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Last active June 8, 2026 06:52
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automating-life.md

Automating Life

What have we done with technology?

  • cars: privatized/corporatized/automated walking, biking, public transit, horses
    • outcome: walkable urban centers and close-knit towns become exurbs and strip malls, ubiquitous noise, pollution and car infra, all humans required to fork over hundreds of thousands of dollars per life just to get around the way they used to be able to do for free, super long commutes, obsesity, 40k deaths per year in the US, environmental damage, lead poisoning, now cars are massively reliant on computer chips and can't be repaired easily, etc. Enabler of classical big box store style consumption.
  • smart phones: the control center that runs everything else and enables most other automation, replaces wallets, credit cards, traditional phones, video cameras, photo cameras, alarm clocks, music players, transit cards, watches, books, TVs, calculators, and most other single-purpose consumer goods of the 20th century
    • outcome: impossible to survive without technological know-how, one omnipresent device is a necessity to interface with the infra of the modern world, need to be constantly tending to your digital pet or else you'll lose connections and opportunities, perpetually online, perpetually surveilled and surveilling, ease of photo/camera usage and sharing means experiencing life largely with phone held up in front of face, etc.
    • Smart phones are basically always an individual experience. You used to get together as a family and watch the one household TV, had to argue about what to watch, wait a week for your favorite show to be on. Now each family member is in their own room doomscrolling through endless hyper-personalized feeds.
  • social media: privatized/corporatized/automation of face-to-face communication and acoustic phones (enabled by smart phones)
    • outcome: misinformation, disconnection/no need to get together in person or call someone (which is O(1) rather than O(n) making a tweet/post), influencers, decline of news media, political influence, data brokers, performative living where all "meat world" activites are designed to feed the content stream and online reputation score, requirement to perform/showcase online to obtain jobs (linkedin), social cooling, cancel culture, conspiracies, normalized psychosis, providing free work as a content creator during spare time to boost corporate profits, etc.
  • youtube/netflix: automated movie theaters, home VHS/DVD and reading
    • outcome: stay at home (or on your phone) and watch whatever you want endlessly, no need to go to the theater, blockbuster, library, or get together with anyone. Social interaction through comment threads/reaction videos and communities/tastes become hyper-specific.
  • e-wallets/crypto/credit cards: privatized/corporatized/automation of cash and checks
    • outcome: reliance on phones and private digital infrastructure, easier than ever to spend and be scammed
  • e-bikes/scooter rental: privatized/corporatized/automation of personal biking, walking, public transit, even driving (enabled by smart phones)
    • outcome: less walking/acoustic biking, reliance on batteries, chips and phones instead of a pure "buy once" cheap mechanical device.
  • uber/lyft: privatized/corporatized/automation of taxis, public transit, biking, walking (enabled by smart phones)
    • outcome: gig economy exploitation, reliance on a few companies' prices, reliance on phones, additional traffic. Now that most of our purchases online, we don't need private cars to haul stuff home from big box stores, so the timing works out.
  • waymo: disrupts human uber/lyft drivers
    • outcome: fewer jobs (?), easier than ever to drive, more monopolization of transportation, rich parents don't need to drive their kids to school or take their dog to the vet
  • airbnb: disrupts hotels (enabled by smart phones)
    • outcome: fewer units available to rent, more expensive housing
  • doordash/uber eats: disrupts home cooking (or automated shopping largely for pre-prepared food)
    • outcome: eating alone, fewer family dinners or restaurant visits, enables more time for work
  • gyms: privatized/corporatized/automation of free outdoor exercise
    • outcome: as the environment burns outside, you can still go to the gym to work out. Many gyms are private and isolated communities, like in-residence or at-home and don't require leaving your home bubble, and may even have social media components (e.g. peloton).
  • online shopping/amazon: automation of big box stores/shopping/libraries
    • outcome: no need to leave the house or talk to a cashier to buy things, just home deliver everything to the climate controlled home box
  • software/computing: automates classical white collar labor systems and biz processes
    • outcome: endless arms race/progression from one system to another, frequent obsolescence, need to retrain, eroded work life balance/ubiquitous work from home/vacation and on the go, increased automation, landscape of constantly changing third party systems with data breaches and catastrophic security/systems failures. companies like intuit, for example, cornering a previously uncommodified process like taxes and holding the system hostage with lobbying.
  • fentanyl/powerful recreational drugs/stimulants/alcohol: privatized/corporatized/automation of pleasure/mood/pain/sleep/focus/socializing/recreation
    • outcome: rampant drug-ridden homeless in urban centers like SF, mass consumption of stimulants and alcohol to fit in and keep up with the pace of life, people spending all their free time and money stoned in a stupor
  • prescription antidepressants: privatized/corporatized/automation of meaning/purpose/fulfillment
    • outcome: allows people to tolerate the sadness of turning our lives over to corporations and loss of family, friends and religion or nature for guidance/meaning generation. ADHD drugs, caffeine and stimulants help keep a competitive advantage.
  • fast fashion: replaces buying a few high-quality outfits that last decades and can be repaired
    • outcome: planned obsolescence becomes norm, never repair anything, fast trends mean people who don't buy lose friends and social status, tons of waste, mostly plastic-based stretchy butt pants like lululemon and casual sports wear
  • smart home: enhances/privatizes/corporatizes home appliances
    • outcome: computers in appliances (printers, laundry machines, thermostats, fridges, ovens) let corps collect data to resell, can't be repaired easily/planned obsolescence/bricking, integrations/ads/restrictions, reliance on smart phones and time spent updating software and maintaining everything. Previously, buy once, use forever; now, xfer 2 GB data to the cloud daily, keep software updated, pay a subscription fee and forced to buy printer ink or the scanner will brick itself.
  • spotify/apple music/yt music: automates CDs, MP3s, vinyl
    • outcome: tied to internet/phone rather than simple tech like CD/MP3 players, easy to sneak AI gen into generated playlists, everything is background music, hard to fully focus on the music.
  • DAW/protools/autotune/ableton: automates tape recorders, outboard gear, skill
    • outcome: massive flood of low-quality music uploaded, less skill required to make it, less reliance on technique, things sound more generic.
    • (one could go on endlessly with all the software disruptions)
  • Agentic AI (LLMs/GPTs): automate anything computer/creativity/writing/thought
    • outcome: now that everything above (cars, housing, entertainment, transportation, food, etc) has been digitized/subscriptionized and has begun to be impossible to manage, AI agents can help cut through the complexity and automate sending emails, social media, managing finances and subscriptions, white-collar computer work, etc. Massive reduction of trust in anything digital, social media/content creators/artists/white collar workers at risk, everyone remaining at the office expected to move 10x faster and be running agents in their sleep.

