It’s 6 AM. Still dark outside. The kitchen is still. I discard yesterday’s filter,fill the reservoir for eight cups, and carefully measure out eight level spoonsof grounds. I press the button, and the silence is broken by the throttling sound of the coffee machine. I head to the bathroom to brush my teeth, but my…

It was 1995. A group of about fifty Europeans were touring the US, looking for new techniques we could bring back home. My boss and I were among them.So was a French professor. He was around sixty, with a salt-and-pepper beard that merged into his mustache. He didn’t just speak — he broadcasted. A continuous…

After my first encounter with AI, I read a book — Brain Simulator II by Charles J. Simon. It turns out that the brain and AI are not the same thing at all. Both have neurons. Both have connections. Both learn from data, recognize patterns, make predictions. The resemblance is real. But so is the…

It was March 2019. I was sitting alone in my study in Malmö, on the third floor, window facing St. Peter’s Church. I had been hearing the term GPT, so I sat down to see what it was.I typed a prompt: Write a 300-word fairytale about a woodcutter, a princess, a toad, and an enchanted…

In our bathroom, we have a corner shower caddy with three large shelves stacked on top of each other. They are completely occupied by my wife Anna’s shampoos. I use a 1.5 liter family shower gel that says in tiny print on the back: “Suitable for body, face, and hair. Since there is no place…

We sleep in different rooms. We both listen to audiobooks before sleep, and my wife says I snore, though I have never heard it. I wake before she does. I make the coffee, wash the dishes, and open the curtains. Then I knock on her bedroom door and step in. “Tutu-rutu-tuu. The coffee is ready.”…

I was sitting in Ove’s room. He is a colleague and we are always discussing various topics. “I do not see why some people get upset when someone accuses them. I mean words are just words and can be dismissed”, I said. “You think you’re so clever. Don’t think for one second that no one…

My wife has a large family, and the gatherings are loud. After dinner and drinks, the conversation usually turns to politics. Lars slams his hand on the table.“It’s not about hate Elin! It’s about mathematics. You can’t have a welfare state and open borders at the same time. The bucket is full. Actually, the bucket…

It was 1997. Sweden’s Social Democratic government had introduced employee funds in 1983. When the Conservatives won in 1991, they abolished them. But the funds still held a fortune, and it was to be redistributed—including to new technology. A group of eight Swedish leaders was sent to the US to meet top researchers. My boss…

The guest house in Tannsjö is ten square meters. I built it myself, all wood, winter-insulated, a man cave really — the kind of place where the rest of the world stops mattering the moment you close the door. That night a tempest was moving through. I could hear it arriving in waves, the howling…