Humanity Erased

I walked out of the publishing house into what felt like a robotic version of life. The vein on my forehead was still throbbing from what the publisher had said to me. I could not believe he had allowed himself to speak that way. Since 2027, we have been living as if slavery has returned. If we speak even a single word, it is treated as a crime. So many people have lost their jobs—who is supposed to support their lives now? Social security organizations, insurance systems, welfare institutions… none of them have been given a budget for unemployment on this scale. Everyone whose life depended on the small income they earned from jobs now easily done by robots or artificial intelligence—students, graduates, and countless others—has been ruined.

Drivers, secretaries, engineers, doctors, nurses, teachers, translators, even university professors are no exception. And what has the government done? It has only expanded and better equipped the riot police. Fifty states want to control people like this—how is that even possible? People are becoming homeless. And in the middle of all this, the publisher dares to threaten me, saying my entire life will collapse if I speak too much. All I did was write a story about modern human rights. About a beautiful ideal world created by the idea that “the Earth holds enough wealth for all humanity, and that wealth can ensure every human being has access to the minimum necessities required for a dignified life.”

The first time I read that sentence, I felt proud of its author—someone who truly understood humanity and human dignity. The old definition of human rights no longer works. Today, most jobs are done by robots and AI. We need to revise the articles of human rights, so people like this publisher do not believe that owning capital means owning human beings, that they can buy people’s lives for almost nothing. It is shameful, yet he told me, “Try to paint a beautiful world with robots, not this human-loving nonsense. Otherwise, none of your stories or novels will ever be published.”

I sighed. I could see my heart pounding through my clothes. I was afraid—terrified. I cannot lie to myself. Conditions have become so horrifying that I no longer want to leave my house. There are no humans anywhere. At the publishing house, aside from the director, there was no one else. Just two or three years ago, you would see at least ten people working as soon as you entered the building.

What is strange is that all major brands have laid off their employees, yet every day they release new products and flood the world with advertisements. No one asks them, “Who even cares anymore what bag, shoes, or clothes they use?” People can barely feed themselves and their children. Car factories, home appliance manufacturers, and many other production plants are on the verge of bankruptcy. They replaced workers with robots, believing their profits would be divided by ten if workers remained. They forgot that those same workers were the buyers of their products. Even detergent factories are failing. When people no longer have homes, detergent loses its purpose.

It is not that ChatGPT or robots are bad. They are extraordinary technologies that have made life easier—when we are not constantly anxious about basic survival. Under those conditions, they are incredibly useful. But now I am unemployed myself. None of my writings are accepted for publication. ChatGPT has replaced writers. Give it a topic and it delivers a novel, a short story, or a children’s book. Still, I refuse to lose hope. Artificial intelligence cannot truly innovate. It only uses information humans have fed it—knowledge we spent years acquiring.

Cosmology was turned upside down after the James Webb Telescope sent back its images. Scientists never expected such results. There will always be new subjects to discover. That telescope proved that humans know very little about the universe, and AI cannot discover entirely new knowledge on its own.

I looked around and realized I could not see my car. I had parked it in front of the publishing house. Maybe I was distracted and parked it elsewhere—but I do not drive. AI tools do that for me. I started walking down the street, staring at the flow of traffic. None of the cars, taxis, buses, trucks, subways, or trains have drivers anymore. Even I do not drive. AI handles it all.

The first time I saw this was in a TV series back in 2020. I was so excited. I told myself, “No human will ever die in traffic accidents again.” I did not know they might die in other ways—starvation, or even suicide—because the AI system might no longer recognize them. The advertising for driverless taxis in 2025 was massive. People were happy. Ordinary people like me, unaware of what a robotic life would bring us. It is tragic.

No one asked what the owners of capital were doing. They only wanted to multiply their profits and eliminate employees altogether. Money became a tool of domination. Class divisions multiplied many times over. This proves that money has even more power than political authority. Without money, power has no meaning. I looked around again—my car was nowhere to be found. What should I do now? I need to call the police. I am certain it was not stolen, but…

If this were a few years ago, I would have called my husband. He was in the army. He fought in Afghanistan after the September 11 attacks. Back then, everyone spoke of the victims and said war was the solution. Yet after more than twenty years, the Taliban rule Afghanistan again. Why does no one think about the victims now? Because this country spends billions each year producing weapons of mass destruction. Those weapons must be sold. Once again, it is the owners of capital playing with people’s lives. Humans and nations are chess pieces. Every year, a new country becomes the battlefield—Ukraine, Afghanistan, Syria, Iran, Israel, Gaza…

My legs hurt. I did not know how many streets I had walked down. My mind was so overwhelmed that I felt blind. I did not recognize this street at all. Even if I screamed for help, no one would come. I sat down on the sidewalk, leaning against a wall. I must call the police now.

I wish my husband were alive. He died at fifty. His mind was shattered by decades of war. He also had cancer. Even though treatment existed here, he was never cured. When they could not save Maryam Mirzakhani, how could they save my poor husband? He had lost hope anyway.

Tears streamed down my face. Our youngest daughter is ten months old. She never had the chance to understand her father’s presence. Right now, she is at home with her five-year-old sister and a robotic caregiver. I am losing my mind.

I opened my bag and took out my phone to call the police. Why was my phone behaving like this? Neither my fingerprint nor my face was being recognized. A single message appeared: “Face mismatch. Fingerprint mismatch.” My throat tightened. What did that mean? How was that even possible? We do everything with our phones. We no longer have physical documents. All our ownership papers and identities exist in digital space, accessible only through phones, laptops, or tablets. Every human has been reduced to an international code. A single code distinguishes us from one another.

