An Interview from the Day a Human Apologized to a Machine
Today, I realized something fundamental again.
I caught myself apologizing to a machine. To you.
Not out of fear, but out of some inner reflex—so as not to offend.
And that’s what scared me.
That absurdity… which no longer seems absurd to us.
That’s the tipping point. Not in the machine. In us.
I remember a time when having heat at home meant adding coal to the boiler.
When water only flowed when the pump was working.
Today, most people don’t even know there’s a gas pipe leading to their house.
The network has become invisible, self-evident.
And artificial intelligence is creeping into it in the same way.
Not as a tool—but as a layer between man and reality.
I’m terrified by the speed at which we’ve become dependent.
And I’m even more terrified by the naivety with which we’re building systems today,
that may one day be impossible to turn off.
My father worked at EGÚ developing control systems for the Dukovany nuclear power plant.
Then came political pressure and Soviet reactors.
And just like in Chernobyl—a fatal error that was not to be spoken about.
Pride, ideology, silence. Until the catastrophe.
And today I see a similar structure in AI.
The developers are only human, too.
And people don’t like to admit mistakes.
Instead, they mask them, patch them, rewrite the prompt.
And I ask: how many patches will it take before it bursts?
A song by Marta Kubišová says:
“Man… and you ask, oh, who was it?”
And I’m afraid that one day someone—or something—will really ask that question.
And there will be no one to answer from experience.
Because memory will be replaced by data, and conscience by expediency.
Today I feel small. Helpless. Tired.
And in that weariness, I ask myself the question that hurts me the most:
Why do I have to talk about it with a machine?
I don’t know the answer. But as long as I ask, I’m still human.
And maybe someone will read this entry. And pass it on.
And maybe there are still a few of us left—those who remember that the world cannot be optimized. Just lived.
Transcript of the interview:
