From "snail mail" to "snail brain"

More than twenty years ago, an English expression struck me: snail mail.

The idea behind it is fascinating.

Before the internet, mail was simply... mail.

Then email became the dominant mode of communication.

From that point on, the connection to traditional mail became less and less natural. Email had become the norm.

And it was, in the end, the old world that needed a new name: snail mail.

The new one no longer needed explaining.

An expression that keeps coming back to me

For the past few months, this expression has kept coming back to me.

Not when I think about mail.

When I think about artificial intelligence.

I notice a shift in the way I work.

Not long ago, I would have spontaneously said:

"Let me think about it."

Today, I catch myself saying:

"Let me run it by my agent."

Not because my agent thinks for me.

But because it has become a natural step in my thinking process.

I submit an idea, an architecture, a hypothesis, a problem. It challenges my reasoning, proposes alternatives, surfaces blind spots.

Then I take back control.

The decision stays mine.

But the language has already started to shift.

What if our reference point changed?

Today, we still explain AI by comparing it to the human brain.

The brain remains our reference.

But what happens if these AIs that generate content and act on our behalf also become an everyday given?

If working with an agent becomes as natural as sending an email?

I wonder whether we won't eventually go through the same linguistic shift.

The human brain would obviously remain what it is.

But it might no longer be the implicit reference point.

A thought experiment

That's where a term came to me naturally:

snail brain.

As far as I know, this isn't an established expression. I use it here as a neologism — a simple thought experiment inspired by snail mail.

Not to call the human brain "slow."

Even less to suggest that an AI would be a brain.

But to illustrate an idea.

When the norm changes, it isn't always the novelty that gets a qualifier.

Sometimes it's what used to be the norm.

Maybe snail brain will never actually be used.

That isn't really the point.

What interests me is noticing that the way I speak has already started to change.

And that shift is probably more telling than the word itself.