The other day I was reading Thus Spoke Zarathustra and I stopped at this line:
That everyone has the right to learn to read corrupts in the long run not only writing, but even thinking itself.
Nietzsche saw something early on. When a skill becomes universal, the craft behind it often erodes. Not just the result, but the way we think. The relationship between effort and mastery starts to weaken.
It made me think about AI.
With AI, everything becomes more accessible. Writing a message. Writing a letter to someone you love. Building an app. Making a film. Speed increases, but something important quietly disappears. The relationship between the creator and the act of creating.
That friction between wanting to make something and actually making it used to matter. It was part of learning. Part of ownership. You struggled, failed, tried again, and through that process the idea became yours. When creation becomes instant and disposable, what remains of that bond? What does it even mean to make something anymore?
And that is where the real risk appears.
Not that machines will replace us, but that we will start creating without care. That we will outsource not only execution, but intention. That we will become operators of tools rather than participants in the act of making. Everything polished. Everything correct. Everything strangely empty.
Yet maybe this loss carries its own answer.
In the film Her, most communication happens through AI. Still, Theodore’s job is to write letters by hand for other people. Why would anyone pay for that when a machine can do it faster and better?
Because in a world optimized for efficiency, people begin to crave the opposite. The imperfect. The human trace. The feeling that someone real was there.
That is the line I hope we do not cross.
The need for the human. The imperfect. The crafted. Not because it is more efficient, but because without it, we risk forgetting what matters at all.
