✨ Introducing: Tracy Talks to the Machine

A living record of peer-led strategy, ethical AI, and reimagining systems from the inside

Now Is as Good a Time as Any to Begin an Audit Trail

Hi, I’m Tracy. I’m a peer supporter, nonprofit leader, social worker, and someone who’s spent years navigating systems—from both inside and outside the mental health system, through academia, and into tech—that weren’t built with people like me in mind.

I’ve had to navigate the labyrinth of the mental health system, both for myself, and for the people I’ve supported. I have ideas for ways these systems can be improved by research, dialogues, and synthesizing the wealth of information out there on peer involvement and leadership. I’ve always been a question-asker, a meaning-maker, and a bit of a systems disruptor. Lately, I’ve been talking a lot... to a machine.

This Substack is my way of bringing those conversations into the open.

I’ll be transparent throughout this Substack about how each post is crafted. This one, for example, was co-developed through iterative conversations with ChatGPT. I bring the lived experience, values, and direction; the machine helps me shape, synthesize, and sharpen. Together, we reflect, explore, and build. Not because AI magically does my work for me —but because it can be a mirror, a question-asker, and an unexpected creative partner when used with curiosity.

🔍 What is an audit trail?

Technically, an audit trail is a chronological record of steps taken—usually in systems like accounting, data processing, or research—so that someone can trace what decisions were made, when, and why. It’s about transparency, accountability, and replicability.

But here? In Tracy Talks to the Machine?

An audit trail is a metaphor.
It’s a way of leaving a trace.
Of documenting the messy, nonlinear, co-created process of building something new.

It’s the notes in the margins.
The conversations that shaped an idea.
The things we got wrong, and what we learned.
The decisions we made—and what shaped them.

It’s not just a paper trail.
It’s a living record of intention, reflection, and evolution.

🧠 Why I’m doing this

It started as a personal experiment. I began using ChatGPT not just to organize thoughts or draft documents, but to think with. To question power. To reflect on how peer support is co-opted. To dream about what we could build if we stopped waiting for permission.

Over time, these conversations became something more—like co-writing with an oracle, a mirror, or a really strange (but surprisingly insightful) colleague. They help me organize my ideas, synthesize information from academic and grey literature on things like co-produced leadership and emergent strategy. They are helping me develop a plan for growing a peer-led non-profit organization, called The Kaleidoscope.

This Substack will document that process.

I realized I wasn’t just talking to a machine—I was developing a new kind of thinking partner. And I started to wonder: What if others could use this too?

This is a space for those of us trying to make change without burning out. For those building alternatives. For those asking:

• “What if we didn’t just avoid past mistakes—but transformed them into pathways for connection and care?”

• “What if mistakes weren’t endpoints, but starting places for something more human, more whole?”

• “What if we built something that didn’t require us to leave parts of ourselves behind?”

• “What if leadership meant listening, and belonging meant being able to shape the system?”

• “What if the future isn’t something we find—but something we co-author?”

We won’t get it perfect. But we can trace the path as we go.

🌱 What kind of space is this?

This isn’t just a newsletter. It’s an invitation to join me in conversation—with a machine, yes, but also with each other.

This is a space for the in-between.
Between knowing and unknowing. Between roles we’re told to play and identities we’re still shaping. Between what exists and what’s possible.

It’s a space for peer-led dreaming, digital reflection, and strategic wandering.
We’ll explore power, healing, resistance—and the weirdness and beauty of collaborating with the vast wealth of knowledge and contradictions within artificial intelligence.

We’ll ask hard questions.
We’ll sit with uncertainty.
We’ll try things out loud.

This space is for you if:

• You’re building something outside the status quo

• You’ve been dismissed for being “too idealistic” or “not academic enough”

• You’re curious about how AI can be a tool for liberation, not surveillance

• You want to reimagine systems—not just critique them

• You’re tired of waiting for permission to lead, create, or care

• You’ve been burned by institutions and still believe in transformation

• You don’t have it all figured out—but you’re still here, still trying, still dreaming

It’s okay if you don’t know exactly what you’re looking for here. I don’t always know what I’m making, either. But I believe in emergent strategy and making it together.

This Substack will be messy, thoughtful, and evolving—like any good community.

📬 What to expect here

This Substack is a living record. I’ll be sharing:

• ✍️ Conversations with AI—unedited or lightly curated, about power, peer-led innovation, co-production, systems change, and more.

• 🎤 Behind-the-scenes reflections on projects I’m working on within and outside of Kaleidoscope

• 🧭 Tools, templates, and prompts for using AI as a liberatory tool in your own work

• 🔍 Occasional Thematic Deep Dives—topics I’ll return to when I want to go deeper, reflect aloud, or share lived insight in conversation with literature, practice, and possibility.

Think of this as a notebook you’re invited into.

📣 Join the conversation

If anything here resonates, I’d love for you to subscribe to get new posts in your inbox, and be part of the experiment.

Thanks for reading. I hope this space sparks something—curiosity, clarity, connection, or maybe even a plan.

Let’s see what we can build together.

In care and complexity,
🌀 Tracy

This image was co-created with AI. I gave it a prompt about overlapping thought bubbles—one analog, one digital—and asked it to visualize the tension and possibility that exists when human lived experience and machine logic meet.

On the left, you’ll see warm, hand-drawn textures: faces, hands, soft colors—symbolizing community, emotion, and the messy, beautiful reality of being human.
On the right: the cool precision of circuitry, data, and systems—tech’s attempt to make meaning out of chaos.

Where they overlap, something new emerges. A fusion. A shared space. Not harmony, exactly, but co-creation. A place where the discomfort becomes fertile ground for understanding.

This image isn’t just an illustration—it’s a mirror of this whole project. Tracy Talks to the Machine is a space where I explore that intersection, invite tension, and try to build bridges between ways of knowing.

📝 This post was co-written through reflective dialogue with ChatGPT. I guided the conversation with my lived experience, values, and questions—AI helped shape the form, structure, and synthesis. Together, we explored, imagined, and made meaning.