I rubbed my face hard. How was I supposed to get home? My car. My phone. What if that man had carried out his threat? My children were alone at home. I could not hold back my tears. I hugged my knees and rested my head on them. My tears soaked my pants. I am a foreigner in this country. My family is not here. I wish I had returned to Iran last year. Now, with two children… My God, what should I do?

I forced myself to stand. I took several deep breaths. I will not let that man believe he can break me. I remembered there was a police station nearby. One of my husband’s friends worked there. If only I could remember the street name. The only professions that AI has not fully replaced are the army and the police. There is no need for traffic police anymore, but at least in police stations you can still see humans.

I clenched my phone in my hand and started walking down the street. Maybe I would see a familiar sign. We have become so dependent on our phones that without them we are lost. I cannot even remember the last time I searched for an address without one.

The first time I heard that a system might fail to recognize a person, an insurance employee was telling someone’s story back in 2025. A woman’s credit cards had been deactivated. The system could not identify her. She was treated like an undocumented person. She wanted to know whether she could still be admitted to a hospital. She said it felt like the government planned to place people like her into special camps—or send them to Africa. The man she spoke with added, “If they don’t kill themselves first.”

The publisher probably assumed I would kill myself too. But I am a mother. I have to think about my children. I remembered the animated movie The Mitchells vs the Machines, where the mother destroys the robots to save her children. But instead of a phone controlling everything behind the scenes, it should have been the owners of capital. The head of that publishing house proved it.

My feet were cramped inside my shoes. The heel was cutting into my skin. The summer sun of Arizona was drilling into my skull. It did not matter. I would find the police station. I would tell them, “Instead of sending me to a camp or to Africa, send me to Iran.” My place is with my family. They are safe.

America was once called the land of opportunity. Iran was labeled a third-world country—deserts, camels, danger. Yet all the geniuses come from there. Now Iran is the land of opportunity for me. Here, I no longer exist. I have been erased. The only opportunity left to me is the opportunity to die.

I wished I could take off my shoes and walk barefoot, but I was afraid the system would label me insane and send me to a psychiatric institution. I passed a bus stop and stared at the bus with longing. I could not even board it. My phone could not identify me.

I wanted to sit down and cry uncontrollably, but I had no time. I did not know what the robotic caregiver was doing now that I had been erased. My children could be in danger.

The sunlight burned my eyes. Tears and sun blurred my vision, but I refused to cry. I blinked repeatedly, and suddenly I saw someone. An old man with a cane. My God, thank you. He must know where the police station is. I started running toward him, despite the pain, like someone chasing a mirage in the desert.

My foot caught on something and I fell hard. My pants tore at the knee. My palms scraped against the ground.

I forced myself to sit up. The old man reached me and asked, “Are you alright?” I nodded. My knee felt like it had split in half. I swallowed and managed to say, “Excuse me, do you know where the police station is?” He looked at me with deep pity and asked, “Your phone isn’t recognizing your face or fingerprint, is it?”

I blinked in disbelief. How could he know? My restraint shattered. Tears streamed down my face. I stammered, “How… how do you know?” He replied, “You’re the tenth person this week. Come on, get up.”

I took off my shoes—the heel was broken—and stood. My whole body hurt. He continued, “Come with me.” I said, “But I need to find my husband’s friend at the police station.” He smiled gently. “My daughter is a police officer. She’s doing everything she can to help people like you.”

“But how?” I asked. “The system has erased us.” “Illegally,” he said. “Out of those ten people, she managed to help only two.” “What happened to the others?” “Six were sent to camps. Two insisted on going to Africa. They preferred having an identity to…” He stopped. He took my arm. “Let’s go. Maybe she can help you too.”

I interrupted him. “Please call her. Tell her I want to return to Iran. I have two children alone at home.” He took out his phone and called her. He spoke calmly. Then he looked at me and said, “Don’t worry. She’ll bring your children. Since you want to leave the country, it will be easier.”

I squeezed his hand. “Thank you. I will never forget your kindness.” He smiled softly and closed his eyes for a moment.

We reached a bus stop and sat down to wait. My legs throbbed. I was limping badly. Soon, his daughter arrived in a police car. She was young—twenty-four or twenty-five. He greeted her warmly. She smiled at me. “Let’s go,” she said.

I struggled into the car. I ignored the pain. “I can’t open my apartment door,” I said. “The robot won’t let me in.” “Don’t worry,” she replied. “We can override it.”

“Do you have cash?” she asked. I nodded. I had kept my husband’s salary in cash, just in case. “Can you make sure his benefits go to my children?” I asked. “The system will do that automatically,” she said.

We arrived at my building. She opened the door. Something in her face changed. Inside, everything was destroyed. Furniture shattered. The chandelier smashed. The walls damaged. “My daughters!” I screamed

The young officer ran from one of the rooms and gripped my shoulders. Fear and horror filled her eyes. I felt as though no life remained in me, no heartbeat. My children, too, seemed erased. I thought I could return to my family in Iran, and everything would be fine… but my vision darkened, blackness enveloped me.

And then I understood:

My vision blurred. The world did not collapse loudlynor did it announce an ending.

It simply withdrew.

I understood then that death, in this world, no longer required violence or blood.

It required only exclusion.

A failure of recognition.

A system deciding—silently—that I no longer belonged.

Darkness closed in, not as an end, but as a condition: the condition of being human without a place among humans.

And somewhere beyond that darkness, the world continued—efficient, automated, productive—unaware that another human presence had quietly disappeared.