the thing is, we knew.
we knew the whole time.
we joked about it.
ha ha the robots are coming lol
can ai do my taxes lol
write my essay daddy gpt
but beneath the joke was the itch.
the quiet hum of inevitability.
something breathing under the floorboards.
and now? now it’s louder.
it starts small.
you don’t notice when you give up the first part—
the grocery list
the playlist
the dating app icebreaker.
it’s nothing.
it’s just a tool.
but then it’s the cover letter.
the screenplay.
the marketing campaign.
a form of punctuation.
the voice in your head, outsourced.
and suddenly you’re not sure which parts are yours anymore.
people keep saying this isn’t new.
they compare it to the printing press.
the calculator.
the internet.
but the calculator never wanted your job.
google didn’t try to sound like you.
this is different.
this is something that learns your rhythm, then does it better.
and cheaper.
and without getting tired.
or asking for health insurance.
this is something that replaces not your labor,
but your soul.
you were told creativity was safe.
that art was human.
that storytelling needed us.
you were lied to.
a machine can write a sonnet now.
it can remix trauma into a ghibli image.
it can market a fashion line.
it can win awards.
and the worst part?
most people can’t tell the difference.
most people don’t care.
it’s happening slowly
and all at once.
you refresh a tab.
you feed it your dreams.
you get something shiny back.
you say, wow.
you feel proud.
you feel empty.
you do it again.
and underneath it all:
a quiet grief.
for the version of yourself
that once believed in mastery.
that once found joy in the trying.
i’m not nostalgic for the past.
it was brutal.
unfair.
inaccessible.
elitist.
but at least the struggle felt real.
at least the pain was earned.
at least when you made something,
you knew it came from you.
now we’re just curators of our own obsolescence.
pressing buttons.
pretending it’s still ours.
i don’t know what comes next.
but i know it’s coming faster than we are.
and i know we’ll keep pretending.
keep creating beside the void.
keep saying this is fine
as the spark gets quieter
and the machines get louder
and the silence
starts to sound like
us.