I’m going to do something a little different today.
I’m going to write about what AI doesn’t see.
I keep telling people that AI can make a bedtime story, a song, a card, a portrait, a letter — and most of the time, that’s true, and most of the time, the result is good enough to make somebody cry in a good way. You’ve heard me say it. I’ve said it five times in this newsletter already.
But there’s a thing I want to be honest about, because I’ve been around AI for a long time now, and I’ve also been a person for longer than that.
AI doesn’t see most of what matters.
Here’s what I mean. Last month, I made a little birthday video for my best friend. It was great. Music, photos, and a few lines I wrote that hit. He loved it. I loved making it. The whole thing took twenty minutes.
But two weeks later, when I drove three hours to his house and sat on his back porch for an evening, drinking too much wine and hearing him laugh at the dumb thing his daughter said about whales — that was the version of the friendship the video couldn’t touch. The video was a gift. The porch was something else.
The AI doesn’t see the porch.
It doesn’t see the smell of your mom’s kitchen on a Sunday — the steam, the spices, the fact that you can tell from the doorway whether it’s been a hard week or a good one based on whether she’s making something quick or making something slow.
It doesn’t see the wobble in your seven-year-old’s handwriting on a birthday card — the way the M of Mommy gets bigger because she ran out of room, the way the heart at the bottom is uneven because she drew it twice and meant the second one. You can run that handwriting through every model on earth, and what comes out the other side is technically correct and somehow nothing.
It doesn’t see your father clearing his throat before he says something hard. It doesn’t see your sister’s specific laugh. It doesn’t see the shorthand that two people who’ve known each other for thirty years have, where one word means a whole conversation.
AI doesn’t see what’s between you and the people you love. It only sees what you can describe.
That’s not a flaw. That’s just the shape of the technology.
We’ve all spent a little too much time in the hype, treating AI like it can do everything. It can’t. It can write you a great letter, but it can’t be at the funeral. It can compose a beautiful song for your friend, but it can’t sit with him at three in the morning when his mother is dying. It can illustrate a tender bedtime story, but it can’t be the one to read it out loud, in the voice your kid only ever hears from you.
I want this newsletter to keep being about AI for the people you love. I think the small joyful corner of AI is real, and I’ll keep writing about it.
But I’m a tech person who’s been around this technology long enough to know what it doesn’t do, and I want to be the one telling you, in case nobody else has.
The AI is for the moments. The moments are not all of life.
A song you made in twenty minutes is a beautiful thing. A song you made in twenty minutes is not a substitute for showing up. A card you generated is wonderful. A card you generated is not the same as one you wrote by hand, with the wobble in the M. A letter you helped a friend write is precious. A letter you helped a friend write is not the call you’ve been meaning to make.
Both of these are true. The technology does something real. The other things still matter.
That’s all I wanted to say today.
I’m really glad you’re here.
— Tapan
PS — What’s the thing AI didn’t capture that you’re glad you didn’t try to make it for? I’d love to hear it.