Alejandro Arce — home Thinking in Public
No. 43 · Future

The phone and the computer are going to disappear

Maybe nothing replaces them. An agent that orders the burrito, pays and books the table needs no screen. Maybe an earpiece you forget you’re wearing.

Line illustration: a phone dissolving from one corner into a flock of small birds flying away; one bird is the terracotta accent.

The internet stays. The devices are what disappear. Instead of apps and browsers, we'll have an agent that handles everything.

Right now, if I want a burrito, I open Uber Eats, search, pick a place, add sides, add my address, add my card, confirm. I do all the steps myself, every single time, because the app has no idea what I want until I tell it again. Soon, my agent will just know. It'll order the burrito. I'll just have coffee in my hand and a burrito on the way.

That's the whole shift. A device is something you operate. An agent is something that operates for you. In order for your computer to work, you have to use it. In order for your phone to work, you have to click on it. The future of AI is less like a better phone and more like another person — an automated assistant who does the clicking so you don't have to.

Now

Devices you drive

  • Open the app, search, add the address, add the card
  • Every task starts with you picking up something
  • The tool waits for input
You are the one clicking.
Next

Agents that drive themselves

  • The agent knows you want a burrito before you say it
  • It orders, it pays, it handles the six steps
  • The task starts before you notice it started
You are the one being served.

The shift — from tools you operate to a full-time assistant operating for you

It's essentially a full-time assistant, or a human in your house and on the internet, doing everything for you. And I think it splits into two robots.

On the internet
The internet robot
Orders the burrito, pays for it, books the table, schedules the appointment — all the clicking you used to do yourself.
→
In your house
The live robot
Meets the delivery, preps the coffee, cooks the food it ordered — the physical half of the same job.

One assistant, two bodies — one that acts on the internet, one that acts in the room

So what's the device that handles all this? Maybe there isn't one. Maybe it's an earpiece you forget you're wearing. Maybe it's nothing you carry at all, because the live robot in your kitchen and the agent running quietly on the internet already are the device — you just stopped needing a screen to talk to them through, because they've gotten to know you so well.

Sounds a bit scary. Let's hope for the best.

The phone was the thing you unlocked to ask for something. The next version is already doing it, before you even ask.

You'll just have the burrito.

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