AI Is a Bridge

AI won’t make work less laborious. We’ll do more instead. But will it be for each other, or just for ourselves?

We’ll keep labouring over the details because that’s what other humans value. The craft, the choices, the effort — those aren’t going away. What AI could remove is the friction between how humans naturally express themselves and the structured digital systems we’ve built to fulfil our needs.

Today that friction is everywhere. Dropdown menus instead of plain speech. Forms instead of free text. Interfaces designed for computers, not people.

Assuming software continues to exist post singularity, I explore new UI paradigm’s with two recent projects:

When I add or edit recipes in my meal planner at OurMeals, I type — “convert to grams, halve the sugar, swap the tofu for chicken” — and the AI maps this back into the database so my grocery list stays accurate. No scrolling, no dropdowns, no structured fields. With my voice assistent, I can ask for instructions mid-recipe without even touching my phone.

When I walk to the station I practise Japanese with Flashspeak. I just talk, the AI assesses my fluency, fetches the next card and explains tricky grammar. Hands-free, eyes-free, no screen staring.

In each case the underlying technology is ordinary: a database, a flashcard app. AI doesn’t replace any of it. Our legacy systems — the mobile apps, the databases, the web pages built for specific purposes — aren’t going away. We’ll build on top of our current tech stack, with AI that stands in front and translates.

Artificial Intelligence is a bridge that can make using computers easier. Yay!

I should leave it as this, but I can’t help but explore the implications a bit further.

For now, the tedium shifts; instead of wrestling with dropdowns, you wrestle with the AI - rephrasing, correcting, arguing about what you actually meant. But as the AI gets better, it becomes easier to cognitive-offload, become lazy and accept its choices. Maybe that’s trust. Or maybe that’s agency, quietly leaving the room. I once delegated my meetings to my human-assistant, so I could focus on the engineering. He took my promotion. Will our AI assistants take our jobs?

Which leaves a harder question: maybe it’s fine to replace the transactional stuff — the form, the dropdown, the waiter at the counter. But are we replacing our relationships too? How do we keep labouring to build beautiful things for each other and not spin out into isolation, each of us in a private loop, consuming content made for an audience of one? Social media has shown us the dangers of that. AI friends will be even more isolating.