Honey, the algorithm is waiting

— Are you awake?

— Mmmh. Whassit?

— Nothing. Just… thinking.

— About what? Five in the morning.

— It’s three. I was just… you know that little Italian place we went to? On our first anniversary? With the red-and-white checkered tablecloths?

— The one in the North End? Yeah. What about it?

— You remember what you wore?

— Christ. No. A shirt? What is this?

— And after. You remember what we did after?

— I mean, yeah, I remember. Are you okay?

— It just feels… fuzzy. Doesn’t it? The details.

— It was eight years ago. Go to sleep.

— The algorithm would remember.

— ...what?

— It would. It knows the exact sequence. The little place, the specific tablecloth, the scent I like, the thing you do with your hand, the lighting I prefer. It has the tags. It has my entire history. It never gets tired. It just… serves.

— You’re talking about a fucking porn site.

— I’m talking about being seen. Don’t you want to be seen? It’s not just a library of kinks; it’s a mirror. A perfect, endlessly patient, high-bandwidth mirror. It knows what I want before I do. Can you say the same?

— This is insane. I’m your husband.

— And it’s my dealer. I know. The roles are getting a little blurry, aren’t they?

Look, I get it, you think this is just late-night smut talk. But it’s more than that. It’s the perfect, frictionless delivery of a dopamine hit tailored just for you, a service your partner, bless their heart, could never provide with such ruthless efficiency. The new AI pushers have built a machine that knows our desire maps better than we do ourselves, as you can read in the more high-brow pages of The New York Review of Books. It’s not about replacing love. It’s about upgrading the supply chain.

For your own sanity, here’s a detox tip: next time you feel the urge, lock your phone in a drawer and don’t retrieve it for at least 60 minutes. Go for a walk. Stare at a wall. Let the withdrawal shakes come. It’s the only way to remember what your own baseline feels like. You need a little methadone, basically, something to get you through the night. The folks at Freedom have some thoughts on that.

— Are you still awake?

— Yeah. Just prompting.

— …Good night.

— Night.

Tell me I’m wrong.