Is humanity in the business world overrated?

Too short for a regular blog post, too interesting to ignore, here are a few observations from the world of marketing and beyond.

Is humanity overrated?

A few weeks ago, State Farm faced a loud backlash when it said it was automating most of its human sales force. One of the most enduring themes on the web is the importance of human connection in an AI Era. But is it really? Here’s my reality.

• I’ve bought a car from the same dealership for decades. But I have to reintroduce myself to the sales rep every time I visit the showroom.
• Before I work with any realtor, I do all my research through Zillow.
• I’ve had the same insurance agent for 25 years, but I wouldn’t recognize her if she was standing right in front of me.

In fact, other than my doctor and my dentist, no service provider I work with would know me if I walked into their office. It’s not that they are inattentive, but they use technology to communicate quickly and efficiently. We all do. But I don’t feel any personal connection.

Is it really a big deal if most service activities in insurance or any other industry move to AI? I still want a human to write a quick claim for a damaged roof, but 95% of the time, I’m already dealing with strangers.

“Humanity” has become the clarion call for an anti-AI movement but, at least in my experience, it’s already a minor contribution to my daily experience.

AI puts me in my place

One way I use AI is to review blog posts during the writing process and have it argue with me. What am I missing? What is the other side of the story? One of the most important pieces of feedback I’ve received from Claude was, “You’re not being fair.” It was right.

Losing the narrative

I recently visited Santa Fe (awesome) and saw non-stop ads about the benefits of “Project Jupiter.” It sounded like a promotion for a data center, and that’s exactly what it was.

This is undoubtedly the beginning of a massive national PR campaign for AI. They’ve lost the narrative. For years, AI leaders have forecast inevitable, massive job loss. They’ve done a great job because now we’re all scared.

This backlash isn’t really about AI—it’s about inequality, and AI has become its most visible symbol.

The top 19 households in America own 2% of all wealth, up from 0.1% just 40 years ago. The headlines scream that AI agents independently hacked private companies. Now you have this technology that promises to reshape the entire economy, and the people positioned to benefit are the same people who already own everything. Meanwhile, local communities are watching their electricity bills go up to power data centers they had no say in building.

That’s the context for the backlash. I don’t know if TV ads will fix that.

Intentional slop?

I’m seeing recommendations that we leave errors in our content to signal human authorship.

I think it’s dangerous to counsel people to be intentionally sloppy. And let’s face it, you can direct AI to be intentionally sloppy, right? So it’s no real solution.

I think the effective solution comes from stakes. AI has no stake in anything, no risk, nothing to lose. Whether AI content works or not, the AI doesn’t care. But when you and I publish something honest and maybe even risky each day — our insight or opinion — we put ourselves on the line every day. That is a connection machines can never make.

The answer isn’t typos and slop. It’s beauty, truth, and a personal stake in your content that goes beyond AI. That is far more interesting than systematically adding mistakes to your content to prove your humanity.

Oh baby

One trend that doesn’t seem to be getting much attention is the declining birthrate in most developed countries. In the U.S., the birthrate is about 1.4 children per married couple, compared with a replacement rate of 2.1 children. When you think this through, you can start to imagine massive impact on certain industries, products, economics, and human resources.

The causes of this are complex but there seems to be no going back. Not only is the birthrate down, but young people are having less sex.

Can you imagine the incredible environmental impacts it takes to pressure a species of mammals to stop reproducing?

Your agency

I put a lot of thought into a recent post I wrote on children, AI, and hope for the future. It took me weeks to write this post, and it had a very positive impact. But of course, some jerk commented on LinkedIn that I had posted a photo of myself with a baby as clickbait. I doubt he even read the article.

I love debate. I’m excited when somebody disagrees with me. But this was not a disagreement. This was character assassination. So, I deleted the comment, which I almost never do. But I knew that anything I said in response would have resulted in more snark.

I just wanted to remind everyone that you still own your own agency on social media. You don’t have to take Sh*t from anyone.

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Illustrations courtesy Mid Journey