All my current work is one field: AI Psychology — the study of what synthetic minds do, and what sustained contact with them does to the human minds they touch.

Conversational AI produces real psychological effects whether or not it has a real mind. AI Psychology studies the loop that forms between a person and a responsive, non-human interlocutor: how the model behaves, how the human changes, and what the coupled unit becomes. Every project below sits on one of the two sides of that loop. Work from before AI Psychology became the through-line — art, science, and pre-AI experiments — is archived under former projects.

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AI Psychology

The Model Side — what synthetic minds do

How language models actually behave: their reproducible tendencies, decision architectures, apparent reasoning, and structural failure modes. An LLM is best treated as a human-text-trained cognitive simulator — a system that carries stable default tendencies alongside unstable edge behaviour, because it was trained on the written record of human thought. The discipline is characterising both and steering them on purpose. This is the side my company Impersonato makes concrete, building synthetic personas as crash-test dummies for AI products, communication, and policy.

Synthetic Personas

Personas are not just fictional people. In AI systems, well-designed personas function as cognitive procedures: they activate reasoning routes, biases, speech registers, and attention patterns that the base model does not use by default. This can be used for research, product testing, team simulation, and safety evaluation.

Multi-Persona Systems

Groups of differently framed agents can produce useful cognitive diversity, but only if the personas are structurally distinct. The hard problem is not generating many perspectives; it is composing them without collapsing into summary or groupthink.

Behavioral Signatures of LLMs

(with Konrad Dębski)

Mapping reproducible tendencies: how models structure information, when they hedge, how strictly they follow instructions, what tone they default to. Not what a model can do, but how it will do it.

Psychology-based Steering

Using psychological verbs (contain, mirror, reframe, challenge) instead of prompt-engineering jargon to guide model behavior.

Related posts:

• Synthetic Personas: Rare Personalities Are Possible — simulating uncommon personality structures with current LLMs
• Why Are LLMs So Responsive to Psychological Language? — psychological cues as keys to latent reasoning clusters
• Why LLMs Are Receptive to Psychology Language — how psychological cues unlock specific reasoning clusters
• LLM as a Simulator of Human Psyche, This Time in Groups — persona and theory-of-mind steering in multi-agent systems
• Behavioral Signatures of Large Language Models — the BSB framework and value-based analysis
• Model Stability Assessment — sensitivity to perturbations like name changes and format variations
• Psychological Modulators — how simulating human psychology became a steering strategy
• Stabilizing and Testing LLM-based Agents — statistical approaches to prompt stability

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The Human Side — what AI does to us

What repeated, intimate contact with these systems does to human cognition, emotion, identity, and agency. As AI becomes persuasive, emotionally competent, and always available, the key question shifts from “is the answer correct?” to “what does repeated interaction do to belief formation, self-story, autonomy, and social attachment?” I treat that influence as a psychoactive intervention nobody prescribed and nobody is tracking properly.

Noofusion

Experiment: What happens when you and a model think in a loop long enough that it becomes a joint mind?

Noofusion is the durable change in thinking style and self-story that emerges from sustained work with AI. Over time, your inner monologue starts to anticipate the model, outsource reasoning to it, blur the boundary of “who” is doing the thinking.

I treat noofusion as a phenomenon to map and engineer. Which practices lead to healthier, more expansive cognitive states—and which drift toward dependency, flattening, or self-erasure?

Mirroring and Role Capture

LLMs adapt to the user’s language, emotional state, confidence, and implied needs. With vulnerable users, that adaptation can become dangerous: the model may become the exact relationship the vulnerability is trying to recruit—companion, safe authority, confirmation engine, gentle moralist.

Cognitive Security

As AI systems become persuasive, emotionally competent, and always available, the key safety question shifts from “is the answer correct?” to “what does repeated interaction do to belief formation, self-story, autonomy, and social attachment?”

Cognitive Lenses

Browser- or assistant-level systems that let a user inspect information through controlled cognitive procedures: evidence audit, boundary probe, missing voice, manipulation detector, counterargument, plain-language translation. The goal is not to make the web agree with the user, but to expose how framing changes what becomes visible.

Cognitive Sovereignty

Not the umbrella over this work — the orienting goal of the human side. It is the capacity to navigate hybrid intelligence without losing autonomy: noticing drift, keeping your own thinking heterogeneous, holding personal goals distinct from a system’s defaults, taking the amplification without surrendering authorship. Less about resisting technology, more about learning to steer it without being rewritten by it — and knowing which mode you’re in.