In the above list, these innovations are not always a total replacement, but it's a game changer and makes it "weird" to, for example, use cash in SF in 2026 rather than an apple wallet. Stores gradually stop accepting cash, banks/ATMs close branches, people find cash increasingly inconvenient/old fashioned/uncool, and eventually cash becomes niche and dies. Now you basically NEED to have a phone to survive in the US--it's difficult to do much of anything without one, like MFA, and soon solve recaptchas to use websites.

The problem with automation is that by Jevon's paradox, each technology becomes the new normal and feels inconvenient when it doesn't work (plane delays, phone lost or running out of battery, car troubles). The few corps who run the biz can set prices and enshittify once the market is cornered and the "old fashioned" way is swept away. Each technology is hard to argue against initially because it does seem fast and promises a competitive advantage or alleviation from toil. After disruption/automation, corporations own the means of communication, transportation, housing, food, and can mediate access and mandate usage. Everything is super depersonalized and addictive/dependent (not just drugs/social media; cars are addictive too in that they're virtually required now and ubiquitous since there is little alternative infrastructure except in certain large cities). Friends and family are less the source of community and random strangers or AI on the internet becomes the connections. Or if you are communicating with friends + family, it's usually mediated through phones/social media and coprorations are monetizing those interactions.

I'm not sure what the end game of this is, but I'm surprised by the backlash against GPT/LLM AI. Agentic AI provides an automation layer that can dynamically deal with the complicated techno infrastructure of modern living which we've collectively embraced. People should be more upset about the substructure that enables AI to be effective (phones, cars, doordash, etc--the "plugged in" tech we love that's collectively highly complicated and time-consuming to manage). Given that society doesn't has embraced the other technologies and automation listed above, it'll only be a matter of time before AI is also accepted since it promises to help manage the complexity engendered by all other tech. I predict the backlash will be brief.

What have we gained from forking our unmediated living experiences over to automation? Automation is supposed to make life easier and create more time for the good parts of living, but it hasn't. Most of the conveniences melt away and we're stuck with a complex consumer world where most of our life experiences (work, free time, social relationships, etc) are mediated by corporations and designed to extract profit.

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