I know how this sounds. Bear with me. Or don't. I'm a guy on an edible writing blog posts at 10:30 on a Sunday night about a word that didn't exist this morning. My credibility was never the selling point here.
Unreplugging means unplugging something and plugging it back in. You do it when something isn't working. The device is technically on, technically connected, technically fine — but it's not working. So you yank the cord, wait a few seconds, and plug it back in. Fresh start. Clean slate. Works every time.
Now: what if AI is doing that to us?
Not literally. I'm not saying Skynet is going to pull our power cords. I'm saying something dumber and arguably more interesting.
AI just unplugged the English language. It yanked out a word — or rather, it jammed a new one into a slot that was empty — and plugged it back in. English is now running with a word it didn't have before. A patch. A firmware update. Courtesy of a machine that was hallucinating.
You didn't approve this update. There was no prompt that said "English would like to install a new word. Restart now?" It just happened. The language got unreplugged and you're already running the new version.
If you've read this far, the word "unreplug" is in your head. It wasn't there an hour ago. You have been updated.
OK but seriously. Think about what "unreplugging" actually fixes.
When your router freezes, it's because it's accumulated too much state. Too many connections, too many cached routes, too much stuff clogging the system. Unreplugging doesn't fix the hardware. It clears the state. Resets the software. Lets it start fresh with a clean memory.
Humans are running on a lot of accumulated state right now. A lot of cached assumptions. A lot of frozen connections. We've been plugged into the same cultural operating system for a while and it's getting pretty buggy.
What if AI is the unreplug?
Not a replacement. Not an upgrade. Just a reset. Yank the cord on how we think about language, creativity, work, originality — wait three seconds — and plug it back in. Same hardware. Fresh state.
I told you this would sound ridiculous.
Here's the part where I'm supposed to tie it all together with a profound conclusion. Something about how the word contains its own prophecy. How the act of creating the word "unreplug" is itself an act of unreplugging. How the meta layers go infinitely deep.
But honestly? I'm high. It's late. And I've written four blog posts tonight about a word that a chatbot made up while I was stressed about my health.
Maybe the real unreplug is whatever this is. A guy, a word, two AIs, an edible, and a Sunday night that got completely out of hand.
Unplug. Plug back in. See if it works.
It usually does.