That Time When The Machine Ate My Life

Or how I ended up without a home for 18 months...

Still from Metropolis (1927), Wikimedia Commons

Last month, I moved into a new home, a peaceful cabin in rural Suffolk. This new home is a gift, a miracle, a fluke, an answered prayer. It is a lantern at the end of a long dark path, one where I had no permanent place to live for over 18 months.

A rustic retreat feels like an apt place for a survivor of the Robot Wars Against Mankind to end up. At least, that’s the Hollywood way of describing what happened to me — the truth is a lot less thrilling.

But I’m here now at least, surrounded by fields of plump ripe peas, rutted lanes and storybook cottages. Outside my window, candy-striped bindweed flowers blow in the breeze, and beyond, two horses graze in an overgrown pasture. Sometimes, the little white horse leans against the taller black one, sheltering her head in the crook of his neck. I am touched by her quiet sense of security and trust. For her, the world is just the same as it always was. For many of us, it’s becoming unrecognisable.

I moved to this new place after I got a call from a kindly, semi-retired couple whose home I’d stayed in when I was their pet-sitter. They offered me a cabin on their farm estate for cheap rent if I would take care of their two dogs whenever they went on holiday. I didn’t have to think about it — after 18 months of being constantly on the move with no end in sight, I was more than ready to stop.

That time I got trapped on a dark carousel

Wali Abbas, Unsplash

Up until the end of May, I travelled around the UK as a pet-sitter with no permanent base, while also working as a freelance writer. This was because I could no longer afford to rent anywhere, meaning that I found myself on a seemingly never-ending carousel of moving from place to place.

As many of my house-sitting gigs were unpaid (fairly typical), they weren’t a regular source of income. Instead, the deal was that I cared for people’s pets while they were on holiday, staying in their homes rent-free. And as these homes were often pretty darn nice, I’m not claiming I was hard done by. Plus I love animals and befriend them easily.

But what started as a stopgap intended for a few months — a way of having a roof over my head until I stabilised my income — gradually, imperceptibly, became an ongoing way of life. That’s because my freelance writing income never actually stabilised, it just got worse and more erratic.

Meaning that one day, I realised I was no longer a “digital nomad” or whatever we’re calling it, I was an unhoused person. And it had happened without me even noticing.

I couldn’t see a way out as there seemed to be no help available for someone in my position. No official number to call, no door to knock on, no magic-flying-government-fund that would get me on my feet again.

The professional-turned-neo-precariat doesn’t officially exist as a class of person yet, at least not as far as the media or powers that be are concerned. Yet I know that I’m not the only one.

So what happened, exactly?

That time AI swallowed my career

Lucas Andreatt, Unsplash

All I can say is that the dominos toppled with brutal efficiency. The storm was perfectly formed. I slipped through the cracks like rainwater. The Machine chewed me up and spit me out.

Before the pandemic, I was a freelance writer living in a big city. I earned a regular income writing restaurant reviews, food blog posts, hotel promotions and the like. I thought I was pretty secure — it wasn’t as if all the hotels and restaurants would suddenly close!

Then, in March 2020, all the hotels and restaurants suddenly closed. I watched my income count down to zero at rapid speed, then blink out. From then on, I entered into a tunnelled reality where my focus was mainly on survival.

So why didn’t it all get “back to normal” for me after the lockdowns? That’s what we were promised, right? Stick it out for a while then slide back into your old life. Naively, I believed it.

But then came the post-pandemic economic slump. And the launch of Chat GPT. And an over-saturation of writers flogging their services at rock-bottom rates. All three delivered a swift and efficient kick in the ribs to my writing career.

One of my main clients went out of business, while another cut back on freelancers. I still got dribbles of work but there was no post-pandemic after-party for my bank account. I ended up moving to Mexico for a while to cut down on costs.

In the meantime, real writing jobs quickly vanished, replaced by offers of AI editing gigs at half the previous rate (basically, tweaking articles written by Chat GPT to make them sound more human). At first, I took a principled stand — no way would I be an AI editor. I’d fight the androids, I’d smash the robots on their beeping heads! Then I ran out of money and took any work I could. And when I returned to the UK, I found I’d been priced out of the rental market.

It took me a while to realise that the storm I was living through wasn’t temporary and wasn’t even a storm at all. It was a slow-motion tsunami, a creeping annihilation of the “laptop class” who stood watching, frozen and hypnotised, as it crept towards them.

And it’s coming for all of us.

