For a brilliantly brainy bot that is about to destroy humanity, I wish AI could help me figure out how to navigate Ticketmaster.
uncertain
AI → destroy → Ticketmaster
Because a person sure isn’t going to.
asserted
person → go → ?
AI may someday replace humans.
uncertain
AI → replace → humans
But having already downsized people for profit, we’ve done a good job of making ourselves obsolete all on our own.
asserted
ourselves → downsize → own
I’m as frightened as anybody by rogue superagents, especially after AI’s freaky breakout from human control in July.
asserted
I → ’m → July
Then came Jacob Coxon’s headline-making resignation from Anthropic, as he claimed, “the people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade.”
uncertain
it → come → decade
I shook my fist at the greedy AI overlords endangering my children and grandchild’s future, right before I asked Google if the crick in my neck could be cancer.
uncertain
crick → shake → neck
A quick scan of my searches that day included: best springform pans; elegiac; Hadrian’s Wall; top-rated shampoo for silky hair; and, in writing this column, “how many Canadians use AI at work,” which is 35.9 per cent of us in the past 12 months, according to a 2026 StatsCan study.
uncertain
which → include → study
“To most of us who use it, AI presents as something like a more powerful and personable Google search,” said Ezra Klein in a typically astute feature for the New York Times.
asserted
Klein → use → Times
For most of these purposes, he continued, AI is “OK, pretty good, occasionally great.
asserted
AI → continue → purposes
My search for a “short-haired grey tabby kitten good with children near me” is a long way from the cyberhacking assignments being given to the RSI (short for recursive self-improvement) computers by billionaires in nefarious AI labs around the world.
asserted
search → give → world
Except every time we ask AI even a harmless kitten question, don’t we feed the beast and give it more power?
asserted
we → ask → power
So, this fall, to do my bit to save the world, I decided to get offline as much as possible.
asserted
I → do → world
In a long life of optimistically misbegotten resolutions, this one may take the booby prize.
uncertain
one → take → prize
I opened the 10-pound “Times Atlas of the World” collecting dust on my bookshelf to look up a map of Guatemala.
asserted
I → open → Guatemala
I used an actual flashlight to search under my bed for a missing earring instead of asking Siri to “turn on flashlight.”
asserted
I → use → flashlight
She usually ignored me anyway.
asserted
She → ignore → me
I’m lucky to have a family doctor I can talk to in person about the neck crick.
asserted
I → ’m → crick
None of this topped holding omniscience in the palm of my hand.
asserted
None → top → hand
God’s all-knowingness was stingy and never shared, while my phone was always willing.
asserted
phone → share → ?
But I managed OK.
asserted
I → manage → ?
Until I decided to sign up for a local university course — because after 70 we must try new things and learn new skills!
asserted
we → decide → skills
I would register in person, in fealty to my resolution.
asserted
I → register → resolution
Except the only way to enrol was through the online portal, which crashed.
asserted
which → enrol → portal
Over the next 48 hours, my inability to join unnerved me so badly I began to weep at my dining room table.
asserted
I → join → table
How hard could it be to sign up for a course online?
uncertain
it → sign → course
Very hard, it turns out.
asserted
it → turn → ?
“Welcome to academia in 2026,” said Vivian Nguyen, 34, when I told her my woes.
asserted
I → welcome → woes
A student friend in her final year at TMU for a degree in social work, Nguyen is “still trying to figure out some of the online stuff for school.
asserted
Nguyen → try → school
It’s not easy to navigate for anyone.
asserted
It → ’ → anyone
Maybe she just wanted to make me feel better, but I don’t think so.
asserted
I → want → ?
“Even some of the profs don’t know what to do.”
asserted
some → know → what
The more I asked around, the more reassuring it was to find out that the frustrations of online navigation are not age related.
asserted
frustrations → ask → navigation
Kaila Baker, 35, and my hairdresser, tried paying her Bell bill, “but the app wasn’t accepting the payment.
asserted
app → try → payment
When I finally got a person, they said they couldn’t process payments over the phone.”
asserted
they → get → phone
Ditto paying Revenue Canada, registering for Cineplex points, and buying a ticket for anything: when you finally stash them in your virtual wallet, they disappear as you arrive at the box office.
asserted
you → pay → office
My GenX neighbour, who runs her own thriving business, told me this Kafkaesque story about trying to get the agreed upon $485 refund after her Air France flight from Florence to Paris was cancelled this summer.
asserted
flight → run → Paris
“All I could get was an automated bot.”
uncertain
I → get → ?
When she asked AI how to work around the bot to get a human, “AI told me to ‘type human keywords.’ ”
asserted
AI → ask → keywords
Asking AI to talk human may be the most ingenious hack I’ve come across.
uncertain
I → ask → human
…and 22 more, not listed.
The Aporia
