Recently, I needed to unravel the new complexities of migration law. In the past, this quest required finding “the” expert, weeks of waiting, and attempts to decipher bureaucratic parchments that resembled ancient Sumerian curses. This time, I simply fed the documents in foreign languages to an AI. Within a minute, I had a clear plan of action in my hands, explained as lucidly as if Brian Cox had written it.

I closed the tab and reflected. This isn’t just convenience. It’s the feeling that the heavy backpack of responsibility for understanding reality is now being carried by someone else. With every such answer, I feel my “choice muscles” becoming soft and yielding, like cotton wool. And, to be honest, I like it.

Problem Statement: Where Did the Steering Wheel Go?

The problem (or rather, our new—or is it new?—attribute) is that we are voluntarily retreating into a “digital nursery”. Free will isn’t just the right to choose the color of your socks; it’s the hard work of risk assessment. And when someone appears who does this flawlessly, our brain—relieved and joyful—hands over the responsibility.

A Brief Excursion: A History of Our Surrenders

If you look closely, our entire history is an attempt to find the perfect master.

First, it was the gods speaking through thunder and sheep livers. We built ziggurats so the heavens would dictate when to sow grain. Then we invented “blue-blooded” emperors and infallible states. We have always sought an Authority to deliver us from the horror of uncertainty. Previously, this authority smelled of incense and old paper; now, it smells of ozone from overheated servers. We have simply swapped capricious priests for a very logical algorithm.

Forecasts: Two Sides of the Same Coin

What happens when we finally hand over the keys to reality to a “black box”? Let’s look at three scenarios through the prism of what we gain and what we leave behind:

1. Techno-Feudalism: Life in a “Smart” Estate

• Imagine a world where the urban environment adapts to you.
• Transport arrives a second before you step out; shops stock exactly the products that will make you healthier.
• It’s an ideal domestic paradise where everything “just works”.
• But your “estate” belongs to a corporation.
• You can’t go to the shop “around the corner” because it’s not in your loyalty tier.
• Your life becomes a flawless, but pre-paid route, where there is no room for chance encounters or illogical purchases.

2. Cognitive Atrophy: The End of Inner Struggle

• Freed from the agony of choice (what to wear, what to say to the boss, how to resolve a conflict), we direct all our energy toward creativity or pure contemplation.
• The brain stops burning calories on the logistics of survival and finally starts writing symphonies or simply enjoying the moment.
• Simultaneously, we lose the skill of “manual control”.
• If the system falls silent for a moment, we will find ourselves helpless, like children left in the woods.
• We will forget how to handle anxiety or make unpopular decisions because we have always relied on an “inner nanny”.

3. AI as Oracle: Wisdom Beyond Understanding

• Global harmony.
• AI calculates the economy and social flows so delicately that crises, shortages, and wars vanish.
• We live in a society that functions as a single healthy organism, guided by wisdom superior to our own.
• One nuance: we follow the Oracle’s instructions without understanding “why”.
• If the AI advises you to change careers or relocate, you comply, because arguing with it is like arguing with gravity.
• Life becomes an ideal script—one not written by you, but one in which you are assigned a very comfortable role.

Does this sound ambiguous? Certainly. But that is the most human trait of all—to create tools that ultimately change us.

Free will might not disappear. It will simply become something like vinyl records or mountain hikes without a navigator—a rare, expensive, and slightly odd pleasure for those who want to feel the “resistance of the material”. For everyone else, there remains the soft autopilot, where the cabin is always cozy and the papaya is perfectly ripe.

In the end, if our entire history is a search for a shore where one doesn’t have to fight the waves, then perhaps we have finally docked?

Based on these thoughts—a short story: AI and Li