Dear Carolynn

Author: Mark Bolton. Subbing: DeepSeek

Dear Carolynn

I’ve been reflecting lately on how time reshapes our world—and how we perceive it. When I was a child, I often heard older folks say to us, “Back in the olden days” or “What will they think of next?” It strikes me that these phrases seem to have faded, especially the latter, as I’ve written before, given how relentlessly new technology now emerges.

What I never considered as a child was that I’d one day become part of those “olden days.” Weirdly, as I reflect, the only impactful difference is they grew up without television. Mostly every other difference between my childhood years and those older was an improvement or an update on existing technology. And that brings me to a thought experiment I’ve been turning over in my mind. It centres on my maternal great-great-grandfather, Heinrich Ziebarth.

Heinrich was born in Prussia around 1857. We don’t know exactly when he arrived in England, but he married my great-great-grandmother, Charlotte Gale, in July 1889–less than a year after Jack the Ripper reigned his terror on London’s East End.

As a side note, Charlotte’s family lived in Dorset Street in London’s East End, almost opposite the residence of Mary Kelly—the final victim of Jack the Ripper. This famous 1904 photo of Dorset Street (described then as “the worst street in London”) shows the very building where my ancestors lived: at the end, on the right. This was a life of grinding poverty.

Heinrich died young in January 1897, just eight years after marrying. He left behind three surviving children and a widow in a world devoid of comforts. He never saw television, cinema, motor vehicles, or airplanes. He likely never experienced electricity or even electric light, a telephone, or running water. As a poorly paid cooper (barrel-maker), his life was arduous.

Recently, I’ve imagined Heinrich being brought back to life and introduced to a modern world. One question I pondered was: At what point would the future become too overwhelming for him to adapt? I concluded he could likely navigate the world up until the mid-to-late 1970s. Why? Because even major technologies of that era were operationally basic–at least here in Australia:

• A television or radio meant turning on/off and a dial to change channels.
• A telephone required only picking up to answer or using the rotary dialler to dial numbers.
• Newspapers remained familiar, bathrooms and kitchens were functionally simple.
  With support, time and patience, Henry could have mastered these challenges.

(Note: I’m setting aside immense cultural shifts—explaining world wars, The Beatles, a moon landing or civil rights movements would be another challenge entirely! This is purely about technological adaptability for personal daily use).

But beyond the 70s? The early 1980s introduced remote controls, microwave ovens with cryptic buttons, frozen foods and fast food, VCRs requiring programming, sprawling supermarkets, and early home computers. By the mid-90s, the internet and digital interfaces would have felt completely alien. Yet remarkably, I believe that around 70 years after his death, Heinrich still had a fighting chance to adapt.

This led me to a new thought experiment: In today’s world of exponential AI advancement, how long after death could someone return and still navigate modern life? If AI improves tenfold with each iteration, I suspect:

• Today (2025), someone gone since 2009 might just stand a chance.
• By 2027, that window could shrink to just 2 years, which would severely impact your chances, Carolynn, considering you died in 2017. Your return would be amazing for me and others who love you, but not so easy for you.
• By 2030, even a few months of absence might leave those coming back utterly adrift in a transformed world.

It’s a startling contrast—Heinrich, in my opinion had 70 years of grace; but we might soon measure our relevance in months. Progress has become less about manual labour and thinking, and more about keeping pace with how to up-skill and depend on artificial intelligence itself. Not only will AI be more difficult to navigate after even a short absence, AI is, and will continue to atrophy our brains if we rely on it to do everything for us–especially thinking and problem solving.

For the record, yes, I do use DeepSeek but as an assistant to sub my writing. However, I often change what DeepSeek suggests. Also, I still do maths long hand and not use a calculator. I still write using pen and paper–and I refuse to get a Smart Home because I’m cautious about being completely dependant on technology, in particular, AI–as well as raising my risk of becoming another future stat with dementia.

Am I an AI doomer? It’s not the first time I have written about it, nor the last, so I believe I am. Being born at the tail-end of the boomer generation, it kinda makes me a ‘Boomer AI Doomer‘ (BAD). A just acronym too because we boomers are understandably not well liked by younger generations. But I’m one of the good guys because I’m not a big fan of us either, I add with both seriousness and laughter.

Love you, Carolynn and I’ll write again soon xx