The Hollow Center of AI: Technology vs. Human Experience

This article explores the unsettling feeling many have toward AI-generated content, arguing it stems not from malice but from a perceived "hollow center"—a lack of genuine intention and lived human experience. AI excels at mimicking human expression, but its inability to genuinely feel evokes anxieties about our uniqueness and meaning. Drawing on Heidegger and Arendt, the author posits technology as not merely tools, but world-shaping forces; AI's optimization logic flattens human experience. The response shouldn't be avoidance or antagonism, but a conscious safeguarding of the unquantifiable aspects of human experience: art, suffering, love, strangeness—preserving our unique place amidst technological advancement.