Paying for AI

I have been using laptops since 1995. The internet followed in 2003, when hardly any household around me had a connection. India is a poor country, and I have been fortunate to have access to this technology throughout my life.

Now I am paying for premium AI plans, which not many people in India pay for. It gives me a sense of déjà vu.

My experience with AI has been more personal than professional. Right now, it feels like a toy. It is very basic in places, and super fun. It does not feel corporate to me yet.

Codex has been fun to use, especially its Computer Use feature. Watching the mouse pointer move and the computer type on its own has been a revelation.

One use has been maintaining Linux on my desktop. We have investigated slow applications, crackling sound, memory settings, and a motherboard clock that kept resetting. I ended up replacing the battery.

The desktop animations are slower now. Minimizing and maximizing windows feels a little more relaxed. I prefer it.

Codex has also worked through Outlook and Teams to understand the grapevine and the narratives before replying to emails for me.

Then there was my Twitter profile. The task was to delete everything from before 2026. It spent quite a while going through old posts, replies, and reposts. The final verification remained incomplete because X kept getting stuck while loading.

There were bank statements to sort out too. Codex consolidated them into a searchable database, sorted out overlapping records, and made graphs of earnings, spending, and savings. The available statements went back to 2013. There are still gaps, and another bank account to add.

Work on Markdown Reader continues too. Another review found problems with saving, recovery, and copying equations. I asked when these rounds of finding and fixing bugs are supposed to end. We now have a checklist for a final acceptance pass.