The internet is one of humanity’s great achievements, if not the greatest. It has connected people in a way that brought us closer to each other. It taught us the beauty of different cultures. It changed the way we communicate and stay in touch. It helped create an entirely new type of entrepreneur. It made the location where we work agnostic.
It’s truly incredible to think about what the world was like before we had computers in our pockets. As we continue to evolve this connected experience, there’s a whole new frontier quickly overtaking the horizon.
AI is here, and it’s fucking good. In just a few short years, the way we think and generate content has been assisted through the lens of AI. This snowballing of technology is powerful. But there are some existential concerns happening alongside it.
Over the last 40 years, the internet has documented and collected more information about history, commerce, entertainment, photos and videos, psychology, and so much more.
AI is a powerful system that takes advantage of both advanced processing abilities and sophisticated algorithms. It can associate, compound, and execute ideas faster than what’s humanly possible.
This is an exciting future to think about, how we work and how we solve problems. AI is evolving so fast, and it’s getting better. It’s already at the point where it’s becoming impossible to know what a human created with or without AI. As AI increasingly trains on content created by other AI, it begins feeding itself. This recursive loop risks amplifying errors, reinforcing false narratives, and slowly skewing our shared sense of reality further from the truth.
This means the content you consume could be incorrect. It could easily be confused with reality. The digital world we live in could begin to disassociate from reality. The technology we created to better connect us could create such a fog of truth that we return to the offline world to reconnect. So much so that a return to the physical world could see a rebirth.
It’s going to be exhausting trying to decipher what’s real anymore. The more we return to the physical world, the more we’ll be connected again.
- Live plays will help us appreciate the raw, true talent humans have.
- Concerts will evoke emotion and energy that connect us through shared feelings.
- Live sports will continue to give us something to cheer for together, along with an appreciation of what humans are physically capable of.
- Board games and card games will give us casual, competitive fun in our own homes.
- How we work will require a certain amount of in-person interaction.
- Comedy shows and storytelling nights will remind us of timing, presence, and shared laughter.
- Lectures, debates, and live discussions will bring nuance and depth that’s hard to replicate digitally.
- Art galleries and museums will let us experience scale, texture, and intention in ways screens can’t reproduce.
- Workshops and classes (cooking, woodworking, dance, fitness) will reinforce learning through doing, not consuming.
- Community events and festivals will foster belonging through proximity and shared experience.
- Spas and wellness retreats will offer a return to the body, creating grounding experiences that can’t be replicated or simulated digitally.
- Face-to-face mentorship and apprenticeship will deepen trust, intuition, and tacit knowledge transfer.
- Family meals and celebrations will remain anchors for connection, memory, and tradition.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m optimistic about how we’ll coexist with technology, but I don’t want us to lose what makes us human along the way. We will learn and mature in how we use this technology, and part of that maturity is learning what belongs online and what needs to be human to human. We will find a new renaissance by rekindling our connection to humanity.