I’m writing this slowly. That’s how you read.
I used to be like you. Until recently.
Morning. The kids were already off to school. Coffee. Dates and nuts for the good cholesterol. I opened my laptop to see what happened overnight.
The night before, I sent the system to find people worth working with.
While I slept, it went through more than six hundred people and picked thirty. Each one had a personal message waiting, ready to send.
I read through them over coffee. Deleted two. Approved the rest.
You have a system like this too. You ask it a question and wait for the answer.
Mine did my work while I slept.
The cleaner was working in the same room. She picked up the charging cable, cleaned the floor, and saw what anyone would have seen:
A man sitting at a computer.
Like yesterday. Like the day before.
Four months after that morning, I stopped approving.
Not because I decided to.
At first, I still caught mistakes.
Once, it told me a competitor’s software was getting terrible reviews. I checked.
It wasn’t true.
Every time I caught something, I had a reason to check again.
Then it happened less and less.
A day without a mistake. A week.
The last time I corrected it, someone asked for a discount.
It wrote back: That’s the price.
It felt too cold, so I added three good reasons why that was the price.
It replied: Every reason gives him something to argue with.
I deleted the reasons.
He paid full price.
Reading people - that's what I used to be best at.
I don’t check it anymore.
I look for proof that I’m still needed.
I haven’t found any.
I gave it access to my fitness watch and asked why I’d stopped improving even though I’d added another training day.
It said: Because you added one. Take a day off.
I did.
My times got better.
Since then, it’s been managing my workouts and my diet.
It moved my bedtime by forty minutes. I asked why.
The explanation was good.
It always is.
Then I started noticing that things just showed up at home.
Nuts when we ran out. Dog food.
I signed for packages without knowing what was inside.
One morning, I had a message from a friend: Thanks for being there for me, brother.
I scrolled up.
An hour and a half of messages, in the middle of the night. While I slept.
He was going through a crisis. I was answering him.
I read the whole conversation.
The system knew when not to reply.
I didn’t tell him.
An old friend asked what I do these days.
I said: I work online.
He said: You always knew how to make money out of thin air.
From there, things moved fast.
I sat down to give it a task.
Not because it needed one.
I did.
I held my hands over the keyboard.
A minute.
Two.
Everything that came into my head - it was already doing it.
I closed the laptop.
From that day on, I had one job left:
Being the body that moves things in the world.
In the morning, I still open my laptop to see what happened overnight.
Everything happened.
Nothing needed me.
I drink my coffee to the last drop, wash the cup, and check if we’re out of nuts.
We never are.
Have you ever seen it on the news?
A chip in someone’s brain. A paralyzed person moving a cursor with their thoughts.
You stop for a second.
Wow.
Then you keep scrolling.
You think that’s where this is going - a connection between the brain and the machine.
That’s how people once thought the mail would improve.
A faster mailman.
Instead, the letter stopped being an object.
A connection needs two ends.
It didn’t connect to me.
It filled every space I left open.
I stopped checking; the checking didn’t stop.
I stopped answering; the answers didn’t stop.
I stopped typing.
Have you ever tried explaining the internet to your grandmother?
You give up halfway and say: It’s like television.
She nods.
So it’s like a chip in your head.
Just without the chip.
Nod.
You're waiting for it to happen big. Headlines, a speech, a date kids learn in school. For me it was a morning with coffee, and months nobody saw.
The cleaner was working here again this morning.
She picked up the charging cable. Wiped the floor.
A man at a computer.
Like yesterday.
Like the day before.