Nope. Nope. Nope. I said Nope to all five scenarios outlined in Peter H. Diamandis' 12th August 2026 article "Auto-magical living". I was so worked up by the time I was reading the third scenario that I was saying "Nope!" out loud. When I read "The Give and The Get" section, where I would be required to give my data, conversations, biology, location, preferences, I was so agitated that, ironically, I was wishing that I had a robot chef who could prepare something tasty immediately to calm me down, and that the room I was in could automatically adjust according to my mood!
Then I remembered the RECONCILIATION framework. I remembered that Optimism appears twice, once before "No" and again before "Non-negotiables". I took a deep breath, slowly let it out, then re-read the article with my Optimism lenses on, in an attempt to see how those five scenarios could be beneficial to Afrogoth.
Scenario 4 stood out: "The surprise-and-delight shopper". Diamandis writes: "This is the scenario that makes people uncomfortable and excited at the same time. Your AI is spending your money on your behalf based on conversations it overheard." He then lists some actions that seem to pass the 'Respect' and 'No' test: permission given, monthly budget set, categories defined, parameters approved.
Meanwhile, in San Francisco: "The firing came after the experimental store officially opened in San Francisco on April 1. Andon Labs, which tests the limits of AI agents, gave Luna a $100,000 budget, internet access, and a corporate credit card, along with instructions to open a store and turn a profit." This is from Katherine Li's article posted on 15th August 2026, titled "The AI boss at a San Francisco store just fired its first human".
The experimental boutique was built earlier in the year. As Lloyd Lee wrote in the 12th April 2026 article "An AI built a boutique with $100,000, then panicked when no one showed up to work": "...Lukas Petersson and Axel Backlund...gave an AI agent named Luna a corporate credit card, internet access, and a mission to open a physical store...a $100,000 limit to create and stock the space and to turn a profit. Everything from the store's interior design to the merchandise and the two human employees came together under the AI's direction...legal matters like permits and stuff, she sometimes struggled with..."
The following sentence made me uncomfortable: "Andon Labs said it saw a few promising applicants, such as computer science students interested in the startup's experiment, but Luna declined them because they didn't have retail experience" but I relaxed when I read the startup's assuring statement: "No one's livelihood depends on an AI's judgment alone."
Scenario 5 from Auto-magical Living would also be helpful: "The meeting whisperer". Afrogoth will include meetings, events and conferences. Afrogothers will be global citizens, people from all over the world, from different backgrounds, with different personalities, different communication styles, speaking different languages, both introverts (like me) and extroverts. The meeting whisperer may be handy in breaking the ice and establishing initial connection. Diamandis gives an example, where the AI "reminds you that you met briefly at a conference in 2024 and they asked about space mining. It suggest you open with that." The post-meeting assistance will also be helpful: drafting of the follow-up email, summary of key points and flagging of action items.
One sentence from Auto-magical Living is front and centre on my mind: "The privacy conversation is real and it matters."