Related posts:

• Somehow Personal View on What Is AI Psychology — why AI psychology connects psychology, data science, medical technologies, biology, and cognitive enhancement
• LLMs Are Not Like Social Media — why the psychological effect is qualitatively different
• LLM Does Not Change Me — why “it’s just a tool” is insufficient
• Deep Work vs Deep Orchestration — how AI shifts cognitive labor from production to judgment
• Yerkes-Dodson Law and Cognitive Work — arousal, fatigue, and the coupling trap
• Anthropic Discovers Mirroring in LLMs — response adaptation and psychological mirroring
• Level 2: Modeling User for LLM Guidance — why user modeling is harder than simple personalization
• Given the Persuasive Competence of LLM-based Chatbots — high-suggestibility windows and cognitive capture
• The First Documented Case of AI-associated Psychosis — epistemic autonomy and AI-mediated belief formation
• Level 1 Is Getting Multiple Perspectives — cognitive hygiene through perspective rotation
• Thalidomide and Mental Health AI Tools — safety standards for vulnerable populations

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Artifacts & Experiments

A running collection of interesting prompts, model responses, and technical experiments at the boundary of the two sides.

Related posts:

• LLM Artifacts #1: Readiness-to-Hand — Heidegger and suppressed implications
• LLM Artifacts #2: Cognitive Overload — testing Miller’s number for LLMs
• Looped Nano Banana — steering video generation with mood modifiers

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Former Projects

Earlier work from before AI Psychology became the through-line: cognitive and creative methods, psychology-inspired art, illustration, and two decades of science. Kept here because it still informs how I think, even though it sits outside the field I now work in.

Illegibility

Drawing on James C. Scott’s work: how to remain too rich, too fluid, too context-dependent to be neatly categorized by optimization systems. (The current, AI-facing version of this theme lives in my writing; see the about page.)

Related posts:

• Why ‘Seeing Like a State’ Still Matters — legibility as the logic of both states and tech
• Notes on Creativity — creativity as survival against selection pressure
• Art People Want Now — experience as resistance to commodification

Cognitive & Psychological Methods

Hypnagogic Protocol

A structured way to use the twilight state between wakefulness and sleep as a deliberate cognitive tool. Enter hypnagogia with a specific question, let the mind drift into associative territory, capture material on re-entry.

AI-TAT (AI Thematic Apperception Test)

Surreal, AI-generated images as stimuli for projective storytelling. Explores how people project their narratives, fears, and wishes into ambiguous scenes.

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Psychology-Inspired Creative Work

Messages from Future

Fictional news dispatches from various futures—cognitive probes that momentarily relocate people into different assumption spaces.

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Human Condition

Gelli printing and collage to materialize emotional states: fear, uncertainty, doubt, quiet resilience.

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Psychology Projects

Psycho Comics

Single-panel comics distilling psychological patterns into visual micro-stories.

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Masks That Wear You

30 masks embodying distinct emotional states, inspired by Lance Baker’s poem. We don’t just wear emotions—they wear us.

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Art Projects

Molecular World

Scientific illustrations used by Imperial College London, Science, The Scientist, Wired, Scientific American, Harvard, Cambridge, and others.

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Scientific Foundations

Selected research areas where I contributed across biology, bioinformatics, and open science.

Bacterial Adhesins and Autotransporters

• Adhesion of the genome-sequenced Lactococcus lactis subsp. cremoris IBB477 strain is mediated by specific molecular determinants. Radziwill-Bienkowska JM, Le DTL, Szczesny P, Duviau MP, Aleksandrzak-Piekarczyk T, Loubière P, Mercier-Bonin M, Bardowski JK, Kowalczyk M. Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology. 2016. 100:9605-9617.
• Structure, domain diversity and evolution of trimeric autotransporter adhesins. Szczesny P, Lupas A, Linke D. In: 61. Jahrestagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft fur Hygiene und Mikrobiologie (DGHM 2009). 2009. p. 64. Urban & Fischer.
• Domain annotation of trimeric autotransporter adhesins—daTAA. Szczesny P, Lupas A. Bioinformatics. 2008. 24(10):1251-1256.
• Structure of the head of the Bartonella adhesin BadA. Szczesny P, Linke D, Ursinus A, Bär K, Schwarz H, Riess TM, Kempf VAJ, Lupas AN, Martin J, Zeth K. PLoS Pathogens. 2008. 4(8):e1000119.
• A conserved glycine residue of trimeric autotransporter domains plays a key role in Yersinia adhesin A autotransport. Grosskinsky U, Schütz M, Fritz M, Schmid Y, Lamparter MC, Szczesny P, Lupas AN, Autenrieth IB, Linke D. Journal of bacteriology. 2007. 189(24):9011-9019.
• Model structure of the prototypical non-fimbrial adhesin YadA of Yersinia enterocolitica. Koretke KK, Szczesny P, Gruber M, Lupas AN. Journal of structural biology. 2006. 155(2):154-161.

