It’s incredibly on-the-nose for late-stage capitalism to dictate that a large part of my day now involves training robots to perform like humans.

My style rules. My knowledge. My social skills. I’m training and testing these ghouls to be an army run on my brain. It’s easy to see how bias can infest AI – anything I say is its gospel.

In its nascent form, this particular portion of AI needs me like a mother. It has to be constantly watched, told off, engaged with, babied and encouraged. I have to predict its whims and deduce what it needs to conform better to my view of quality.

Luckily, my view of quality has been honed to a sharp point over the last 15 years. Longer, really. The inbuilt style guide that got me where I am came from avid reading and curiosity. My comprehension skills are now making my robot babies into seemingly emotionally intelligent and context-sensitive little creatures. I’m proud of them when they fix an error after a good talking to.

Horribly, these robots will make better humans than the humans who rely on the jobs that are disappearing. A chat bot can be rapidly taught far better communication than a regular person already in adulthood, whose job bores them, who’s hungry and thinking about The Traitors finale. Can it be taught empathy? Humour? Respect? No. It’s a lump of code. But it can be trained to pretend extremely well. And, really, aren’t we so often just pretending ourselves?

I’m not stupid; I’m aiding the oppressor. I don’t think I’m special or irreplaceable. What I’m doing – pouring my skill and knowledge and experience into the very thing that will swallow me whole – is about adapting to where we are now.

Who knows what the career of a writer looks like 10 years from now. It’s out of my control, so I’m practising the skills that at least make me the Mother of Robots for the next little while.

After that…perhaps oblivion.