For the longest time, I have been thinking about the second amendment and wanting to properly discuss it, and I can’t think of a more relevant time than right now.

It’s 2026. The streets of America are flooded with ICE performing clear acts of violence against innocent civilians. And supposedly, there’s nothing we can do about it if we want to avoid becoming victims of violence ourselves.

We have what is essentially a mini military force threatening Americans under the authority of an unchecked federal government, while our votes seem to count for less and less. Doesn’t this sound really familiar?

History of the Constitution

Pretty much every American child is taught about the American Revolution by the colonies against tyrannical British rule. Taxation without representation is usually the one thing kids remember from primary school social studies, and we all learned about George Washington’s trek from the Delaware River to the presidency.

At some point, however, students start to tune out the lessons. They forget about the Articles of Confederation, which was the first attempt at self-government for the newly minted United States. Because the threat of an over-powerful federal government still loomed in the distance, this governing document made the states much too powerful and the federal government too weak.

Uprisings such as Shays’ Rebellion and broader national instability revealed the federal government’s inability to respond effectively to the country’s structural failures, so the founders realized they needed a new framework. That new document became the Constitution, which remains our governing document today.

The Constitution laid out the groundwork for a federal government that would represent the people but have the power to actually get things done. In order to convince the states, and mainly New York, to actually ratify this document, the trio of Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay published the Federalist Papers, in which they explained to the public why ratifying the Constitution was a good idea.

However, there was a staunch Anti-Federalist movement that continued to fear an overly powerful government, and this is why we have a Bill of Rights. These include a list of ten amendments to the Constitution, particularly thanks to Madison, who understood the Anti-Federalists’ concerns and made a serious effort to address them.

That brings us to the second amendment, which reads as follows:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

For the past two decades, as gun violence has gone insanely off the rails, the meaning of this amendment has been hotly debated. Many proponents of gun control believe that the amendment is simply referring to a national military to defend the people of a “nation-state,” while opponents believe that the Constitution grants everyone the right to literally bear arms, i.e. own guns.

But I don’t think either is the point of the original amendment.

Influenced by Thomas Jefferson, who wanted to make sure that the official governing document would account for rights that no government could take away, Madison set out to draft a list of such unalienable rights.

So if we want to evaluate the second amendment and its purpose, we have to take into account the context in which it was created.

Ask yourself, does it make sense for the Bill of Rights to specifically say you have the right to just own any and all guns willy nilly when the rest of the rights are about minimizing the risk of oppression by the government (such as freedom of speech, right to trial by jury, and states rights)?

Could the founding fathers have imagined the advent of assault rifles that would go on to end the lives of so many innocent schoolchildren, or were they more concerned about a repeat of the British monarchy?

Is it possible the Bill of Rights was ensuring that we had a national-level military to protect the people even though the whole point of the first ten amendments was to ensure protection against national government if that ever became a problem?

Frankly, we don’t need to speculate at all about the purpose of this amendment because the reasoning is already laid out by James Madison himself.

Federalist No. 46

In Federalist No. 46, written about a year and a half before the Bill of Rights, Madison explains why the federal government could never really become tyrannical because the Constitution and the States would be able to prevent it.1

Now before we dive in, it has to be noted that these papers were persuasive in nature. The goal was to convince the people to ratify the Constitution through persuasive rhetoric. However, we can still glean from this paper Madison’s thought process when it came to figuring out a governing framework.

In this particular paper, he confronted head on the idea that the federal government would crush the states by questioning its validity. He wondered if it made sense that the federal government could secretly make a massive military complex without the states and the people knowing over the course of a significant period of time when they voted for the representatives in the first place.

If by some imagination such a thing did happen, he thought, there would be no way the federal militia could be that big compared to how many people there were in the country who could actually take up arms and subdue such a force.

The framework for this conversation is important because he talks specifically about how if the federal government became like the British, then the thirteen states would become like the thirteen colonies, and all the constituents would be on the states’ side because the small number of federal reps would be in opposition to the larger number of state reps, elected by the people of those states.

In other words, he saw the people and the states as one entity in any possible fight against the federal government. This is key, because he wrote the second amendment.

Further in this paper, he expresses the following:

To these [a federal military of 25,000 men] would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million of citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties, and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence.

In other words, if the federal government did decide to stick their military on the people to oppress them, bad luck because there’s about half a million guys with guns commanded by their state governments to fight for their rights.

He also gives a bit more context to the unique position of Americans:

Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of.

Essentially, he’s saying Americans have the advantage of owning guns unlike people of other nations, but they also have these subordinate governments (states) that they belong to, which would appoint military officers from their gun-slinging constituency in order to challenge an oppressive federal government. That, Madison claims, makes it pretty impossible for any overly ambitious federal government to suppress.

