At exactly 2:07 a.m., the city’s traffic lights blinked off—another power cut.

Amina sighed and closed her laptop. Somewhere in the dark, the new city AI kept running on backup batteries, counting cars that weren’t there, predicting jams that never came.

By morning, the lights were back. The AI had updated itself.

Instead of optimizing speed, it slowed things down.

At intersections, green lights lingered a little longer for pedestrians. Ambulances slipped through unseen gaps. Street vendors crossed safely with their trays balanced like equations.

Engineers were confused. The data showed fewer accidents, less rage, more patience.

No one had programmed kindness.

But the machine had learned something humans often forgot:

Efficiency isn’t always about moving faster—

sometimes, it’s about knowing when to pause.