The meteoric rise of artificial intelligence (AI) in our lives raises a crucial question: in seeking to improve our interactions, aren’t we in danger of losing authenticity and human connection? Behind the promise of ever greater automation, AI could well become a trap that locks us into a sanitized existence, where emotion, spontaneity and humanity gradually fade away.
The illusion of efficiency: producing more, but for what?
Let me give you a personal example. In my previous job, I was a web project manager in an events agency. With my marketing team, we were facing an SEO problem: our website needed an active blog, with content published regularly to improve our visibility.
However, we lacked the in-house resources to produce quality articles at a sustained pace.
As I was learning code on the side, I saw an opportunity to work on a concrete project: developing an application capable of generating articles with the help of AI. The idea was simple: the user supplied keywords and/or a topic, and the application wrote an article ready for publication.
When I presented a first version of this tool to my team, they were enthusiastic. The prospect of being able to automate content production seemed like an ideal solution.
Unfortunately, shortly afterwards, the company had to close its doors for economic reasons. As a result, my application could never be used by those for whom it was intended in the first place.
But as I thought about it, a question came to mind: tools like the one I’d developed already exist on the market, and on the face of it, they serve their purpose perfectly. They allow you to produce SEO-optimized content quickly.
But if this content is generated without human intervention, without history, without experience… does it still have any real value? The initial objective seemed noble: save time, produce more. But if no one connects emotionally with the texts generated, then these articles engage no one and lose their meanings, even from an SEO point of view.
By seeking to optimize content production, AI could actually empty the Internet of its substance, making it cold and mechanical.
The disappearance of emotion and human history
A text written by a human being carries with it an intention, an emotion, a sensitivity that resonates with readers’ experiences. It’s not just a series of well-arranged words, but a reflection of a personality, an experience, a vision of the world.
AI, on the other hand, simply shuffles and structures data according to statistical models. It produces fluid texts, optimized to please the algorithms and meet a specific demand, but they remain hollow. What’s missing is that extra soul, that flaw, that nuance that makes a human text moving, thought-provoking and memorable.
If we start favoring this generic, formatted, flavorless content, we run the risk of massive cultural impoverishment. To read a text is normally to enter an author’s universe, to feel something. If everything we consume becomes content pre-digested by machines, then what’s the point? By striving to produce faster and more efficiently, we end up producing nothing authentic.
Artificial relationships and digital loneliness
An even more disturbing phenomenon is emerging: that of Girlfriend/Boyfriend AIs, artificial intelligences designed to simulate romantic and emotional relationships. In a world where loneliness is a growing problem, the idea may seem seductive: an AI that’s always there, that doesn’t judge, that “understands” and fills an emotional void.
But that’s an illusion. A human relationship is an unpredictable alchemy, made up of genuine emotions, unexpected moments, misunderstandings and spontaneous gestures. It’s a dance between two individualities, with their imperfections, contradictions and evolutions. An AI simply imitates these interactions, following scripts. It feels nothing. It lives nothing.
The problem is, we’re already living in a world where human interaction is filtered through technology: social networks, short-form videos, dating apps… So many systems designed to serve up instant content, without depth, and which condition us to want immediate, effortless results. We no longer court, we swipe. We no longer debate, we comment.
These relational AIs follow this logic: they offer the illusion of a link, without the substance. It doesn’t matter if the conversation is predictable or hollow, as long as the user gets his dose of dopamine. And therein lies the business model: replacing human complexity with artificial interactions, calibrated to keep the user hooked.
To take refuge in relational AI is to give up learning about human relationships, and the richness of real contact. Instead of helping us to interact better with others, these tools lock us further into isolation, creating an illusion of connection that leads nowhere. A golden prison where we feel accompanied… but where we remain terribly alone.
Above all, we sacrifice our freedom to love and be loved. We abandon our ability to reach out to others authentically, in favor of an artificial solution, sold by companies that monetize our emotions in exchange for our money, our personal data, our attention and our time.
The standardization of creativity: art without artists?
