The models showed up
Winter 2022 into 2023. Public models. I used them to turn work around. Not a royalty story.
ChatGPT went public at the end of November 2022. I am dating this mid January 2023 because that is when it stopped feeling like a toy and started feeling like a desk I could sit at. I will not pretend I remember the hour. If a later year feels more honest, I will correct the date. The season is the early 2020s. That part I will stand on.
I had already lived a drug life that should have ended me. I am not going to write a conversion speech. I will say this. I started using the models to think, to write, and to build software I could actually run. That help was real. It did not replace recovery, family, or a government floor. It did give me a way to work at a speed I did not have before.
I am grateful. I still am. Cursor is how I ship now. The till on the books, years later, is still one copy I bought myself. Those two facts can sit in the same life.