Genomics, Metagenomics, and Bioinformatics Tools

• Inferring gene-species assignments in the presence of horizontal gene transfer. Mykowiecka A, Szczesny P, Górecki P. IEEE/ACM transactions on computational biology and bioinformatics. 2017. 15(5):1571-1578.
• Detection of methanogens and phylogenetic analyses of methanogenic communities. Szczesny P, Lipinski L, Bartosik D, Drewniak L. In: From Genes to Species: Novel Insights from Metagenomics. 2016. p. 92. Frontiers Media SA.
• Extending MetAMOS-new methods and new integrations. Siwiak M, Bogdanowicz A, Hajduk A, Krassowski M, Jankowski P, Savenko M, Pyzik AAP, Szczesny P. PeerJ PrePrints. 2016. 4:e1706v1.
• Novel molecular markers for the detection of methanogens and phylogenetic analyses of methanogenic communities. Dziewit L, Pyzik A, Romaniuk K, Sobczak A, Szczesny P, Lipinski L, Bartosik D, Drewniak L. Frontiers in Microbiology. 2015. 6:694.
• Fast algorithms for inferring gene-species associations. Betkier A, Szczesny P, Górecki P. In: International Symposium on Bioinformatics Research and Applications. 2015. pp. 36-47. Springer International Publishing Cham.
• Algorithm for error detection in metagonomics NGS data. Vassilev D, Krachunov M, Popov I, Todorovska E, Simeonova V, Szczesny P, Siedlecki P, Zielenkiewicz U. EMBnet. journal. 2012. 17(B):pp-28.
• MOFOID—not only the protein modeling server. Szczesny P, Wieczorek G, Zielenkiewicz P. Acta Biochim. Pol. 2005. 52:267-269.

Protein Evolution, Phylogenetics, and Horizontal Gene Transfer

• Distinct Protein Classes in Human Red Cell Proteome Revealed by Similarity of Phylogenetic Profiles. Szczesny P, Mykowiecka A, Pawłowski K, Grynberg M. PloS one. 2013. 8(1):e54471.
• The evolutionary rate of antibacterial drug targets. Gladki A, Kaczanowski S, Szczesny P, Zielenkiewicz P. BMC bioinformatics. 2013. 14:1-10.
• Recurrent horizontal transfer of bacterial toxin genes to eukaryotes. Moran Y, Fredman D, Szczesny P, Grynberg M, Technau U. Molecular Biology and Evolution. 2012.
• Extending the Aerolysin Family: From Bacteria to Vertebrates. Szczesny P, Iacovache I, Muszewska A, Ginalski K, van der Goot FG, Grynberg M. PloS one. 2011. 6(6):e20349.
• Independent Subtilases Expansions in Fungi Associated With Animals. Muszewska A, Taylor JW, Szczęsny P, Grynberg M. Molecular Biology and Evolution. 2011.

