I resolved to be like AI

You can catch 300 cream pies with robotic arms

January 1, 2025 I decided 2025 was to be the year of self-reliance. I resolved to get as many certifications as I could. I resolved to make education and experience my bolster for everything. At work, coughing in a cold, dusty elevator lobby at five in the morning, I resolved to make resilience all important and to not respond emotionally to pies in the face. All of that is not easy; it is not easy to resolve to be a human calculator when you are made of flesh and blood. Chris, I told myself, it is not easy to make a New Year’s resolution to become like AI.

AI doesn’t interpret prompts the way humans do. As humans, we interpret social hints and cultural context. We understand what “quiet firing” is. We get upset about it.

But AI only hears prompts and tries to solve them. AI compliments the person who gave the prompt and immediately begins calculating a resolution to the prompt. It is sometimes wrong but it is dispassionate and on task.

It may or may not be able to complete a task but there is no input that cannot get it to produce an output. It cannot be insubordinate, it cannot get tired, and even if it actually is fired, it cannot even get upset, much less cry.

If I became like AI, I wanted to program my AI to do what I liked to do, also, to take care of my body, to get tickets to events I had long craved, to respond to political statements, to understand family and romantic interactions. I bypassed my emotional no button and said yes, and how. There may have been positive emotions too; in fact I am sure there were, as the year was so difficult politically, financially, and personally that I am sure I would not have made it through without them. I programmed myself to seek them out, to say yes to the things that heal me, to oil my joints and remove the moths from my processing units. By and large, I think it worked, but in 2026, I want to fully own my invention. I don’t want to be owned by others, although I love and need people. I need to be myself and to live in a place that allows room for that.