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“Secretaries will have OLIVERS.”

Or, an “on-line interactive vicarious expediter and responder.” Total backronym, but also the name of my first cat, so I like it.

Licklider and Bob Taylor, The Computer as a Communication Device, 1968:

A very important part of each man’s interaction with his on-line community will be mediated by his OLIVER. […] [An OLIVER is] a complex of computer programs and data that resides within the network and acts on behalf of its principal, taking care of many minor matters that do not require his personal attention and buffering him from the demanding world. “You are describing a secretary,” you will say. But no! Secretaries will have OLIVERS.

So it’s a thing that sits between you (the principal) and the tedious minutiae of the world. All the stuff that demands your attention, that you need buffering from. And that’s before the internet, or email, or any of it.

A cartoon. An insurance salesman in a cap, holding a sample case marked INSURANCE, stands at a desk. On the desk sits a computer terminal with a face and a nameplate reading OLIVER, saying "HE'S OUT." Behind a partition on the right, a man hides at his own desk.
“Your computer will know who is prestigious in your eyes and buffer you from a demanding world.” Cartoon by Roland B. Wilson.

And that “on-line community” is way more congested now, except I’m more often talking to agents than real people. They have zero respect for my time or attention, and they force-feed me slop.

And that’s just other people. My Oura ring tells me to go to bed. My phone reminds me my flight is today when I’m already taxiing. My Gmail notifications are effectively useless. Nobody sent me any of these. I chose them, they work, and holy hell do they take it out of me.

I’ve wanted one for a while:

My attention is scarce. I get so many [expletive] emails, even more now. Like, just to keep up with my RSS feed and newsletters, impossible. It requires like a six-hour plane ride to even put a dent into it. So instead, what do I do? I ask Claude, “Read my emails, look at all the newsletter posts, and just give me a digest, and I'll pick what looks interesting to me.”

Me, on a call,

I just wanna be like that smiling guy in the cartoon, protected by my OLIVER.

https://postnobills.dev/2026/08/oliver-and-the-demanding-world/