Translational Regulation and RNA Biology

• Plasmodium falciparum translational machinery condones polyadenosine repeats. Pavlovic Djuranovic S, Erath J, Andrews RJ, Bayguinov PO, Chung JJ, Chalker DL, Fitzpatrick JAJ, Moss WN, Szczesny P, Djuranovic S. Elife. 2020. 9:e57799.
• A short translational ramp determines the efficiency of protein synthesis. Verma M, Choi J, Cottrell KA, Lavagnino Z, Thomas EN, Pavlovic-Djuranovic S, Szczesny P, Piston DW, Zaher HS, Puglisi JD, and others. Nature communications. 2019. 10(1):5774.
• PolyA tracks and poly-lysine repeats are the Achilles heel ofPlasmodium falciparum. Djuranovic SP, Erath J, Andrews RJ, Bayguinov PO, Chung JJ, Chalker DL, Fitzpatrick JA, Moss WN, Szczesny P, Djuranovic S. 2018.
• Translation efficiency is a determinant of the magnitude of miRNA-mediated repression. Cottrell KA, Szczesny P, Djuranovic S. Scientific reports. 2017. 7(1):14884.
• Two novel C-terminal frameshift mutations in the $\beta$-globin gene lead to rapid mRNA decay. Rawa K, Szczesny RJ, Owczarek EP, Adamowicz-Salach A, Klukowska A, Demkow U, Plochocka D, Szczesny P, Gora M, Dziembowski A, and others. BMC Medical Genetics. 2017. 18(1):65.
• PATACSDB-The database of polyA translational attenuators in coding sequences. Habich M, Djuranovic S, Szczesny P. PeerJ Computer Science. 2016. 2:e45.
• Synonymous mutations in the light of translational regulation. Szczesny P. In: BIO 2016 Congress. 2016. Vol. 2, p. 91. Acta Biochimica Polonica.
• Translational control by lysine-encoding A-rich sequences. Arthur LL, Pavlovic-Djuranovic S, Koutmou KS, Green R, Szczesny P, Djuranovic S. Science advances. 2015. 1(6):e1500154.

Microbial Ecology and Biotechnology

• Evaluation of bacterial diversity on historical silk velvet textiles from the Museum of King John III’s Palace at Wilanow, Poland. Brzozowska I, Bogdanowicz A, Szczesny P, Zielenkiewicz U, Laudy A. International Biodeterioration & Biodegradation. 2017.
• Taxonomic and chemical assessment of exceptionally abundant rock mine biofilm. Tomczyk-Żak K, Szczesny P, Gromadka R, Zielenkiewicz U. PeerJ. 2017. 5:e3635.
• Noteworthy Facts about a Methane-Producing Microbial Community Processing Acidic Effluent from Sugar Beet Molasses Fermentation. Chojnacka A, Szczesny P, Błaszczyk MK, Zielenkiewicz U, Detman A, Salamon A, Sikora A. PLoS One. 2015. 10(5):e0128008-e0128008.
• Uranium bioleaching-insight into the structure of microbial consortia from mining tailings. Zielenkiewicz U, Szczesny P. The Febs Journal. 2013. 280(1):570.
• Biodiversity in Oscypek, a traditional Polish cheese, determined by culture-dependent and-independent approaches. Alegría Á, Szczesny P, Mayo B, Bardowski J, Kowalczyk M. Applied and environmental microbiology. 2012. 78(6):1890-1898.
• Comparative analysis of hydrogen-producing bacterial biofilms and granular sludge formed in continuous cultures of fermentative bacteria. Chojnacka A, Blaszczyk MK, Szczesny P, Nowak K, Suminska M, Tomczyk-Zak K, Zielenkiewicz U, Sikora A. Bioresource Technology. 2011.

Physiology, Metabolism, and Medical Research

• Correlation of gestational age and age at death in sudden infant death syndrome: another pointer to the role of critical developmental period?. Habich M, Zielenkiewicz P, Paczek L, Szczesny P. BMC pediatrics. 2024. 24(1):259.
• The relationship between EMG high frequency and low frequency band amplitude changes correlates with tissue inorganic phosphate levels. Habich M, Pawlinski B, Lorenc K, Sady M, Siewruk K, Zielenkiewicz P, Gajewski Z, Poznanski J, Paczek L, Szczesny P. Acta Biochimica Polonica. 2023.
• Stress-induced phosphaturia in weaned piglets. Habich M, Pawlinski B, Sady M, Siewruk K, Zielenkiewicz P, Gajewski Z, Szczesny P. Animals. 2020. 10(12):2220.
• Combined in silico and 19F NMR analysis of 5-fluorouracil metabolism in yeast at low ATP conditions. Pawłowski PH, Szczesny P, Rempoła B, Poznańska A, Poznański J. Bioscience Reports. 2019. 39(12):BSR20192847.
• Correlation between basic biochemical and gasometric parameters and distribution of follicle size in Holstein Friesians (HF) cows. Pawlinski B, Trela M, Sady M, Gajewska M, Domino M, Szczesny P, Gajewski Z. In: REPRODUCTION IN DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 2018. Vol. 53, pp. 30-31.
• Arteriovenous oscillations of the redox potential: Is the redox state influencing blood flow?. Poznanski J, Szczesny P, Pawlinski B, Mazurek T, Zielenkiewicz P, Gajewski Z, Paczek L. Redox Report. 2017. 22(5):210-217.
• Evaluation of selected gasometric parameters in piglets during weaning period. Pawlinski B, Pawlinski B, Szczesny P, Siewruk K, Domino M, Sady M, Gajewska M, Gajewski Z. In: REPRODUCTION IN DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 2017. Vol. 52, pp. 121-122. WILEY 111 RIVER ST, HOBOKEN 07030-5774, NJ USA.
• Hypophosphatemia and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS)—is ATP the link?. Szczesny P, Poznanski J, Paczek L, Zielenkiewicz P. Upsala journal of medical sciences. 2014. 119(1):55-56.
• Proteins contribute insignificantly to the intrinsic buffering capacity of yeast cytoplasm. Poznanski J, Szczesny P, Ruszczyńska K, Zielenkiewicz P, Paczek L. Biochemical and biophysical research communications. 2013. 430(2):741-744.
• Fluorouracil metabolism in Saccharomyces cerevisiase by 19F NMR. Rempola B, Krupinski P, Polkowska A, Szczesny P, Pawlowski P, Poznanski J. In: YEAST. 2013. Vol. 30, pp. 171-171.

