Agentic AI just makes me sad

Every automation wave produces people who genuinely can't imagine what comes next, and they're always right that something dies and always wrong that nothing replaces it. The deeper issue though is that you've started measuring yourself with the machine's ruler. Heidegger called this "enframing". Technology doesn't just change what you do, it changes how you evaluate everything, including yourself. Once you accept output speed as the metric you've already lost the argument on its own terms.

The kid learning french and dutch shouldn't try to out-translate an API. He's trying to exist in someone else's world, adapting to someone's culture gives and edge that's not easily measurable.

I don't think the answer is to out-compete the machine. It's probably more about being intentional about which efforts still matter to you personally, regardless of whether a tool could do it faster.

The kid learning French and Dutch is a good example actually. He's not doing it to translate. He's doing it to connect with someone. At the end of the day, there will always be things only humans can do, a touch of human spirit. Sorry for being too cheesy

I've been caring for my mother for a few years now. She's got some mental issues due to age and other stuff. Her memory and her reasoning both have degraded noticeably in these last years.

The other day I found myself wondering about something she often asks me. "But... What for?" - she says. And, mind you, this is not asked in a defeatist manner. She genuinely wonders. She asks because she has trouble understanding some human behaviour.

We'd be watching a documentary on the telly and they'll show some people travelling on the train. Or maybe doing something artistic. Or maybe it's animals in the mountains or the forest or wherever doing their things. And she'll ask: "This is nice, but what do they do that for?". Sometimes there may be no particular motive other than just travelling. Or maybe it's just a hobby, or art expression. Sometimes there is a more specific motivation, like a bridge being built to cross a river or a tunnel being made through a mountain. The monkeys may eat the sand to get minerals. The bird may build the nest just for a chance to mate and reproduce and then just die.

It's not just these motives that escape her reasoning. We try as much as possible to go out for walks -on a wheelchair-; maybe not every single day but as much as possible. I ask her if she wants to go to this place or that place and sometimes she'll pass on the offer telling me that she has no reason to go there. Some times, after a walk she'll comment that it was a nice walk "but... we didn't accomplish anything. I mean, for what did we go there?".

And I was pondering this because, honestly, I don't know. In a sense, yes, there is a motive. We go for a "walk" to get some fresh air and just see the world around us. Or to distract ourselves. Maybe do some exercise -sitting on the wheelchair is still exhausting-. They may make art as a way of making a living, or as self expression, as a hobby, or as a distraction. They may travel to see family or for tourism.

But still... I don't know. What for? Why do we do the things we do? What are we trying to accomplish?

Perhaps in some sense it really will be all for nothing in the end. Perhaps this is inevitable. We're born, we live, we die. Even if we feel we accomplish some things in our life, what will those really amount to? The bridges will fall, maybe they'll stand for a hundred years, or a thousand. But even then they will most probably lose their purpose at some point, destroyed by war, abandoned without use, or just superseded by other solutions.

If you try to look at large horizons probably nothing much has a very solid motive. But then again, right now, maybe just living is enough. Maybe we go for a walk just for the sake of going for a walk. And perhaps that's not a strong reason, but perhaps it's just enough to do it.

Maybe that kid will in a couple of decades, or even in a few years, let his French slip away and just use a Babel fish or use one of those direct brain interfaces to plug in and load a common French module. Maybe -though I hope he doesn't- he'll die in a car crash next year. Maybe it will all be for naught. But meanwhile, right now, maybe learning French and Dutch helps him go through difficult times, get better grades at school, maybe get better at learning itself. Perhaps it sparks an interest in him that will later in life take him through certain situations in a certain way or nudge him towards certain decisions. Perhaps it doesn't.