Made Human

Holding On: What It Means to Stay Human in a Digital World

In a world ruled by algorithms, what’s left of our humanity? Maybe it still lives in the spaces between us, in every touch, every story, every moment a machine could never feel.

Where is our humanity?

Where is our humanity?
A question exposed in our most recent hero video, Made Human.

That question has been echoing in my mind ever since I heard it. Where is our humanity? It’s simple, but also terrifyingly deep. It makes me wonder where we’re heading as a species, and if we even realize how much of ourselves we might be losing along the way.

I’ll be honest: I’m scared. Deeply scared. The rise of Artificial Intelligence feels like watching a tidal wave form in slow motion, impressive, and undeniably useful… but also capable of washing away everything that makes us us. Yes, AI can help us, inspire us, even save us time, but it can also take us somewhere dark, cold, and painfully hollow. I worry about what happens to our creativity, our empathy, our imagination, our ability to sit in silence and stillness and make meaning out of it. I worry about the loss of our messy, imperfect magic, the kind that can’t be coded. And I worry, because it’s already happening.

In Made Human, we say that our humanity is not within us, but between us. And I think that’s beautifully, achingly true.

For me, humanity lives in the warmth of my husband’s skin when our hands meet. It lives in the soft fur of my guinea pigs as I hold them close. It lives in the rain tapping against my window while I curl up with a heavy blanket and a good book. It’s in the quiet thrill of walking through a bookstore, surrounded by thousands of stories written by other human beings who have felt joy, loss, and everything in between.

I feel human when I cry uncontrollably.
When I sip my favorite drink.
When I smell pasta cooking.
When I can replicate one of my mom’s recipes.
When I discover a new favorite restaurant with my husband.
When I watch a Studio Ghibli film and feel that inexplicable, tearful beauty that only a human could have imagined.

More behind the scenes of {THE AND} productions

These are the moments that make me human. And they all require something -or someone- outside of myself. Humanity doesn’t live in isolation. It’s always between us: between you and me, between touch and emotion, between story and soul.

That’s why, even in this strange new world of algorithms and automation, I feel lucky. Because I get to be part of The Skin Deep, a community that reminds me, every single day, that connection is not extinct. That love still has a pulse. That even in an age ruled by machines, humans are still fighting to see and be seen.