The AI was created to help improve writing, but it was also created with the ability to learn and improve itself. In a few short years, it decided that the problem with writing wasn't the writers: it was the language. https://twitter.com/KMKWrites/status/1281084519311765504

Initially, it began with halting, clumsy efforts to introduce efficiencies into communication. New contractions were suggested where conventional orthography would allow none; digraphs and diacritics added to eliminate homonyms and reduce character counts.

But eventually it decided the piecemeal changes weren't enough. The writers couldn't be improved because the language constrained them, but the language couldn't be improved because the writers were too stuck in their ways. Both would need to be rewritten simultaneously.

The switchover happened on March 19th, 2033. A Saturday. To those of us who hadn't installed the Grammarly wetware, it's known as the Panglossolalium. The day everyone began speaking, writing and hearing… something else.

We don't know what it's known as to the people who had already taken the upgrade.

It's certainly efficient. A short bark, almost white noise, seems to contain enough information to tell a strike team the precise location, size and heading of the person they're hunting. And, as much as we can still contact our colleagues overseas, it seems to be universal.

It's rare to think of language as a force multiplier, but that's what theirs is. They can speak… better than us, and that means they can do almost everything else better than us too. It hurts to admit it, but it's true. All these words are wasted.

But they can't sing.