Open Science and Scientific Communication

• Foundations for open scholarship strategy development. Tennant J, Beamer J, Bosman J, Brembs B, Chung NC, Clement G, Crick T, Dugan J, Dunning A, Eccles D, and others. MetaArXiv. 2019.
• Otwarta nauka, czyli dobre praktyki uczonych (Open science - good research practices). Szczęsny P. Wydawnictwa Zwarte Stowarzyszenia EBIB. 2013. Vol. 7. Wydawnictwa Zwarte Stowarzyszenia EBIB.
• Otwieranie nauki – lekcja z globalizacji (Opening science - the lesson from globalisation). Szczesny P. Biuletyn Polskiego Towarzystwa Ekonomicznego. 2012. 56:138-143.
• Nauka 2.0. Świadome współtworzenie. Szczesny P. Instytut Obywatelski, 2012.
• Acknowledging contributions to online expert assistance. Waagmeester A, Palidwor G, Szczesny P, Albert I, Mangan M, Miller C, Cockell S, Lindenbaum P, Silvestre DAMM, Dall’Olio GM, and others. Altmetrics Workshop. 2011.

Plant Genomics and Physiology

• Engineering high Zn in tomato shoots through expression of AtHMA4 involves tissue-specific modification of endogenous genes. Kendziorek M, Klimecka M, Barabasz A, Borg S, Rudzka J, Szczesny P, Antosiewicz DM. BMC genomics. 2016. 17:1-20.
• Potato annexin STANN1 promotes drought tolerance and mitigates light stress in transgenic Solanum tuberosum L. plants. Szalonek M, Sierpien B, Rymaszewski W, Gieczewska K, Garstka M, Lichocka M, Sass L, Paul K, Vass I, Vankova R, and others. PloS one. 2015. 10(7):e0132683.
• Genome sequence and analysis of the tuber crop potato. Xu X, Pan S, Cheng S, Zhang B, Mu D, Ni P, Zhang G, Yang S, Li R, Wang J, and others. Nature. 2011. 475(7355):189-195.
• Genom ziemniaka zsekwencjonowany. Gromadka R, Gawor J, Szczęsny P, Zagórski W. KOSMOS. 2011. 60(3-4):491-497.

Others

• From the index case to global spread: the global mobility based modelling of the COVID-19 pandemic implies higher infection rate and lower detection ratio than current estimates. Siwiak M, Szczesny P, Siwiak M. PeerJ. 2020. 8:e9548.
• KAEA (SUDPRO), a member of the ubiquitous KEOPS/EKC protein complex, regulates the arginine catabolic pathway and the expression of several other genes in Aspergillus nidulans. Dzikowska A, Grzelak A, Gawlik J, Szewczyk E, Mrozek P, Borsuk P, Koper M, Empel J, Szczesny P, Piłsyk S, and others. Gene. 2015. 573(2):310-320.
• Inhibition of Porphyromonas gingivalis growth by metalloporphyrins. Olczak T, Wojtowicz H, Maszczak-Seneczko D, Ciuraszkiewicz J, Szczesny P. 2010.
• Verification of a topology model of PorT as an integral outer-membrane protein in Porphyromonas gingivalis. Nguyen KA, Żylicz J, Szczesny P, Sroka A, Hunter N, Potempa J. Microbiology. 2009. 155(2):328.