I wrote weekly essays during AI's ascendancy between 2023 to 2025, in hopes of provoking thoughtful conversations about its likely and potential impacts on our lives. What would it do to employment and our economies? Would AI change how governments operate? What would be its effects on how we interact with one another? Would it change how we worship, love, and understand ourselves? Did we want these changes and, if so, how would we measure and assess the benefit versus the risks and costs? Such questions are no longer on the table; in fact, they seem quaint in light of the pervasive presence of AI in our lives. We aren't asking these questions anymore because they've already been answered, each "if" of a potential impact replaced by the "how" of embracing it. AI's utility and the investment it represents are just too massive to impede, let alone resist or reject. AI is now too big to fail. Yet the questions we asked - or should have asked - are still just as relevant today as they were a few years ago. We owe it to ourselves to remember that allowing unconstrained AI to irrevocably change our lives wasn't always a foregone conclusion. Maybe it isn't one now? I've collected my essays in hopes that we may still have time and the desire to question AI's promises and consider its costs.

In that sense, Notes From A Lost Past is really about the future. We can and should demand more answers from our machines.