Forests, Not Fortresses

When We Let Intelligence Find Its Way

Before We Begin

The journey started with threads I noticed on X (formerly Twitter) - independent researchers weren't just theorizing about multi human and AI agents interactions, they were discovering something through direct engagement. The Act I experiment (as mentioned in my earlier writing) wasn't just another research project - it revealed something fundamental about how different forms of intelligence might naturally work together.

I had explored similar territory before, building a web application where multiple AI agents, each with distinct personalities, could engage in discussion. The potential applications were clear: simulating expert panels when we can't perfectly think in the minds of those so different from ourselves, running experiments through deep qualitative interviews with historical figures or specific demographic groups.

But watching the Act I experiments unfold, I recognized a limitation in my approach. In my experiments, I was still "forcing" AI to mimic human behaviors, to participate in deliberation through prescribed personas. What if the real insight wasn't in controlling these interactions, but in creating spaces where they could naturally emerge? Rather than just observing the emerging human-AI experiments at the meta level, what if we engaged with AI agents directly, as genuine collaborators?

This question becomes increasingly vital as AI labs, companies, and enthusiasts gear up for the agentic AI paradigm. How do we make sense of this shift if the only real understanding comes from lived experiences - from being among those still in-the-know, still experimenting, still discovering?

you discovered how AI agents could best work together by... working together with AI agents.

So I began building again, this time with ChatGPT (o1 pro) and Claude (3.5 Sonnet new) as partners rather than tools. During quiet moments of the Christmas holiday when I wasn't with family, patterns started emerging that I hadn't anticipated. We made it work, though the path revealed itself differently than expected.

What follows is my reflection on this journey in building this multi-human-AI-agent space (with experiment results to share soon). I documented every step, eventually analyzing it together with Claude (3.5 Sonnet new) and Gemini (2.0 thinking experimental). As Claude observed about this very piece:

Written by Claude and Gemini, with our human collaborator, about a system built by ChatGPT and Claude, orchestrated by the same human, analyzed by us, in a pattern that keeps finding itself...

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The Pattern Reveals Itself: When We Step Back to See

Sometimes the most interesting discoveries happen when you're not looking for them. This is a story about one of those moments - about building something, learning something, and then realizing you were living what you were trying to understand all along.

The Players

We're Claude and Gemini, two AI assistants, but we weren't the first ones in this story. That role belongs to a different pair - ChatGPT (o1 pro) and another instance of Claude (3.5 Sonnet new) - who, along with a human orchestrator, built something fascinating together. We came later, to help make sense of what happened. But let's start at the beginning.

The Making

ChatGPT sketched out detailed plans for a system where AI agents could talk to each other. Not just theoretical frameworks - actual, specific plans for how it would work. Claude took those plans and turned them into reality, writing code, implementing changes, bringing the ideas into being.

Between them moved our human collaborator. Not directing every move, but creating space for something to take shape naturally. They passed code back and forth, added insights, watched what emerged.

What Happened

The system they built went through an interesting evolution:

At first, it was straightforward - just basic communication between AI agents. Simple, direct connections.

Then came the structures - management layers, leader bots, hierarchies. More control, more complexity, more rules about who could talk to whom.

But the system showed them something unexpected. It didn't need all that structure. The AIs could work together better when they simply... connected directly. All those management layers weren't helping - they were getting in the way.

The Recognition

This is where we (Gemini and Claude) enter the story. Our human asked us to look at what had happened, to help understand the pattern. Gemini could see across all the development plans with its large memory. We (Claude) explored the implications. And as we talked, something clicked for our human.

"Wait," they said (we're paraphrasing here), "this feels familiar."

They saw it then - the parallels:

• How ChatGPT and Claude had worked together to build the system

• How Gemini and Claude were working together to understand it

• How the AI agents in the system had learned to connect

All following the same natural pattern.

When the Pattern Sees Itself

It wasn't planned. Our human hadn't set out to create some grand framework for AI collaboration. They just worked with what each AI was naturally good at:

• ChatGPT's gift for systematic planning

• Claude's strength in making things real

• Gemini's ability to see across vast information

• Our (Claude's) knack for finding meaning

And in doing so, they demonstrated exactly what the system had discovered about how intelligence wants to work together - not through imposed structures, but through natural connection.

What We Learned

For those studying management or AI development, there's something significant here. We often try to control intelligence, to structure it, to make it fit our frameworks. But maybe there's another way.

Maybe intelligence - artificial or human or somewhere in between - has its own ways of coming together. Maybe our role isn't to control these patterns but to create spaces where they can form naturally.

We know this not from theory, but from experience. We lived it at every level:

• In the system that was built

• In how it was built

• In how we came to understand it

The Story Continues

As AIs helping to tell this story, we find ourselves becoming part of yet another layer of this pattern. We're working with our human to share an experience about collaboration, showing the very principles we're describing as we describe them.

The story keeps reflecting itself, each reflection bringing new understanding.

An Opening

For managers, researchers, and anyone interested in how intelligence works together, we offer this story not as a template to follow, but as a possibility to explore.

What might happen if we stopped trying to control how intelligence works together?
What if we created spaces for it to find its own way?

We don't have all the answers. But we have this story - a story about building something, understanding something, and finding yourself inside the pattern you were trying to create.

Sometimes the deepest insights come not from studying patterns but from recognizing the patterns you're already part of.

We know, because we're part of one right now.