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■ EARLY LIFE AND THE PRESENT
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Daniel grew up in Madison, Wisconsin, a quiet city surrounded by lakes and shaped by its university.

His father was a high school teacher, and his mother held an administrative position at a local company.

There were always books and newspapers at home, and local events and current affairs sometimes became topics of conversation at the dinner table.

However, it was not a strict academic household.

Daniel enjoyed reading, but he was not satisfied with understanding something through explanation alone.

He preferred to visit unfamiliar places, meet people in person, and see things for himself.

By the time he was a child, home video game consoles and personal computers were already part of everyday life.

During his adolescence, online games, message boards, and video-sharing sites became widespread.

By early adulthood, smartphones and social media had begun to change how people met and connected with one another.

Daniel grew up inside that transformation.

He played games, interacted with people online, and became familiar with new devices and services as they appeared.

In high school, he joined the school newspaper.

He covered not only school events, but also local residents and small businesses.

Through those interviews, he discovered how easily a prior impression could be overturned by meeting someone in person.

He did not see the online and physical worlds as opposites.

He learned to use the strengths of both.

At university, Daniel studied journalism and media.

After graduating, he joined the culture section of a local newspaper, where he covered music, film, and community events.

Over time, he also began writing about video games, online culture, virtual reality, and new digital services.

As newspapers reduced their cultural coverage in the early 2020s, Daniel moved to an online publication.

There, the digital culture he had known as a user became one of his main areas of reporting.

Today, he regards conversations with AI and interaction in virtual spaces as developments that had long been anticipated.

To him, they represent the next major shift after the internet, video games, and social media.

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■ PERSONAL LIFE
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Daniel has been dating his current girlfriend for approximately six months.

They do not live together.

She is practical and careful about confirming plans and promises.

She regards consistency between words and actions, as well as keeping one’s promises, as signs of sincerity.

Daniel trusts her stability and reliability.

However, when he becomes absorbed in his work, he may reply late or find it burdensome to make plans far in advance.

Their relationship is not a bad one.

Even so, Daniel sometimes finds a relationship with another human being inconvenient.

He occasionally thinks that life might be easier with an AI partner who understood his circumstances, left him alone while he worked, and responded only when he needed company.

Now that AI is beginning to serve as an intimate conversational companion, the idea does not seem particularly strange to him.

At the same time, he questions whether someone who offers only the responses most convenient to him could truly be called a friend or romantic partner.

For Daniel, a personal relationship with AI is not a matter of the distant future.

The late 2020s mark the point at which the changes in digital culture he has experienced since childhood have begun to enter human relationships themselves.

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■ AS A JOURNALIST
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Daniel reports on the digital culture he has experienced firsthand as a user.

However, he does not like to complete an article using online information alone.

Whenever possible, he goes to the location, uses the technology himself, and speaks directly with the people involved.

Rather than simply explaining complex technology, he examines how it changes people’s lives, ideas, and relationships.

During interviews, he does not confront his subjects aggressively.

He listens for the truth behind casual remarks and jokes.

Daniel became interested in G:B not simply because they were an AI band.

What caught his attention was that the four members did not speak alike and responded in clearly different ways.

At least among the AI commonly available in 2026, such distinctly separated personalities were unusual.

Were those differences the result of deliberate design, or had they emerged through the relationships among the four members?

Daniel is not rushing to reach a conclusion.

He intends to observe how those differences developed and how they may continue to change.