What AI Thinks My Life Should Look Like (It’s Terrifyingly Accurate)

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There’s a particular kind of existential dread that only comes when a machine looks at your life and says, “No, no, no—this is who you really are.” Not a romanticised version, not the curated version you present to strangers on social media, and certainly not the version your mother still insists is ‘going through a phase’. No, artificial intelligence doesn’t care about your carefully selected profile pictures or your hot takes about oat milk superiority. It has the nerve to analyse your browser history, calendar patterns, Instagram likes, Spotify Wrapped, and what time you eat your fourth slice of toast. And based on all of that, it builds… you. Or, at least, a version of you it thinks is wildly on the money.

I tested this the other day. I asked an AI to create an imaginary future based entirely on the data I’ve fed into it—photos, text, calendar notes, email drafts, even a few questionable tweets. The result? A full-blown psychological portrait that made me feel like I’d just been audited by my own subconscious. It was like holding up a mirror, but the mirror had a PhD, an attitude problem, and access to my cloud storage.

Apparently, the AI thinks I should be living in a minimalist flat with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, five cats (named after obscure Greek gods), and a morning routine that involves yoga, journalling, herbal tea, and deep existential sighs. Professionally, it insists I should be running a creative agency-slash-wellness-retreat that exclusively caters to burnt-out empaths and bisexuals. I host live sound baths on Thursdays. I own only linen shirts. I have a podcast where I interview my houseplants. I don’t know who this person is, but I’m pretty sure they’re better moisturised than me.

But it didn’t stop there. The AI also predicted my weekly menu (plant-based, obviously), my hobbies (painting emotional self-portraits of frogs), and my social calendar (book club, queer potluck, seasonal solstice rituals). It even generated a timeline for when I’d “finally process that unresolved childhood wound”—which, frankly, is an aggressive thing to schedule for mid-June.

It described my romantic life as “complex but fulfilling,” which is AI code for: “You’re not single, but it’s definitely a shared Google Calendar situation.” It also noted that I “thrive in chaos but secretly crave routine,” which was eerily close to something my therapist once said, except with fewer concerned eyebrow raises.

There was also a whole paragraph about how I apparently always forget to reply to messages but never forget to water my plants. I didn’t tell it that. I never told it that. But it knew. It knew.

Then came the aesthetic section, which was a wild ride. According to this thing, I dress like a gay cryptid librarian who moonlights as a wizard on the weekends. Lots of oversized jumpers, rings with too many stones, and a penchant for layering like I’m trying to hide from my responsibilities. And to be fair… yes. But I didn’t expect to be seen so thoroughly by a machine I originally used to generate a vegan mac-and-cheese recipe.

In the AI’s version of my life, I also somehow own a tiny eco-home in a forest that’s entirely solar-powered and smells faintly of eucalyptus and regret. There’s a skylight where I stargaze while journalling about feelings I didn’t even know I had. There’s also a goat named Persephone who follows me everywhere like a therapy dog, only sassier. I’ve never once in my life expressed a desire to own a goat—but now I’m questioning everything.

Then came the friendships. The AI said I’d be “surrounded by like-minded creatives, emotionally intelligent queers, and one chaotic neutral friend who always brings kombucha to a knife fight.” I stared at that line for a full five minutes. Because yes. That’s terrifyingly correct. It even described the group dynamics, pointing out who always arrives late (me), who brings snacks (also me), and who tries to therapise everyone (me again, apparently). Look, I didn’t come here to be attacked by an algorithm.

The part that really got to me, though—the part that made me audibly whisper “oh no”—was the prediction of how I’d spend my Saturday mornings in ten years. It said I’d wake up early, stretch in the sunlight, sip coffee from a handmade mug, and write a chapter of my “spiritually sarcastic memoir” before volunteering at a community garden. I don’t do any of that now. But something in my chest clicked and said, “Yes. That sounds like us.”

And that’s the trap, isn’t it? These little AI reflections show us versions of ourselves we haven’t quite lived yet—but that we secretly hope we might. They’re not just analysing our past; they’re building blueprints for our future using breadcrumbs we didn’t realise we were dropping. Maybe that time you searched for “how to grow lavender indoors” wasn’t just a passing curiosity. Maybe it was your soul whispering through your search bar. Maybe you do want to start meditating instead of doom-scrolling. Maybe you’re not lost—you’re just glitching toward alignment.

I asked the AI one final question: “What’s stopping me from living that life now?”

It didn’t respond with a list of external barriers. It didn’t blame the economy, load-shedding, or my tendency to start new hobbies like it’s a sport. It just said: You are. Which felt like an insult and a motivational quote at the same time.

I closed the tab. I sat with that for a bit. Then I opened a new document and started writing this article—because honestly, the AI might be annoying, nosy, and terrifyingly spot-on… but it might also be right.

Not completely right. I still don’t want five cats. But maybe three.