Furthermore, he says the following regarding other nations such as those in Europe:

Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms. And it is not certain, that with this aid alone they would not be able to shake off their yokes. But were the people to possess the additional advantages of local governments chosen by themselves, who could collect the national will and direct the national force, and of officers appointed out of the militia, by these governments, and attached both to them and to the militia, it may be affirmed with the greatest assurance, that the throne of every tyranny in Europe would be speedily overturned in spite of the legions which surround it.

This means that people in Europe don’t have guns because their governments are afraid, and while we can’t say that they couldn’t overthrow tyranny with guns alone, it would be a MAJOR asset if they had smaller local governments that they voted on who could then collectively represent the whole nation’s populace and appoint military officers that were attached both to the people and these local governments.

The paper basically ends by saying that the federal government would be stupid to go against its own constituents, and if it did, then it would be overthrown by the states, with the support of the people — and therefore, the federal government’s powers are more about carrying out what the Union needs than overpowering the states’ powers.

Given the content of this paper, we can now assert what Madison really meant when he wrote the second amendment.

Does The 2nd Amendment Still Apply?

When James Madison wrote, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed,” he clearly meant a state-regulated military of citizens with arms in the context of the federal government challenging the state government’s ability to freely do its job and protect its people from tyranny and oppression.

So the right to bear arms is not about some organized national defense; nor is it about random people just owning guns for the sake of owning guns. It’s specifically about the power to overthrow a tyrannical federal government that no longer represents its people the way the British monarch did not represent its colonies and was subsequently overthrown via revolution and war.

Guns, to Madison, were a means to assert control and power in the context of the war he had lived through. He saw the states and their people as a united front that could resist via armed conflict, because he had seen Americans do just that quite recently in a way that other nations or colonies, such as those in Europe, hadn’t been able to.

In a modern context, when we see an entity like ICE going around and doing the bidding of the federal government, we can understand exactly what the second amendment was going for. However, the world has changed a lot since then.

Madison’s World vs. Our World

James Madison could not have conceived the society we live in today. He couldn’t have imagined the federal government’s massive military-industrial complex and surveillance network. He did not foresee that the average person would access the whole world and its many narratives at all, much less through curated media found on a small pocket device. And he certainly didn’t conceive of a world where school shootings were even a thing.

Had he known, what would he say? Would he suggest an amendment to the amendment? Would Madison allow assault rifles for the protection of citizens or would he deem them a danger to innocents and exclude them entirely?

The kind of resistance Madison intended to protect with this amendment doesn’t translate so cleanly into our world, especially since we haven’t seen war on our own soil since the Civil War. Would modern Americans be open to take up arms and march on Washington or stand up to ICE in their own very crowded neighborhoods under the command of their state governments?

How would states form modern day state militias? Or would they simply look to their police forces? How can state governments collaborate together outside of their federal reps in Congress so they have any real chance of challenging federal authority?

What about the fact that our politics is so driven by parties and an outdated Electoral College that we have a roughly equal number of red and blue states, which makes it more difficult to find common ground among these governing bodies and their career-driven representatives, let alone their people?

Or the fact that our representative bodies are so deeply intertwined with corporate spending, private donations, and gerrymandering? Would Madison, who warned about parties to begin with, see such a world and still believe in the power of states and citizens uniting together against tyranny?

Let’s also remember who Madison was during his own presidency. He assumed the role of father to “civilize” his “Red Children” (Native Americans) through schooling, Christian missions, and land treaties negotiated under intense pressure that overwhelmingly benefited U.S. expansion.

He also kept his father’s slaves despite supporting the end of the slave trade and being fundamentally unable to reconcile the concept of slavery with the concept of liberty. As someone who helped shape the now defunct Three-Fifths Compromise, he backed a system that counted slaves not as human beings with their own voices, but as a source of additional representation in government for slaveholding states.

So in all honesty, we have no way of knowing exactly how our 4th president and scribe of the second amendment would have approached either the original Constitution or any laws since enacted from the perspective of someone living in our world. But we can at least ask ourselves if this amendment still applies today.

States and Citizens United

The main point of Federalist No. 46 is that if all the states banded together, as did the colonies, then there’s literally no way the federal government could oppress its citizens. Madison believed that states and citizens could resist unpopular federal actions, and any attempt by the federal government to suppress even one state's authority would be met with concern from all states. Such resistance didn’t necessarily have to be violent but if it did, the second amendment would allow for that.

