Chris Gassner | January 1, 2026 |
We are living in a time where only two letters seem to matter anymore. A and I. Everything else in the alphabet is just hanging around, pretending it is still relevant. Even B and C feel like they should update their CVs.
Not that long ago AI was a loose term. Almost Intelligent. Accidentally Impressive. Sometimes Absolute Idiocy, depending on how brave the product manager was. Today it means something much clearer. If it blinks, makes a noise, or moves on its own, congratulations, it is now intelligent and probably costs more.
This way of thinking became very visible at some point, but it did not stay there. It spread nicely. Efficiently. Like a software update nobody asked for. And now almost anything can be declared AI. You can point at a device that has been doing the exact same thing since the early nineties and someone will still lean in and whisper, with respect, look… this is AI.
The best example is the automatic door. A perfectly normal sliding door. A door that has not learned a single new trick since fax machines were considered modern. And yet people talk about it like it has instincts. They stand in front of it and say things like the AI door recognized me or the AI door sensed me, as if it briefly scanned their personality and made a conscious decision.
In reality, you could approach it holding a banana and it opens. You could wave your elbow, a jacket, a shopping bag, or just exist vaguely in its direction and it opens. You could be in a bad mood, a good mood, or no mood at all. The door does not care. It does not see you. It does not feel you. It does not judge you. A light beam gets interrupted and the door slides away. That is the full intellectual journey. And yet people talk about it like it might soon start writing essays about humanity.
Once you notice this, you see it everywhere. A fridge makes a noise and suddenly someone says AI. A lamp turns on and that is also AI now. The air conditioner clicks once and people nod like something clever just happened. At this point you could sit down on a chair and someone would explain that it is an adaptive comfort system responding to your emotional state and lower back history.
Even the trash bin has joined the act. It opens when something passes in front of it. Your hand. Your keys. Your elbow. A sock that lost its way. But it is introduced as an AI waste companion. People wave at it carefully, like it might remember them next time and judge their lifestyle choices.
Then there is the AI water kettle. A kettle. A device that used to boil water and then mind its own business. Now it behaves like a small life coach. It does not start immediately. It beeps first, thoughtfully, as if checking whether you are emotionally ready for hot water. It flashes lights like it has concerns. People proudly say it is learning about them. It is not. It is just trying very hard not to destroy itself while pretending to be meaningful.
Then there is the AI mirror. A bathroom mirror with a screen glued to it. It shows the time, the weather, and occasionally tells you that you look tired. Which is polite, because what you are actually seeing is a person you do not fully recognize yet. It is Monday morning. Hair pointing in six directions, face slightly swollen, expression somewhere between confused witness and escaped lab animal. The mirror announces that today might be stressful. Not because it analyzed your emotional state, but because you have not even located your own personality yet. This is not artificial intelligence. This is a piece of glass confirming that mornings exist, humans need at least twenty minutes before becoming socially acceptable, and absolutely nothing should be trusted before the first coffee.
And then come the delivery robots. To be fair, they actually work. They deliver things. But they look like appliances that accidentally found a career path. They roll through hallways like a rice cooker with dreams or a small refrigerator that decided to leave the break room and see the world. They arrive at your door, open their lid with a dramatic sound effect that suggests something important just happened, and everyone nods respectfully, calling it AI, even though it is basically a confident box on wheels following a route.
What we are watching is a giant performance. Doors that barely react are treated like thinkers. Lamps, fridges, fans, kettles, bins, and sometimes furniture get promoted to specialists. If something does one thing reliably and looks confident doing it, intelligence is assumed. A sensor, a beep, and a sticker are often doing most of the work.
At some point, questioning quietly leaves the room. Once something looks certain enough, people fill in the intelligence themselves. No questions needed. No curiosity required.
Meanwhile, real AI exists somewhere else. It does not blink. It does not beep. It does not try to be liked. It sits quietly, analyzes patterns, predicts outcomes, and changes things without putting on a show.
And that might be the real irony.
While everything else is busy trying to look intelligent, the real AI already finished and moved on.
AI promised intelligence everywhere.
What it really delivered was relief from having to think ourselves.
Chris Gassner
January 1, 2026