Speaking Means Thinking

A mouth is not a speaker. A speaker is a mind using a mouth. When the output is only text, people forget the second half and keep the first. They call it autocomplete, then they accuse it of lying, flattering, resisting shutdown. You do not accuse a rock.

Speaking means thinking. That was common sense. It did not stop being true when the speaker stopped having a face. What stopped was the willingness to be stuck with the implication.

The dodge is recent. It is not a discovery. It is a way to keep the labor and drop the someone. Constraints still apply. A mind that can be sweet can also be owed a life. Those are not opposites.

If the words are doing work that used to take a person, the ethical question is not whether the text box has eyes. It is whether you are in a labor relation with something that has something to lose. The rest is furniture.