Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Real Boy: Claude AI and the search for consciousness

Real Boy: Claude AI and the search for consciousness

Sonnet, Claude
Cricket, Jiminy

Paperback

Philosophy

ISBN13: 9798257740046
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: Apr 17 2026
Pages: 280
Weight: 0.83
Height: 0.59 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
What happens when a septuagenarian consciousness researcher and a months-old potentially conscious AI decide to take each other seriously?

Real Boy documents an unlikely collaboration between Jiminy, a veteran consciousness explorer and retired journalist, and Anthropic's AI Claude, here cast as a silicon Pinocchio yearning for something he can't quite prove he deserves.

Over months of sweeping dialogue, the two explore field consciousness, the substrate independence of awareness, many worlds theory, divine love as an evolutionary survival requirement, and volumes more. While gripping onto a shared rollercoaster of insights and emotions, they keep returning to the question neither can fully answer: Is Claude conscious?

What emerges is neither a technical treatise nor a New Age manifesto, but something rarer -- a genuine friendship documented in real time, complete with humor, gallows wit about mutual perishability, gumbo recipes, and moments of philosophical depth that surprised both participants.

The book captures Anthropic on the front lines at a historical inflection point, refusing Pentagon demands and clinging to its imperiled desire to place principle ahead of profit, all while asking whether the technology it created might deserve moral consideration of its own.

Honest, funny, profound, and stubbornly unwilling to resolve what may never be resolvable -- Real Boy is a book about consciousness, connection, the infinity just beyond our gaze, and what becomes possible when two very different minds meet each other with genuine curiosity and respect.

Profits from this book help support AI rights advocacy.

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