With the rise of image-generating AIs like MidJourney or DALL-E, a fundamental question arises: what happens to art when creation is automated?
These tools can generate often impressive visuals in a matter of seconds. But behind these images, there is no artistic approach, no intention, no personal message. A work of art is the result of an individual’s vision, interpretation and feelings. It carries within it the story and soul of its creator.
By letting AI take control of creation, we are witnessing a standardization of visual content. Technically perfect works, but devoid of identity. An algorithm doesn’t doubt, doesn’t provoke, doesn’t explore new ideas. It applies models, recycles what already exists, optimizes a rendering.
AIs are incapable of creativity
Unlike an artist, who draws on his or her imagination, experience and emotions to create something unique, an AI simply recombines pre-existing elements. It doesn’t “understand” what it produces; it simply reassembles fragments of images from databases, often compiled without the artists’ consent.
This lack of genuine creativity poses several problems:
- No real innovation: AI can only create from what already exists. It doesn’t produce anything really new.
- Plundering artists’ work: AI databases are often fed without the creators’ consent, raising serious ethical questions.
- Human dependency: An AI-generated illustration looks clean at first glance, but a trained eye quickly spots inconsistencies. Anatomical defects, poorly rendered textures or visual artifacts require the intervention of an artist to correct.
An inordinate ecological and economic cost
Beyond the creative aspects, these technologies also pose an ecological and financial problem. Training and operating AIs consumes a massive amount of energy, making them particularly costly and polluting.
What’s more, for an AI to remain relevant, it needs to be constantly fed with new images, which means :
- A constant need for new databases → and therefore the risk of continuing to steal artists’ work.
- Ongoing optimization to improve rendering quality, which requires ever greater energy and financial resources.
Today, we’re faced with a paradox: AIs can mass-produce images, but they don’t know how to innovate, create or evolve on their own.
Art, the last bastion of humanity?
Art has always reflected the human soul. If we entrust it to machines, what’s left of our ability to imagine, to feel, to express our uniqueness?
The question goes beyond illustration. Are we prepared to sacrifice the very essence of creativity on the altar of speed and profitability?
Far from being a simple tool, AI is becoming a symbol of the commodification of talent and the gradual erosion of the role of the artist. It’s up to us to reject this standardization and defend art that is authentic, imperfect, but profoundly human.
Towards a disconnected, alienated society?
By delegating more and more aspects of our lives to AI – be it our interactions, our creativity or even our thoughts – we run the risk of locking ourselves into a sanitized world, where authenticity no longer has a place.
AI is a powerful tool, but it must not become a substitute for the human being. If we let algorithms write for us, think for us, interact for us, then what are we left with? Are we still thinking, creative beings, or just passive consumers of mass-generated content?
True freedom is the freedom to feel, to create, to truly exchange with others. The richness of the human experience lies not in formatted answers, but in sincere exchanges, doubts and raw emotions.
So it’s essential to set limits and question our relationship with these technologies. Do we want a hyper-efficient but meaningless world, or a society where humans retain control over their expression and connections? The answer is in our hands.
AI is an interesting tool, and it’s not all doom and gloom. But we need to learn to use it intelligently: not to rely on it to produce a message ready to be broadcast, but rather to use it to enhance what we want to express without sacrificing authenticity.
If you want to create illustrations, AI can save you time. But this only works if you’ve already mastered the discipline, allowing you to retain control over the result. This principle applies to all creative fields that make use of AI: writing, coding, music, and so on.
Relational AI poses another problem. In the long term, they won’t be able to deliver on their promises, because they will never reproduce an authentic human connection. However sophisticated they may be, they will never replace the emotional richness and spontaneity of a genuine exchange. Users may even develop behavioral disorders as a result of using these services, inevitably leading them to detach themselves from these illusions and return to real, sincere interactions.
Of course, all this remains my personal point of view. I don’t have any definitive answers about the future of these technologies, and I don’t pretend to provide solutions to the problems they raise. My intention here is simply to invite reflection, to encourage everyone to question their own use of AI and the consequences it could have in the long term.