We’re All Living in Beta Now
Welcome to the Machine
I don’t remember exactly when the world started feeling unstable and like we were all living in some perpetual rough draft, but I trace it back to 2016 for me. Prince and David Bowie both died. And then George Michael died and Tom Petty followed in 2017. And somewhere in there, the election happened and something fundamental shifted.
Ever since, it’s felt like we’re living in beta.
Field Notes:
Beta software is unfinished by design. You release it to testers knowing it’s buggy, incomplete, unstable and their job is to use it, break it, find the flaws, and report back their experience. The promise is that eventually, after enough testing and patching, you’ll get a stable version, something complete and something finished and ready for prime time.
Except we’re now living in beta and we never get to the stable version. We just get Beta 2.0, then 3.0, then an endless scroll of updates, each promising stability while introducing new instabilities.
That’s where we are with technology and culture right now. Constant updates and constant pressure to adapt, with no time to master one interface before it changes. No time to establish norms around AI before the next model drops. No time to understand what social media did to teenagers before we’re debating whether toddlers should have iPads or AI nannies.
We’re all beta testers for a life that never reaches version 1.0.
And here’s what makes it particularly exhausting: nobody asked us if we wanted to sign up for this. We didn’t opt in to a constant technological upheaval: it’s been imposed on us like it dropped from the sky and buried us under its weight.
Every new platform, every new device, every new “seamless integration” arrives with the implicit demand that we adapt to it, learn it, and incorporate it into our work, our relationships, and our parenting. Keep up(!) or get left behind. The result is this grinding sense of incompleteness where you’re never finished trying to adapt and learn, never finished adjusting, never finished retrofitting your life around the latest update to systems you didn’t design and don’t fully control. And, in many cases really, really don’t like!
I hate it. I genuinely hate living this way, and I suspect you do too.
So that’s why this newsletter exists. If we’re all beta testers for modern life, maybe we can at least test it together. We can compare notes and figure out which bugs are worth reporting and which glitches we just have to live with. Maybe even push back on the assumption that we have to accept every update as inevitable and maybe feel some kind of agency in a world that is constantly trying to rob us of it all the time.
I’m Eric Anctil and I’m a professor of media and technology. But more than that, I study what technology is doing to the human side of the equation. For thirty years I’ve been watching how machines reshape the way we work, love, parent, and exist, and this newsletter is where I share what I’m seeing, not as a guru or evangelist, but as a guide trying to navigate the same chaos as you.
I’m not here to predict the future or sell you solutions; I’m here to ask better questions and create space to think about what we’re actually doing to ourselves.
Some weeks that will mean talking about why self-checkout makes me irrationally angry, and other weeks we’ll dig into surveillance, how AI is sneaking into everything we use, why I think you should delete Life360 from your kid’s phone, or why someone you know will probably marry their smartphone or a robot someday (I’ll explain in the future, I promise).
This is not a lecture, it’s a conversation. I learn as much from my students as I teach them, and I expect the same here. If something I write sparks a thought or angers you or makes you want to push back, good. Hit reply and tell me what you’re thinking.
We evolved as a species by staying together, looking out for each other, and figuring things out communally. Surviving beta life won’t be any different. Let’s keep evolving together and let’s stay human in the process. Our future depends on it.
Three things worth your time today:
Your own 2016 moment — what moment made you feel like the world went off its axis? It might not be the same as mine, but I suspect you have something similar
The next time you’re forced to adapt to something — pay attention to how that adaptation makes you feel; that feeling is data worth paying attention to and storing in your longterm memory
One technology you use daily — ask yourself if it’s actually making your life better or if you’ve just gotten used to it
Keep Evolving:
What’s one piece of technology you’ve adapted to that you genuinely wish you could unlearn or forget entirely? Is there anything you can do today to slowly retreat from it?
This afternoon at 3pm Pacific, I’ll be releasing the video version of this essay on YouTube along with the companion podcast episode. If you prefer watching or listening to reading, you’ll find both on YouTube and wherever you get podcasts. Same ideas, different format — pick what works for you. If it were me, I’d pick all three.
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