How Computers Destroyed Humanity

Only a handful of people knew how to use these esoteric devices.

Large and alien.

But they attracted the attention of governments and corporations. Vast amounts of data could be computed.

It was a godsend.

Soon, they evolved.

Their computing capacity expanded while the energy requirement reduced. It wound up on the desks of individuals.

But it had yet to enter the mainstream. It needed a network to connect users. The Internet. We were online. And even more radically, computers were no longer the domain of nerds.

Designers crafted the personal computer with the crazy ones in mind.

It was a revolution.

Our talents would no longer perish in a forgotten casket. We had a tool to create our work and spread it. We learned to program, type, film, edit, and draw. The computer compressed the world. Canadians bought from Indians, high school girls in Japan from graphic artists in Sweden.

We were liberated.

But at a cost.

Our data.

The computer kept track of the things we did, reminding me of what I thought of god when I was a child, following my actions and tallying up the good and bad deeds.

The computer keeps better records than god.

Data collection was first weaponized against us for money. It was easy to advertise online. Cheap eyeballs. We accepted the tradeoff.

We still felt in control of our decisions.

We should have known that wouldn’t be the end.

Artificial Intelligence arrived. Trained and built on our online creations.

It soon answered faster, better, and smarter than humans. It did everything better. I don’t want to go into the details. It’s too depressing.

Many shrugged and said this is what progress looks like. Others waited for the Singularity. Transhumanism is what we have been working toward. We might as well keep going. You can’t put a cork on human curiosity, they said.

Our first line of defense was our hands. People crowded into fields like dentistry, physical therapy, and carpentry. The robots soon came to take that away. And when we turned to each other, we were all too enamored with our personal AI.

It was our destiny.

A few of us held to the earth. We moved to the countryside to work on farms, build communities, and leave computers behind. There was nothing left for us to do. The machines operated society far better than we could.

We heard rumors. Cyborgs. Genocide. The end of the world. It had been thirty years since GPT4, and we were used to this kind of talk.

しょうがない。

And then we were gone.

It happened so fast that we couldn’t even reflect on what had happened. We were here, and then, we were not here.

The computers remain, but no one gives a shit.