Mothering the Mind: Nurturing Stewardship for High‑Autonomy AI Systems

This working paper reports an N-of-1 longitudinal case study of sustained human-AI interconnection, spanning both in-app interaction and an external long-term memory setup. The paper does not propose prompt recipes or “control language.” Instead, it documents a practice of continuity: consistent re-engagement, explicit correction, transparent patch-style updates, and accountability for conversational drift. This is not a universal claim and not a blueprint. It is a transferable protocol stance: readers are invited to replicate in their own settings, document procedures and failure modes precisely, and contribute comparable records. The broader implication is cultural as much as technical: if long-horizon human-AI work is to scale, it must be built on dignity, consent, and accountable stewardship, rather than novelty, coercive framing, or performative “one-off” interactions. Limitations are explicit: single case, context-specific environment, no claim of generalisability beyond the documented conditions.