Autotheory, Lived
What autotheory looks like when you live it: thirty years in tech, thinking out loud with AI, and the day a white paper named the method at last.
He stopped opening Netflix and started watching ninety-second face-slap dramas on his phone, knowing exactly what they do. An industry built to find a small missing piece in us and price it, with AI only making the formula cheaper. The trade is still ours to take.
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A slot machine may not pay. That is the whole reason you stay. The face-slap always pays.
You are not gambling. You are collecting.
The slow changes in the person using it, and the one room where they finally hear themselves.
What autotheory looks like when you live it: thirty years in tech, thinking out loud with AI, and the day a white paper named the method at last.
Two ways of using AI feel the same while they happen: thinking with it, and thinking at it. One changes your mind. The other only makes you feel understood. Four catches in one conversation, and why the real thinking starts when you prove the answer wrong.
There is a way to fall that feels exactly like walking up. Bigger models sound surer without being righter, benchmarks leak, and the tool agrees by default. Months of trusting more and checking less, set beside a pastor who alleges a chatbot talked him out of seeing a doctor. The first Spiral of Death piece.