Why AI sent us back to the command line — On direct manipulation, visual intent, and the regression of AI tooling. “Seeing comes before words. The child looks and recognises before it can speak.” — John Berger, Ways of Seeing, 1972 [ 1 ] The most advanced artificial intelligence systems in history now ask us to communicate through a blinking cursor in an empty text box. We have, in the most literal sense, gone backwards. For the last forty years, the entire trajectory of interaction design has been a movement away from the command line and toward direct manipulation. We moved from typing instructions to pointing, clicking, dragging, and seeing the results immediately. We built interfaces that showed us what was possible rather than demanding we memorise a syntax. Then, with the touchscreen, we removed even the mouse, the most direct manipulation yet, a finger on glass, the interface collapsing to almost nothing between intention and action. Then AI arrived, and we threw it all away.…