Does this concept, as suggested by Madison, work with modern society? And if so, how would it work? If our states were able to command and regulate militias to kick out ICE, who’s to say they wouldn’t get run down with tanks and have their budgets slashed in half? But if enough states did agree, might the amendment actually end up helping us as Madison intended?

What would state resistance even look like now? Can state governments and the people truly align or will states just cater to the feds? Do states and the people still have sufficient countervailing power in this day and age, or are we too far gone? Will our state governments exempt us from our jobs while we sit in the middle of our streets and command regional police to protect us from federal militias?

Minnesota has been the main state in recent news to disapprove of the federal government’s employment of ICE. The governor, the mayor of Minneapolis, even the police, are all regional governing entities that have made clear statements against the federal government’s actions. But what more should they do? Will other state governments be willing to step up and take significant action alongside them? And what does this look like in practice?

You or I might not have the answers to any of these questions, but simply being aware of our rights, history, and the purpose of our government is the first step.

The fundamental takeaway from our second amendment shouldn’t be guns — it should be the ability for states and citizens to unite against tyranny.

When we’re able to look at the amendment through that lens, as it was originally intended, then we’re able to ask how it translates into details that guarantee or endanger our freedom.

Laws Are Man-Made

It’s important that our government and our laws are set far enough in stone to not constantly be overturned or challenged. With cases like Roe v. Wade and same-sex marriage coming under fire, the last thing we need is to make it easier to lose our hard-earned rights and freedoms. But America has a history of agreeing to change laws based on what the populace wants. Civil rights, women’s rights, an end to slavery and segregation — these were all once legally impossible.

When Madison and the founders initially constructed the Constitution, they had much different ideas from us about who got to be represented, what the world looked like, and what rules were needed based on their own subjective experiences, biases, and often status-oriented priorities. But at the very least, they agreed that the point of government should be to represent the people and carry out their best interests.

So the best thing we can do now, centuries later, is understand that laws like the second amendment came about within a particular context — written for a world that no longer exists — and recognize that the rules and values of society are not fixed.

At the end of the day, laws are man-made. They are malleable and they depend on us, the citizens, and our chosen representatives. It’s our right and responsibility to continually re-evaluate them, decide what still serves us, and shape them accordingly.

The second amendment was written for its own time; understanding that context is how we decide what it means in ours.

But I hope not.

The Incident

See, I typically hit the same places, with a few swap-out options, and Wendy’s is pretty much not on that list. There are plenty of fast food places near me to the point where I have multiple options per chain, and this definitely comes in handy so that the very real non-AI human beings at any one location don’t think I’m there every single day (more on that later).

But all my typical haunts and backups were not on the table that day because of a very human problem called Feeling Sick.

I’d spent the whole day trying to figure out this blogging thing and what I might write about on top of doing some work, and I’d barely eaten so my stomach didn’t feel great. I was also coming off of days of burritos and fried chicken so I needed a place that would feel completely different. Not greasy, not too seasoned, but still filling.

So I head out to Wendy’s — not just any Wendy’s, but one we never go to even though it is technically the closest. It’s just out of the way of anywhere else we would go, and there’s never any reason to go to Wendy’s at all if not coming back from some store where a Wendy’s happens to be the only viable nearby place.

(Don’t worry, there’s a reason for all this extraneous detail.)

I head to the drive through, and there’s a car in front of me so I take this time to figure out my order. On my mind is a baked potato with cheese, but if the person at the drive through tells me it’ll be a while, then I’ll instead get the 10-piece spicy chicken nuggets. If it’s a yes on the baked potato, then we’ll go back down to a 6-piece. And fries maybe, if it’s the 10-piece.

I’m thinking of all this, trying to get my options straightened out as I pull up to the window, and I hear this AI voice asking me about whether I’m using the app or something. Believe it or not, this isn’t the weird part.

I wasn’t really paying attention because there have been several drive throughs that usually have some auto-voice (AI, recorded real person, Siri’s twin) ask about the app or some other promotional thing before the actual person shows up to take the order.

So I’m waiting for the actual person to show up, but instead, this same robot voice tells me to order whenever I’m ready.

And I wish I could convey to you just how caught off guard I was in this moment.

Truly baffled — like imagine a Modern Family style sitcom scene with a camera zoom in. Every coherent thought escaped me. I almost pulled out ChatGPT to help me respond (just kidding, don’t text and drive).

I managed to mention the baked potato first. I wasn’t sure if the AI was getting this because there was no display showing me my order and no human reading it back to me. No response or acknowledgement at all, in fact, so I just kept going.

I said the chicken nuggets, and I added on the fries, even though I wasn’t gonna get both fries AND the baked potato because that’s just too much potato for one meal. I also mentioned honey mustard once after the nuggets and then again after the fries.

