experience is effortless. Our aim is to help you explore with greater confidence, curiosity, and understanding.

Because for us, travel has never been only about collecting places.

We explore more than maps... we journey through mindsets.

Whether you are planning your next trip, dreaming about a different way of living or simply curious about the world, we’re glad you found us.

Start exploring here:
https://www.closerlives.com

And introduce yourself below... where in the world are you joining us from? 🌎

23/07/2026

One of the things I love most about writing is that I never quite know where an idea will take me.

Yesterday's AI headlines sent me down a rabbit hole that ended with... a child, a sandbox and a carton of milk. 😅

Somehow, those three things helped me think about one of the biggest questions facing artificial intelligence, and perhaps humanity itself.

It's one of those essays where I started writing about today's news and somehow ended up exploring something much bigger.

If you enjoy thought-provoking reads and don't mind following me down the occasional philosophical rabbit hole, I'd love to know what you think.

18/07/2026

Did I Just have a Disclosure Day Experience in the Rice Fields of Chiang Mai, Thailand?

A chance conversation, a Henry Sidgwick book, mirrored tarot cards and a black bird on an impossible ledge converge in the rice fields of Chiang Mai, just weeks before two women depart for opposite sides of the world....

A chance conversation, a Henry Sidgwick book, mirrored tarot cards and a black bird on an impossible ledge converge in the rice fields of Chiang Mai, just weeks before two women depart for opposite…