The copywriters, journalists and editors.

The illustrators, graphic designers and web designers.

The accountants, administrators and coders.

The marketers, customer service agents and eventually (some say), even the lawyers.

And it’s coming for the counsellors, therapists and coaches too. But how can that be? After all, they picked an AI-proof career: human-centered, personal, intuitive. Who on earth is going to use Chat GPT as a therapist or coach? The answer: a lot of people, as it’s already happening. And the numbers will likely grow rapidly because AI is only going to get smarter, more insightful, and more human-like with every passing month. It’s coming for all of us.

That time I kept saying goodbye

Despite my new home, which I’m immensely grateful for, things still aren’t okay. I live from week to week, always one financial emergency away from disaster. Before the pandemic, I wanted to save to buy my own place — five years later, I’m no further forward.

Plus when you spend over a year and a half constantly on the move, constantly saying goodbye to places and pets, constantly being uprooted, it thins you out as a person. You lose sight of who you are, become a spectre and spectator hanging out on the edges of your own life. I was living out of a suitcase and in limbo, desperately trying to hold onto my dignity, sanity, and sense of self.

Yet my time on the carousel wasn’t all dark. At times it spun in shades of red and gold, and I flung my head back and enjoyed the ride.

Which is to say that I enjoyed being a pet-sitter. I loved spending my mornings rambling down leafy country lanes with Labradors, collies or chihuahuas. I loved travelling the length and breadth of Britain, from the remote Scottish Highlands to the long white beaches of Broadstairs. I have a deeper relationship with my country now.

Yet it’s also an odd situation, being an unhoused person living in luxury homes with original art, designer coffee machines, and even tennis courts. Fun? Yes. Jarring and confusing? That too.

For instance, due to being broke, my diet over these past 18 months has largely been crackers and noodles. Meaning that I often found myself sitting in some sprawling kitchen with an Aga cooker, collection of gourmet oils, and samurai-sharp knives while dipping Jacob’s Cream Crackers into instant ramen.

Plus each month, a chunk of my income got eaten up by hotel stays in the gaps between pet-sits, as well as cross-country train journeys (yet hotels and travel still cost me considerably less than rent and bills would have). Because of this, I could never put aside enough money to get my own place. I was both trapped and adrift.

That time the world jammed its fingers in its ears

It might have felt easier if our culture had acknowledged what was happening to people like me, yet I’ve noticed something odd. Those Who Have Escaped The Wave So Far can sometimes cast a judgemental eye on those engulfed by it.

In Mexico, I met an American woman with a successful travel blog. While we sipped iced teas in a cafe in Oaxaca, she proclaimed in her slow Southern drawl that any writer losing work to AI “must not be very good at their job”. I’ve heard her sentiments echoed in some way or another by others: it’s not The Machine, it’s you.

Meaning maybe I wasn’t strong enough, determined enough, ambitious enough. Meaning maybe I didn’t have the right attitude, didn’t mine the manure pile deeply enough for the diamonds of opportunity. It must have been my fault, right? It must have been because I just wasn’t enough.

Because what happened to me couldn’t possibly happen to them.

And maybe that’s true. But while I have a particular talent for self-blame, it’s clear that this time around, my problems are much bigger than me. They are global, systemic and unprecedented.

Which is why I’m alarmed by people’s passivity, their bland surrender to impending economic disaster, their trance-like parroting of technologically determinist maxims. We act as if the AI revolution is a bullet train that we’re trapped on — or rather, a bullet train that’s about to crash into our homes, yet none of us are willing to throw a spanner in the tracks to stop it.

We act as if we are powerless against the AI Machine, that we must obey its whims and its will. But of course, it’s really just the whims and will of the billionaire class, who hide goblin-like inside the machine, turning the levers.

Yet if we really aren’t able — or willing — to prevent the annihilation of entire careers and industries, shouldn’t we at least put a plan in place for those affected? If I can end up broke, unhoused and living on noodles after a 15-year writing career, then so can many others.

The truth is, the shattering is coming for everyone, it just hit me early and hard. Consider me the finch in the pit.

And so for now, I shelter in a rural hideaway and try to assemble a new life. I hope it will be enough to protect me from whatever’s next, but who can say?

Did you like this post? Buying me a coffee would help a lot right now.

You might also like Why I Never Ask People About Their Day Jobs.

I’m running a one-day online writing retreat on the 12th of July. It’s a chance to join with other writers and regain your focus, so why not come along?