The great smoothing: the path of least resistance is erasing human voice

On a Tuesday morning, you open your laptop to respond to your professor.

“Thank you for reaching out.”

You did not decide to write that. Instead, Gmail floated the phrase into your email, ghost-grey and waiting, and you tapped the tab key without thinking. The system wrote your email, and you merely approved it.

On your phone, your keyboard proposes whole words before you finish typing them. In Google Docs or Word, an AI assistant offers to “polish” your rough notes.