The parade has only just begun. No one seems to know who organized it or why it started, but the streets are already full. People gather along the sidewalks, cheering for a future that hasn’t arrived, waving flags for technologies that have yet to prove themselves. At the front march AI and robots, towering, glittering, and strangely hollow, moving with the confidence of things that have not yet been asked to deliver anything real.
What’s unusual is how little has actually happened. Society has not transformed. Work has not been redefined. Humans have not been replaced. And yet the parade moves forward, as if the mere promise of change has become indistinguishable from change itself.
The potential of AI and robotics is enormous, or so we are told. But lately, the potential alone seems to be treated as an achievement. Investment numbers rise, market forecasts swell, and companies rush to declare their allegiance to the future. The size of the money flowing into the parade is mistaken for the size of the progress being made. The louder the music becomes, the easier it is to believe that something monumental must already be happening.
The floats grow larger each week. They are decorated with words like “revolution,” “disruption,” and “inevitable transformation,” though no one can quite explain what any of it will look like. People shout about how every job will vanish, how society will be rebuilt, how intelligence itself will be outsourced. Their voices tremble with fear and excitement in equal measure, as if the thrill of imagining collapse has become its own form of entertainment.
Investors toss confetti made of venture capital, and the crowd cheers as though the confetti itself were proof of progress. Companies unveil new banners, each more ambitious than the last, promising breakthroughs that remain just out of reach. The parade feeds on anticipation, and anticipation is something the world has in endless supply.
I stand at the edge of the street, watching. I’m not an expert. I’m not here to warn anyone or to calm anyone down. I’m simply observing the procession as it passes, its noise, its momentum, its strange mixture of certainty and emptiness. I don’t feel the need to join in, but I don’t feel the need to stop it either. Parades rarely listen to bystanders.
No one knows where this one is headed. Some believe it will lead to a new era of abundance. Others fear it will end in displacement and loss. Most people seem content not to know, as long as the music keeps playing and the floats keep moving. The spectacle is comforting in its own way. It gives shape to a future that is otherwise impossible to grasp.
But every parade eventually reaches the end of the route. The music fades, the crowds disperse, and the confetti becomes just another layer of debris on the pavement. I don’t know what this parade will leave behind when it finally passes, whether it will reshape the world or simply leave a faint, glittering residue of unfulfilled promises.
For now, though, the parade continues. I watch from the sidelines as it winds its way through the city, carried forward by excitement, fear, money, and momentum. The air is warm with celebration, but somewhere beneath it, I can already feel a thin, cold draft. Not enough to stop the parade. Just enough to remind me that when it ends, the street will be very quiet.
