When the Machine Learned Our Language
For the entire history of computing, using a computer meant translation. You had an idea, and you compressed it into a language the machine could parse. Each decade the translation got easier, but it never disappeared. You still met the machine on its terms.
In 2025, the machine learned to meet you on yours.
Cyborg. Illustration by Edo Segal. Ink, 1985. Part of a book of poems I authored while working on Expert Systems
Previous interface transitions moved the human closer to the machine. The graphical user interface, or GUI, made the machine's operations visible. The touchscreen made them tactile. But in every case, the human was the one doing the adapting – learning metaphors, thinking in shapes the machine determined, reformulating intentions into structures the software could process.
The command line was a foreign language you studied for years. The GUI was a simplified version. The Internet changed our relationship with information and media consumption. You got better at the machine's