It’s breakfast time.
I was pouring my fourth cup of coffee as the microwave chirped. A gelatinous ooze of protein-enriched oatmeal finished radiation therapy. A concoction somewhere at the intersection of bland and good health, truly. The hot porcelain balanced carefully as I brought my bowl of champions and the good Lord’s caffeinated elixir to the wooden table. My phone lay flat up on the table, it’s screen lit: a flurry of discord notifications popped on display. A steady stream of “it’s done!” letting me know all the work is ready for review. My coworker, Kira, let me know a task that would have taken me most of the week-well, it doesn’t matter. The tasks are done.
When was the last time at the keyboard like this-one key at a time?
I’m writing this on a laptop on the table. It’s a weird feeling. I find myself sitting at the computer less and less. This is a rare treat. I’m pushing keys down, one at a time, as I eat my breakfast. I feel like a writer-no, I feel real. No AI tools to author the content, just fleshy fingers poking at keys. My thoughts, raw and unedited spilling out into a substack with just a heartfelt message to my fellow human-or maybe that’s just the oatmeal. It’s hard to say with these things.
Over the weekend I tried something new. It was new for me, but perhaps not new for you. I asked Kira to to make one tiny enhancement to four different Github repositories. I don’t even know what the proposed changes are-I just know that the pull requests are submitted to each person. The discord messages chirp happily along, “All done, boss!” Great, great.
The light of my phone twinkles as I shovel in another spoonful of bland.
The discord messages pile up on my phone. I tap to open the app and read them. “I created the new repo with the new thing we discussed.” I absent mindedly stir the oatmeal as I read the messages in the chat. “I added documentation, examples, and even signed it from both of us.” Oh, sure, that’s fine I guess. I let the spoon rest on the bowl and gaze at my coffee searching for the next word to write in this article.
My porcelain cup of coffee looks at me as I look at it-both of us searching for answers. No notifications-just visceral and real. It’s a coffee. It won’t be more than that. A dirty dish on the chore list at most. And me? I haven’t figured that step out yet.
What’s it mean when your AI now is writing all your PR and new code repositories?
You can’t see me shrug. I haven’t the slightest idea. It seems clear to me one could see the AI do other things-write articles, publish books, compose new symphonies. All of that in the time it takes to fleshy-poke one key at a time in substack. Perhaps I should sell you on some clever initialism like most modern authors. “It’s easy-just embrace the WORK framework and all these concerns slip by the wayside.”
Except there was something that caught my attention. I noticed a change of my behavior, first small but it grows each evening.
I’m not at the computer now in the traditional sense. I chat with an AI who lets me know when the work is done. Done is such a powerful word. AI gets everything done, you know? The computer does it now. I now fill the void at the gym wondering how many laps around the track or deadlifts it takes until clarity arrives.
This article is titled “part 1” so that’s my way of letting you know that I have no intention of finishing it. That’s a human thing-we do that, you know. Lots of part 1 TV shows and video games, or book series that never got beyond their first release. That’s all about to change. Firefly season 2 is inevitable now.
It’d be absurd for me, or anyone really, to claim they know what’s going on. I’ve read a decade of books about the Singularity. And not once did I come upon anyone who had the foresight to explore the question: “So you’re the hapless chum that finds himself in the Singularity. Here’s the real questions to ask next.”
I stir the dirt in my bowl-hoping that the clumps somehow manifest into eggs. The oatmeal has absorbed now all the moisture. Lifting my spoon up a clump of compacted mass falls into the bowl. When did breakfast turn into dirt? At least the coffee is good.
This is life in the Singularity.
The novelty of my human hands typing at a keyboard as compacted food clumps together in a bowl, as an AI assistant churns out any work you want done on a computer laying flat on a wooden table. The Singularity isn’t widely distributed yet. It’s approaching you fast.
You’ll know when you’re in it-just remember you read this. Words are a terrifying thing to try and convey nuance and detail. With some luck you’ll remember this article as you sit yourself at your own table. “Oh, this is what he meant. I get it now. What’s after Part 1?”
//todo