Tech improvements are quickly taken for granted

This week, I caught myself asking AI for synonyms a few times in less than 2 minutes. I got the words I needed. In no time, I was done. I could express myself clearly and move on.

That moment reminded me of Donald Knuth (computer scientist and mathematician, winner of the Turing Award in 1974). In his Lectures on Mathematical Writing ↗, he mentioned that when working he always had a dictionary and a thesaurus.

What a tedious job, to look up all these words just to pick the right one.

The need for definitions and synonyms today is the same as 50 years ago. But the way to access them has changed dramatically.

I completely forgot what it was like to write before AI.

It's here, and it's like it has always been here.

There's no looking back.