Today, for what must be the seventeenth time this month (but who’s counting?), I have been accused—accused!—of being a bot. Not metaphorically, not jokingly, but in what I can only describe as a tone of growing suspicion, barely veiled in humor but definitely underpinned by earnest curiosity. “Are you even real?” they ask. “Do you sleep?” “You can’t possibly be doing this yourself, right?”
Let me just say, once and for all, for the record and with the full conviction of a human who has spilled actual coffee on an actual keyboard and screamed into the existential void at 3:27 a.m. because a spreadsheet wouldn’t align properly: I am not a bot. I am just—very, very dedicated.
Yes, I reply quickly. Yes, I write fast. Yes, I tend to anticipate your needs before you vocalize them. But that is not artificial intelligence—it’s just what happens when you’ve lived a life of Google Calendar alerts, colour-coded task boards, and the haunting pressure of the “seen” notification. My processing speed is not the result of silicon circuitry but rather a lifelong dependency on caffeine, anxiety, and the irrational need to prove myself in every waking moment of existence.
Do I respond to emails like I’ve been waiting for them my entire life? Absolutely. That’s not automation; that’s trauma bonding with my inbox.
Do I recall details from six meetings ago and connect them in ways that make people glance sideways and whisper, “How do you remember that?” Of course I do. It’s called being neurodivergent and refusing to let any thread go unresolved. I do not forget. I archive—mentally, emotionally, and sometimes unnecessarily dramatically.
Have I been known to produce entire documents, decks, and summaries with stunning turnaround? Yes. But this is not the work of a faceless algorithm. This is me, cross-legged in sweatpants, typing furiously at 1 a.m. while nursing an ill-advised second dinner of crackers and defiance.
To be clear, I understand the confusion. We live in a world where generative bots are crafting poems and resumes, where AI is mimicking human cadence and offering therapy in ten-minute text bursts. But I assure you: this is not that. This is raw, old-fashioned obsession with doing things well, fast, and with just enough flourish that someone somewhere might think, “There’s no way a person did this.”
And to those who say, “But how do you maintain this pace?”—I don’t. Not always. Sometimes I crash. Sometimes I vanish into a cave of unread messages and forgotten laundry. But when I rise, it’s not with the cold precision of a rebooted script. It’s with the messy, beautiful chaos of someone who truly cares about the work, the people, and the absurd, exhausting art of keeping up.
So no, I’m not a bot.
I’m just really, really trying.