Technology Can Never Replace the Felt Human Experience
This weekend I drove my elderly neighbor to the charming historic train station so she could coordinate a cross-country trip to California to visit her family next year (she can no longer fly due to medical reasons).
It was a lovely outing and opportunity to have lunch together. I asked her why she didn’t book it over the phone, and after I saw her complicated multi-day itinerary, I understood that the logistics were simply smoother to navigate in person.
I watched my neighbor and the ticket person converse and exchange laughs for 15 minutes, and not only was it fun for me to people watch and admire the forgotten architecture, she got to experience and very much enjoy genuine human connection during the interaction.
Years ago when I moved to Panama to live on a remote island an hour from the mainland, I meticulously researched online directions to get there from Costa Rica (which included flights, busses, and exactly one friendly bribe when I missed the main boat). I walked around the capital for hours searching for the bus, dragging my wheeled luggage through urban dog poo, sewage puddles, and pot holed streets, until I plopped down on the curb, stranded and defeated.
A taxi driver rolled down his window and asked me in Spanish if I needed help, and I told him what bus I was looking for. He smirked and informed me that that bus line had shut down, and shuttled me for free, skillfully through back alley twists and turns to the right bus station. When the internet failed me, all I needed to do was ask a local where to go.
(And, I ended up meeting the most motley crew of international strangers–an Argentinian, a Californian, and a Finn, on the half day, cross-border voyage, who offered to share their hostel that first night, and later invited me to the wildest off grid jungle camping trip of a lifetime, where I met my next lover.)
All this got me thinking about how I prefer personal, imperfect human recommendations to a mainstream ChatGPT response. Like, asking my real-life friends to weigh in on something instead of defaulting to a Google search. A wisdom versus knowledge sort of advantage. I do use chat for strategic planning in my business. But I don't rely on it–and I won't get into ethical and environmental implications.
(Okay, I will briefly address the ethical and environmental implications, because how can I not? Data centers require an immense amount of water and fossil fuels to power, making a detrimental environmental impact and putting strain on local communities and ecosystems. Also, super sketchy data mining, privacy and security breaches when sharing our innermost thoughts with Big Tech–who, by the way, are in this for profit. Not to mention, simulated reality is not reality. While it can polish words and refine ideas, it can never replace art, emotion, or original thought.)
Here's the thing that AI and data can't do for us: deliver a felt experience. For example, when I was researching professional cameras a few years ago, I must have spent 10 hours looking at technical specifications and purchased my Sony photo/video camera for its advanced qualifications.
I watched a dozen YouTube videos where all these bros in tight jeans were neatly laying out features (which makes me think of how marketing and business are all about felt experience, not the product you're actually selling–and why people hire me as a coach).
On paper and logically, it was a great camera. But how it felt in my hands when I held it? I fucking hated it–yuck. For reasons I can't explain. It was a feeling and a human preference. As a photographer who's used dozens of cameras in my lifetime–I just didn't vibe with it.
And that’s something you can’t quantify or reduce to data. Life isn’t a formula–it’s more like art than fact. There’s a vast mystery woven into existence that logic alone can’t explain. Intuition lives where reason ends. And while there’s nuance in everything, one thing stays true for me: real, human, lived, felt experience will always be my compass.
Humanity is the core of my coaching philosophy (as well as my personal values and worldview). In an information era where technology attempts to mimic real intimacy, the internet will never take the place of your friends, your neighbors, or being outside, feeling grass under your bare feet, soaking in the sunshine.
Sure, you can use AI to generate strategy for your business. But it will never replicate the psychic depth of our brains, the complexity of our individuality, the unrecorded stories that live inside us, the illogical passionate nature of love, the unexpected chaos of an non linear path, or the electricity that lights up our souls. It can’t offer you the instincts, heart-guided transformation, or the offline moments that have shaped the deep wisdom, intuitive guidance, and inner healing I bring to each client session.
As someone who runs an online business, who is profoundly grateful for the global connection the internet opens up for us, technology will always lack one essential aspect: energy. Energy is the felt experience all around us–transmissions, frequency, resonance. Real time attunement to a room. The unspoken presence between two people. The unexplainable but highest dependable truth that lives in our wombs, the earth, and our gut. The unseen spiritual forces, alignment and knowing of our living, breathing bodies because we’re human.
Day 2: Being a Human on the Internet
#100daysofbeinghuman