The Council of Birds: AI with Structure, Soul, and Synthesis
Some ideas form slowly, built from years of unrelated obsessions. For me, three threads—structured thinking, artificial intelligence, and Sufi poetry—unexpectedly wove together into one: The Council of Birds.
The Thinking Problem
As a product manager, I make constant trade-offs—between user needs and business goals, short-term delivery and long-term design. Early on, I relied on linear thinking: gather data, analyze, decide.
But I kept missing things—intuition, emotion, risk. Then I discovered Edward de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats, and it clicked: don’t think about everything at once. Break it into modes—facts, feelings, risks, opportunities, creativity, and process.
It changed how I ran meetings, made decisions, and avoided deadlock. Everyone wearing the same “hat” fosters collaboration instead of conflict.
The AI Problem
Then came AI.
ChatGPT fascinated me—but also worried me. You ask a question, and it gives a smooth, confident answer. But from what perspective? Optimistic? Cautious? Emotional? Rational? It doesn’t say.
Worse, its fluency hides its flaws. Bias, hallucinations, missing context—presented like gospel.
I started prompting it to act like the Black Hat, the Red Hat, and so on. The results were better, but manual and clunky. That’s when the idea hit me: what if the AI ran its own Six Hat deliberation?
The Sufi Thread
Growing up between Denmark and Pakistan, I was shaped by both logic and mysticism. One Sufi poem haunted me: “The Conference of the Birds” by Attar.
Thousands of birds journey to find their king, the Simorgh—only to discover that Simorgh means “thirty birds.” What they sought was their collective self. The message: truth emerges not from a single voice, but from shared reflection.
The Council Is Born
So I built The Council of Birds—a deliberative AI that fuses de Bono’s framework, collective reasoning, and mystical metaphor.
Each AI “bird” wears a different hat:
- 🦉 Owl and 🕊 Dove – Facts (White Hat)
- 🔴 Cardinal – Intuition (Red Hat)
- 💛 Canary and Goldfinch – Optimism (Yellow Hat)
- ⚫ Raven – Risks (Black Hat)
- 💡 Hummingbird and Parrot – Creativity (Green Hat)
- 🔷 Hoopoe – Facilitator (Blue Hat, drawn from Attar’s poem)
The Hoopoe first identifies your question type—decision, exploration, brainstorm—and calls on the right birds. They respond in parallel, then the Hoopoe synthesizes everything into a tailored output.
Importantly, it shows the deliberation, not just the answer.
Why It Matters
AI is too confident. Humans are too fragmented. We need tools that balance power with perspective.
The Council doesn’t pretend to be an oracle. It’s a chorus. It makes deliberation visible, so insight can emerge—from both machine and self.
Try It
I’ve used the Council for product calls, creative briefs, and deep questions. It keeps me honest—exposing blind spots and balancing my bias.
If you value structure, curiosity, or the idea of AI with a soul, I invite you to try it: 👉 https://council.symphonytek.dk/
Bring your real questions.
The birds are waiting.