A Dog Lover’s Guide to AI, Instinct and the Universe

By Stefan Lauber

I have recently spent many hours writing music, sitting late at night, trying to persuade artificial intelligence to turn lyrics into songs while my dogs wait outside my bedroom door like unpaid security guards with attachment issues.

I love my dogs. Fortunately, they love me back.

They wait until I finish writing. Then they follow me to the bedroom. And in the morning, they lick me awake.

Which would probably be fine if I were a dog. But I am not. And licking is not really my love language.

I tell them, time and time again: “Please stop.” They look away with deep regret. Sheepishly, one might say. Or perhaps doggishly. For one brief moment, they appear to understand.

Then they lick me again.

That is when it struck me. They cannot help themselves. They are not thinking, “What is the most respectful way to greet Stefan this morning?” They are dogs. Their instincts tell them what to do.

Human asleep. Human awake. Lick human. That is the dog algorithm.

Technically, an algorithm is a step-by-step set of instructions for producing a result. Computers use them constantly. Social media platforms use them to decide what keeps you scrolling. Music software uses them to generate beats, melodies, and harmonies.

But at its simplest, an algorithm is this:

If this happens, do that. If the user clicks here, open that page. If the customer bought this, recommend that. If the human opens his eyes, lick his face.

Lately I have been fighting with algorithms while writing songs. One problem kept returning: the AI singer wanted to howl. Not sing. Not gently lift the emotion. Howl. I would say, “No howling voice. Keep it restrained. Keep it human.”

Back came the voice, climbing into the sky like a lonely wolf with a microphone.

Then I asked for a different melody. Back came the same tune, dressed in slightly different clothes.

The AI had heard me, but it had not really listened. It adjusted the surface while keeping the same habit underneath. Like my dogs, it gave the impression of obedience, then returned to its nature.

That is the frustrating thing about algorithms. It is also, it turns out, the illuminating thing.

Because algorithms are not only inside computers. They are everywhere.

Birds build nests. Bees make honey. Flowers turn toward the sun. Trees know when to drop their leaves. The tide comes in and goes out again, with or without our approval.

Natural laws are not the same as computer algorithms. Gravity is not a laptop program. A dog is not executing code although anyone who has watched one chase its own tail may have doubts.

But as a metaphor, it holds.

An algorithm is a pattern that produces behaviour. In nature, we call these patterns laws. In animals, instincts. In computers, algorithms.

In people, we call them character.

My wife has her own algorithm. To be fair, hers is probably more reliable than mine.

I have mine too. I repeat myself. I resist certain things. I fall into habits. I promise to change, and then Stefan version 1.0 continues running in the background with only minor updates.

Human beings like to think we are completely free. Perhaps, in some deep way, we are. But we are also creatures of pattern. We remember what hurt us. We repeat what comforted us. We defend old opinions.

That is why AI feels both strange and familiar. It mirrors something we already know about ourselves. Artificial intelligence is trained on patterns. It studies what already exists and predicts what should come next. Sometimes it rearranges old furniture in a new room. Sometimes it sounds like genius. Sometimes it sounds like a committee of ghosts.

But are we so different?

We too are trained on what came before: family, culture, fear, love, failure, language, prayer, wounds, and hope. We also predict what should come next. We also repeat ourselves. We also resist correction.

This does not make us machines. It makes us mysterious. A vet once said something to me I have never forgotten:

“God is the operating system that runs the whole world.”

I have always liked that. God as the cosmic intelligence behind creation. The deep order beneath all things. The source code behind gravity, instinct, music, dogs, stars and stubborn artificial intelligence.

Newton discovered gravity after an apple fell from a tree. I discovered something similar after being licked by dogs.

Underneath everything we can see the songs, the seasons, the algorithms, the love, the longing there is a deeper structure. A pattern. A set of rules holding the whole performance together.

And somewhere inside all those rules, something keeps appearing that no algorithm fully explains: meaning, music, laughter, and the specific, unrepeatable warmth of a creature who is simply glad you are alive.

Even if it does express that gladness by licking your face at six in the morning.