Magic Indistinguishable From Technology

They say that when everything is automated humans will be at a loss as to what to do with themselves. This is a load of hogwash; there will always be something to do no matter how many processes are done by themselves. My family and I should know. The story has gotten muddled over the centuries, some say one of my great relatives saved a fairy from a trap, but at some point we were imbued with the ability to enchant inanimate objects to do tasks for us. Think The Sorcerers Apprentice but controlled. From the blacksmith that had the hammers work for him, the tailor that had the sewing needles sew for him and even the cobbler that had his tools repair everything for him overnight. There was a story written by someone that almost found out about his powers. Luckily, they just thought it was elves or something.

Working from home is great, even if the constant background noise from the laptop makes it sound as if I’m in a busy office. The enchanted machine enters all the data, runs all the tasks and answers all the emails as I sit here drinking my fancy coffee and catching up on my reading. Throughout the ages technology eventually caught up and we had to pivot ourselves to what we controlled. This all leads to today where even the best software engineers can’t automate their machines to be as productive as I am. I turn and look at the workplace awards, a clean sweep for the past three years, and chuckle a little.

              The ding of a fresh new email incoming goes off and the keyboard clacking ceases. I spin my chair to see what it is. The little red exclamation by the title means it’s serious.

              “Subject, Quick 15 Minute Meeting – MANDATORY. What is this about?” I see who it’s from. My heart skips as I see it’s with the CTO, CEO and both my immediate reports. This is serious, and it starts in five minutes. Was I found out? I tried to keep my powers as hidden as possible. I always made it look like I was busy on camera and kept it off when not in meetings. There was that one time I got some weird looks when there were several GitHub commits done while I was in an office party planning meeting and my hands were clearly off the keyboard and supporting my head, face resting in my palms. Nobody seemed to want to follow on it though.

              Maybe I got a bit too cocky, pushed it a bit too much. Should have slowed it a bit after that employee of the year three peat. Maybe I should have accepted those promotions even with the extra responsibilities I still could have pretty much all the free time I wanted. No more time to think, the bosses are calling in.

              “Good morning, thank you for meeting us on such short notice,” the CTO was in the larger of the squares, everyone else in a smaller square along the periphery. “We would just like to begin with stating that you are in no way on trouble, we just need to chat.” He was using his soothing authoritative voice.

              “Um, of course. Didn’t think I was sir.” Could he see how much I’m sweating?

              “Excellent, excellent. So, we all would like to say how impressed we are with your work output and ability, it is just incredible what you have done as an individual. There is just one thing we need to bring up. Our network guy has kept an eye on your traffic from your workstation, and it just doesn’t seem humanly possible to do what you’re doing, the amount of work produced that is. We ruled out you outsourcing your own job to someone from India or China like someone did a few years ago. Brilliant idea but fell apart when he was up for a performance award and couldn’t do his own job. No, there is only one thing that must be going on.”

              This is it; I’m found out. Best case scenario I’m just fired, worst case burned at the stake. That did happen not once, but twice to my ancestors.

              The CTO took a deep breath in and continued, “It’s nothing to be ashamed of, but if true we are very disappointed you have been hiding it from your colleagues for so long.” He took a deep breath and paused, trying to put together what he wanted to say. “It is clear that you have been using an A.I agent to do your work for you.”

              The seconds after this statement felt like an eternity. A.I? Did they really think that was what I’ve been using? Slowly it dawned on mt that yes, to them this makes the most sense. I really should have kept up more with the tech news, this is probably what happened to great great great great Uncle Theodore and the printing press. Curse that Gutenberg.

              “We would like you to present your agent to the rest of your team and help them implement it. One person with your output is great, but a whole team! That would push our company to the cutting edge. Please be ready by 9am. Thank you.” The call ended. Staring at my blank screen I felt numb and didn’t move for at least ten minutes. I set my laptop to continue working while I paced the room. What should I do? No one can know about my powers, but I have no idea how to use A.I. Maybe I should just quit, leave and cut off all contact. Might make finding a new job tough but keeps me off a dissecting table in the pentagon.

              “What to do, what to do?” I continued pacing the apartment. Then it hit me, fight fire with fire. “They want an A.I agent they’ll get one,” I opened a browser page to one of the more popular A.Is and started prompting. “Let’s see, ‘Create a workflow that does all the following steps and then make it into an application able to be transported to other similar machines’. There, that should do it.” The agent started spinning its wheels and I went to the kitchen to get a drink. When I got back, I looked at the results. They were not helpful in the slightest, just a few paragraphs on the coding languages I’d need to know to get started on such a project and an ad trying to get me to upgrade to a premium plan.

              I had to face it; I had no idea how this A.I stuff works and I didn’t have enough time to figure it out. Maybe if I just commanded the laptop itself to create the needed program. I waved my hands, said my incantations and instructed the machine to do what I commanded the agent to do. The keyboard clacked away and I let it run, commanding it to create a presentation for what it did when it finished. Thoroughly wiped out from the day I decided to get some sleep and either present my productivity tool or leave the country in the morning.

              When I woke up, I found a presentation and zipped folder on my desktop with everything I would need. I was quite impressed, apparently the A.I just watched the enchanted laptop do its work overnight and wrote programs to automate what it was doing as it went. Sometimes magic and technology can seem to be one in the same

              The presentation went great; all the other employees got a copy of the files they needed and other than some light chastisement for keeping it to myself from my bosses there was no harm. With everyone on the same level now my advantage has been erased and there will probably be no more employee of the year trophies but there are other things in life. One thing is for certain; the gig is up for my current job. I wonder how far personal robot technology has advanced.