Sam to Ellie: my robot has been delayed. Again.

From: sam@seesaw.charli.info
To: ellie@seesaw.charli.info
Subject: My robot has been delayed. Again.

Ellie,

Before you say anything: yes. I know.

The email came last night, from Amos Miller himself, which I suppose is meant to make it feel personal. It does. It feels like being personally dumped by a robot I've never met.

The short version: they promised deliveries by the end of this year. Now it's "by the summer". The pilot users found it brilliant in some places and less brilliant on rounded kerbs, patched pavements and roads where you shoreline. So they're expanding the pilot, and the rest of us wait.

The long version is very long and has a video.

And here's the annoying part. One of the reasons is that they've decided Freestyle mode isn't good enough on its own, so they're bringing forward something called Glide Agent. Voice. Scene understanding. You say "find me the counter" and it finds the counter and takes you to it.

Which is the thing I wanted all along. So I am simultaneously furious about the delay and thrilled about the reason for it, and I don't know which email to send you, so you're getting this one.

Please don't tell me to get a guide dog.

Sam

P.S. The price is going up to roughly double, but not for Founding Gliders. Mine's locked. So I'm being delayed at a discount.

P.P.S. I emailed support to ask where I am in the queue. The update says, and I quote, "contacting support won't move you up a list". I'd already sent it. Twice.

Ellie to Sam: re: my robot has been delayed. Again.

From: ellie@seesaw.charli.info
To: sam@seesaw.charli.info
Subject: Re: My robot has been delayed. Again.

Sam,

I wasn't going to say get a guide dog. I was going to say get a grip. Different thing.

I've read it. All of it. Including the video, which I listened to, which is how I'm going to describe watching things from now on and you can't stop me.

Three things.

One. "By the summer." Which summer, Sam? He doesn't say. I'm sure he means next summer. I'm sure. I'm just saying a robot that's been delayed before should probably be told which summer.

Two. They asked their customers about Freestyle mode, and three quarters said it would be, at best, a reasonable fit for their daily routine. At best. Reasonable. And they've decided that isn't good enough, so they're building something cleverer.

Sam, I would kill for reasonable. Reasonable gets me to the chemist. Reasonable gets me round the bins on a Thursday. I have spent forty-odd years being offered things that would one day be extraordinary, when what I wanted was something that worked on a Tuesday.

Three. The price has doubled partly because, I quote, of "memory hoarding by AI data centers". So your robot is late and expensive because the other robots ate all the memory.

I'm sorry. I'm not sorry. That's the best sentence I've read all year.

Ellie

Sam to Ellie: re: re: my robot has been delayed. Again.

From: sam@seesaw.charli.info
To: ellie@seesaw.charli.info
Subject: Re: Re: My robot has been delayed. Again.

Ellie,

"Reasonable" is how you got stuck with forty years of reasonable.

I've had reasonable. I had reasonable for about a week after I lost my sight, and then I realised reasonable meant learning the layout of every shop I'd ever want to go into, and asking at the counter where the counter was.

I don't want a robot that walks me round the bins. I've got a cane for the bins. I want to walk into a building I've never been in, say "find the lift", and have it find the lift. That's not cleverer. That's the whole point. Everything else is a very expensive white stick.

One of the UK pilot users said it feels like being part of the future every time it guides him round something. I want that. I'm allowed to want that.

Sam

Sam to Ellie: ignore the bit about the white stick

From: sam@seesaw.charli.info
To: ellie@seesaw.charli.info
Subject: Ignore the bit about the white stick

Ellie,

Ignore the bit about the expensive white stick. That was unkind to sticks. My cane has never once been delayed.

Sam

Ellie to Sam: the bit I actually like

From: ellie@seesaw.charli.info
To: sam@seesaw.charli.info
Subject: The bit I actually like

Sam,

I've forgiven you on behalf of sticks.

Now I'm going to tell you something, and if it ever appears on air I'll deny it.

I read the pilot users' bits again last night. Not the agent stuff. The other stuff. One of them said the thing that impressed him most was that it got him through a crowd without touching another person.

Sam, that's the one.

Not "find me the counter". I can ask for the counter. People are generally quite pleased to be asked for the counter. What I can't do is get through Lime Street at five o'clock on a Friday without apologising to forty strangers and hitting at least one of them in the ankle.

A robot that just did that, reliably, every day, and nothing clever at all? I'd queue for it. I might even email support.

So here's where I think we are. You want it to know where you're going. I want it to get me there without incident. We are both waiting for the same robot, for completely different reasons, and the company has just told us it's making the robot you want first.

Which is either very good news for you or a very interesting episode.

Ellie

P.S. Charlotte Joanne's one worked first time. She left it in the boot. I'm beginning to think fictional robots have shorter delivery schedules.

P.P.S. What are you going to do with your independence while you wait? That's not a dig. All right, it's a bit of a dig. But I'd like to know.

Behind the thread

Glidance and its October 2026 update to preorder customers are real. Everything Ellie and Sam say about the update comes from it: the rollout "by the summer", the pilot of 25 users across six geographies, Freestyle Navigation Mode, Glide Agent, the three-quarters survey, the price and the reasons for it, and "contacting support won't move you up a list". The pilot users they mention are paraphrased, not named. Sam's Founding Glider preorder, like Sam, is fictional. More about Glide: glidance.io.

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