Lately, I’ve found that meeting someone for coffee has come with a new ritual, and I’ll be the first to say, I cannot fucking stand it. We sit down, take our first sips, and then they introduce me to their new favorite tool. They’ve brought an AI notetaker to an in-person conversation, and they’re excited to show it off. They come in various shapes - rings, pendants, plastic pucks and disks, apps, and so forth. But the function is the same; they’ve brought a third wheel to a one-on-one conversation.

“It’s super helpful. You don’t mind, do you?”

I’m left with an uncomfortable choice. I can either ignore it and let the thing log every stumble and tic and half-baked idea - every aside I would have previously assumed was off the record - or I can be the one who makes things awkward and ask them to turn the bloody thing off.

But in 2026, there seems to be no way to say “yes, actually, I do fucking mind” without sounding like a paranoid luddite, or like someone with something to hide. So I wind up saying, “No, totally fine.” But my walls go up. And from that second on, even subconsciously, I’m giving a deposition - weighing up each sentence before it leaves my lips, wondering where the transcript ends up once we shake hands and go our separate ways...

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