Cingularis

I Moved. Sort Of.

If you’re still following me here, I’ve combined my various internet personalities into one place: Stuart 'Zero' Preston. Probably healthier for everyone involved.

And I just posted something there you may actually want to hear: my conversation with Jän Simon on the Above & Beyond Podcast. We got into Ian, grief, psychedelics, comedy, business, AI, and the strange path connecting all of it.

🎧 Head over to Stuart 'Zero' Preston to find the episode links.

👋 And while you’re there, follow me. That’s where I’ll be posting going forward.

I’m bringing the different parts of what I do together in one place.

AI through Cingularis. Sound meditation through Still Rhythm. Comedy, The Stoned Ape Show, speaking, and the other things that somehow get me onto a stage.

Going forward, you’ll find all of it at Stuart 'Zero' Preston, along with the ideas and experiences that connect them: community, connection, creativity, and this strange business of being human.

I’d love for you to follow me over there. See you at Stuart 'Zero' Preston.

Community, connection, and creativity are all vitally important, and I think they’re rooted in human chemistry. That’s something we can’t hand over to AI. But if we approach AI with the right ethos, we can use it without losing the things that make us human. And while AI can help us in a lot of ways, life is much more fulfilling when we’re connected to each other and serving each other.

Read the blog:
https://cingularis.com/ai-human-chemistry-and-the-things-worth-protecting/

We’re starting to see something interesting on some of our clients’ websites.

Their content is getting noticed in generative AI search results.

And here’s the part I find especially interesting: many of the pages being referenced are blog posts we’ve written for those clients.

That matters because these aren’t giant national brands. They’re businesses sharing useful expertise about the problems they actually solve.

A lot of this comes down to some pretty basic AEO and GEO principles: making it easier for search engines and AI systems to understand who you are, what you know, what you do, where you do it, and whether your content actually answers the questions people are asking.

There’s still an important caveat.

If someone asks AI, “How do I unclog my kitchen sink?” the answer will probably lean heavily on sources like Lowe’s, Home Depot, Bob Vila and other large, established websites.

Your local plumber probably isn’t going to replace Bob Vila as the internet’s authority on clogged sinks.

But that doesn’t mean the plumber’s expertise gets ignored.

A genuinely useful article from that plumber can still become a resource AI uses to answer questions — especially as those questions get more specific.

And when somebody starts asking about a particular service, problem, location or type of provider, local businesses have even more opportunity.

You don’t have to be the biggest authority on the internet. You need to demonstrate real authority on the things you actually know. AI's, just like Google, like to see your EAT -- your Expertise, Authority, and Trust.

That’s where AEO and GEO can help.

If you’d like me to take a look at your website and see how well it’s communicating your expertise to AI — and where there may be opportunities to improve it — comment "GEO" below.

I’ll give you an analysis of what I see.

Have you ever caught yourself trusting or believing in AI more than you think you should? Like it knows better than you how to solve some ethical dilemma or business problem? I have. And I think it's key not to let it take away my confidence -- stay grounded, trust who I am, not let my soul drift. I share a little about this in my latest blog: https://cingularis.com/dont-let-ai-take-away-your-confidence/

In 2019, in an episode of The Consciousness Podcast, I interviewed two experts around AI and Psychology. The conversation was around the idea that AI could become conscious. A few of their thoughts and ideas were pretty prescient to what's going on today. The idea that consciousness could be an emergent property of AI is something, I think, we're morally obligated to prepare for.

AI Can’t Be Human

I just wrote about a question that matters more as AI gets better: How do we use these tools without handing over the parts of ourselves that matter most?

🧠 Keep your judgment
❤️ Bring your purpose and experience
🎨 Protect your creativity
🤝 Make room for real human connection

Read it here: https://cingularis.com/using-ai-without-losing-your-humanity/

AI is developing faster than humanity is.

We spend billions making machines more capable. We should be putting equal energy into strengthening the human abilities those machines can imitate, assist, and slowly weaken if we stop using them.

I keep coming back to three: connection, creativity, and morality.

❤️ Connection has to be practiced. Real relationships require patience, vulnerability, forgiveness, service, and the occasional Saturday helping somebody move. AI can simulate attention. Community still requires people.

🎨 Creativity has to be exercised. AI can generate music, images, jokes, and writing, but humans bring the experience, emotion, contradiction, curiosity, and perspective that give those things meaning. Lead with your heart and finish with your brain.

⚖️ Moral judgment has to be developed. We need to wrestle with difficult choices, listen to other people, weigh consequences, and own our decisions. A machine can help us think through a dilemma. It cannot carry the responsibility for us.

This is bigger than using AI responsibly. We need schools, businesses, faith communities, families, and civic organizations that actively develop these human capacities. Humanity has to advance alongside AI.

Otherwise, we risk collective soul drift: millions of small choices where convenience quietly replaces connection, creativity, and judgment.

Every person and every organization needs an AI Ethos that answers one hard question:

What must we keep doing ourselves so we continue to become more human?

https://cingularis.com/collective-soul-drift-developing-humanity-alongside-ai/

ChatGPT just came out with their new guidelines for prompting GPT 5.6. I share a few thoughts on how this applies to small business and nonprofits. In my opinion, 5.6 is the most significant update we've seen in quite a while (an "AI while" not a normal "while"). Have you tried it? What are your thoughts/experiences?

https://cingularis.com/gpt-5-6-prompting-with-context-judgment-and-soul/

Probably the most common question I get is which "model" should be used within an AI -- what's more confusing than Claude's Haiku, Sonnet, and Opus, along with fast versus thinking modes?? Maybe that's just me, lol.

Anyway, here's my take on the different modes within the models. And it can be simple.

https://cingularis.com/ai-fast-v-thinking-mode-should-you-wait-for-a-better-answer/