Hold the String

Machines cut for us. They grind for us. They wash our clothes and clean our floors. We don’t miss the effort. No one looks at a washing machine and thinks, “I feel less human because I didn’t scrub this shirt by hand.”

We outsourced the labor. And we called it progress.

Then they began remembering for us—books, databases, search engines. We forgot the details, and we didn’t mind.

Then they began navigating for us—maps, GPS. We stopped knowing the terrain, and we accepted it.

Now they write for us. They summarize. They respond. They explain.

We are approaching the moment where they may start truly thinking for us.

And here, the tradeoff feels different.

If machines can speak for us, decide for us, argue for us—at what point does outsourcing stop being convenience and start becoming surrender?

Descartes famously proposed: "I think, therefore I am."

But if machines think for us, decide for us, and perhaps one day even feel for us... does that equation still hold?

I don’t have the answer. But as we look up at the skies today, perhaps there is a lesson in the kites.

We build them to soar higher than we can reach. We let the wind carry them.

But we hold the string. Because without it, they don’t fly higher — they drift away.

Happy Uttarayan and Happy Kite Flying! 🪁 - remember to hold the string !