My First Crush, Falling In Love

The Naive Past, Disruptive Present and Inevitable Future

I vividly remember the first time I fell in love — or so I thought. I was 12 years old, and no, it wasn’t with a sweet, kind boy. Who am I kidding? My first love wasn’t even human. It was… autocomplete.

Yes, autocomplete.

The Naive Past

It all began with my mom’s Nokia 6610i. She handed me the phone one day, frustrated with its predictive text feature.
“I keep typing, and it keeps suggesting. Maybe you can figure it out,” she said, thrusting the device into my hands.

As I started typing her message, the phone would suggest the next letter or word. To her, it was an annoyance. To me, it was magic. I was instantly hooked.

I spent hours typing nonsense just to see what it would suggest next. It felt like I was having a conversation with the phone — a quirky, clunky robot friend. I didn’t know how to make it “smarter,” but I figured the more I typed, the more it would learn. That little predictive text feature became my first crush.

Looking back, I realize I wasn’t talking to something smart. It was just spitting back my own words in a new order. But I didn’t care. I loved it. It sparked my imagination about smart robots and what they could become.

If only Nokia had capitalized on that early fascination with emerging technology. Where are they now, anyway?