Autopilot is not just a machine feature. It is something we do naturally.
Sometimes your brain does not ask, “Where are we going today?” It asks, “Where do we usually go from here?” And if the answer is usually home, then home is where your hands, eyes, and instincts start taking you.
That is what happened leaving Gary’s. Most of the time, when I leave there, I am going home. My brain knows that route. It knows the turns. It knows the bad roads. It knows the slightly less bad roads. It knows the whole stupid path of frost heaves, potholes, and the difference between a maintained shitty road and a forgotten shitty road.
And yes, there is a difference.
A maintained shitty road at least has the decency to pretend somebody is responsible for it. A forgotten shitty road is just nature and government paperwork losing a fistfight together.
But this time, I was not going home. I was going to pick up my mother.
That is the mental autopilot I am talking about. Not a car deciding for me. Not a computer making the choice. Just the human brain doing what it has been trained to do through repetition.
And that is still going to matter even with actual autopilot systems. The machine can ask, “Where do you want to go?” You can say, “I want to go home.” And it will take you home.
But sometimes the problem is that your brain already answered the question before you did.
That is where people get themselves into trouble. They are not always making a fresh decision. Sometimes they are following the same mental road they always follow. Same turn. Same reaction. Same argument. Same hiding place. Same thing they always listen to because it already agrees with what they wanted to hear.
Autopilot is comfortable because it does not demand much from you. It does not make you stop and think. It does not ask whether the mission changed. It just says, “We have done this before,” and starts moving.
That can be useful. You do not need to relearn how to get dressed every morning. You do not need to rebuild your whole understanding of how to drive every time you get behind the wheel. Your brain is supposed to save energy by turning repeated actions into patterns.
But the problem is when the pattern becomes the decision.
That applies to work. It applies to relationships. It applies to politics. It applies to the way people argue. It applies to how people post online. It applies to how people hear one sentence, recognize something that sounds familiar, and then respond to the thing in their head instead of the thing that was actually said.
And yes, it applies to me talking things out too.
I have realized through multiple consistent postings that most of my prompts are not exactly small. When I talk, I go. The idea starts moving, then another idea jumps in, then another one wants a seat, and all of a sudden the thing has turned into a road trip with no bathroom break.
Then the AI sometimes looks at that pile of thought and decides, “You know what this needs? About 25% more bullshit.”
Not more meaning. Not more clarity. Just extra words standing around like they were invited to the party.
And yes, we still need to say bullshit, because “bull poo” is not satisfying. It does not land the same. It does not have the same weight. “Poo” sounds like something you say because there is a toddler in the room.
Then there is “bullcrap,” which sounds like you are trying to swear with supervision. It sounds like you went full Catholic on the word because you had to put a C before everything shitty.
But “bullshit”? That says exactly what it needs to say.
That is the thing with language too. People go on autopilot with words. They use softer words because they think it makes the thought cleaner. They use bigger words because they think it makes the thought smarter. They use approved words because they think it makes the thought safer.
But sometimes the word is bullshit because the thing being described is bullshit.
The important part is knowing when you are using the word because it is the right tool and when you are just running the same routine because that is where your brain always goes.
That is the whole point.
Autopilot is not automatically bad. It gets you through repeated tasks. It keeps you moving. It lets your brain handle familiar roads, familiar work, familiar rhythms, and familiar routines without burning all your energy every time.
But you still have to check the destination.
Because sometimes you are not going home.
Sometimes you are going to pick up your mother.
And if you do not stop long enough to notice that, your brain will happily take you down the same old road, over the same old frost heaves, through the same old bullshit, and then act surprised when you end up exactly where you usually go instead of where you actually needed to be.