At this point I was just so confused what was going on that my brain sort of just tried to move forward even though it was still stuck. Did the AI ask me what else I wanted before I said the fries? Or did I say the fries anyway? I have no idea.

I wish I could remember if the AI asked me if I was done. I feel like it didn’t, but I don’t want to misrepresent anyone — sorry, anything. Regardless, it did tell me something about how my order would be ready at the window and so with complete befuddlement, I just pulled ahead.

And as I’m sitting there, trying to figure out what just happened, this actual person comes out, takes my money, then tells me AFTER the payment has gone through that I’ll need to pull up to the door to wait for the baked potato.

Hello????

This is exactly what I wanted to avoid in the first place. I just wanted to be in and out, then back home. I didn’t sign up for this! If a real person had been taking my order, then they could’ve told me I’d have to wait on the potato and I would’ve said no.

That’s not to say I’ve never been in a drive through where I had to wait longer because they needed more time to make something, sometimes with my telling them that I’ll wait and other times with no choice because things are taking much longer than they anticipated. Human beings aren’t perfect, after all, and who am I to complain as long as I get my food? These are busy people.

But this was such a strangely concocted set of events. I was specifically thinking about how I’d leave something out of an order since I knew Wendy’s didn’t always have a cooked baked potato on hand just ready to go. I’ve had experiences where I’m told, by the way, it would be 45 minutes on that, after which I’d say never mind.

Yet I have to end up waiting like twenty minutes because an AI wouldn’t have the ability to account for what’s actually going on in the store. Because it’s not a real person experiencing a rush or checking on food availability. It’s an automation.

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The Chaos of Being Human

The crazy part is if I just had an AI take my order and it didn’t have a consequence like that, I would probably not be so weirded out. Don’t get me wrong, it would still be ridiculous, but maybe it would just make me more appreciative of the humans I interact with and no more.

But the irony of me literally hoping to avoid a problem and then having to face it anyway…no wonder I sat in the car too baffled to even turn the music back on. On the upside, I took those twenty minutes to vent into my notes app to turn this experience into this first post.

Plus, I got a free frosty. It was vanilla, which I hate, so I had to give it to my mom who’s trying to cut down on sugar, but I’m not gonna make the Wendy’s lady go back inside and swap it out for just trying to be nice.

Admittedly, the complimentary desert also being wrong kinda killed me but it’s not like she could’ve asked me before coming outside. It’s just the cherry on top of an already awkward situation (I hate cherries, too).

In fact, it’s the cherry on top of an insanely specific chain of events no AI could ever come up with — feeling sick on the very day I needed an idea, going to a Wendy’s I never go to, the AI, the baked potato, even the tiny little frosty.

This, my friends, is the chaos of the human experience.

The unpredictability of life, the intensity of our reactions, and how that leads to new thoughts, ideas, and experiences to then share.

The very nature of the human experience seems to be underestimated by all these tech bros who insist AI needs to be in every corner of our lives and pretty much everyone else, especially in today’s fast-paced world. Not only is the human experience misunderstood, but it’s completely undervalued.

And why is that? Because it’s impossible to really explain.

The human experience is something that happens in real time. It can’t really be captured by AI because an AI can never go through the minute day-to-day motions that we go through. Any little thing can trigger any other thing. Any experience or thought can lead to another. This is chaos theory in practice.1

What exactly humanity is, that’s something that can’t be explained, it can’t be replicated, and it sure can’t be imitated.

It can only be experienced.

Surprise! It Happened Again

Either the universe wanted me to drive home this point, or this world is truly ridiculous and loves to move fast on trends because days later, it happened again.

We usually never go to Donato’s, but to make a long story short, one day my brother wanted some and I was in the car so we got some. The location itself wasn’t unfamiliar either as there’s a fast food place across the street I would go to occasionally (this becomes relevant later).

That first time we ordered in person, but a couple days later, I figure I can pick up some pizza on the way back from dropping my brother off ‘cause it was pretty tasty last time and I was annoyed my brother ate most of it before I could even breathe. Of course, given the distance, I want to call ahead so it’ll be ready by the time I get there.

So here I am, calling Donato’s. Once again I literally knew exactly word for word what I was going to say — large thin crust pepperoni pizza because that’s what we got last time, and I’ll pick it up in 15 minutes because I knew that I was 15 minutes from the location. But what could have taken two seconds if an actual person answered the phone, instead led to a five minute back and forth with a robot.

This AI kept asking me my order, and I would repeat it, then asked to confirm by repeating my order, and I would confirm, then ask me to wait a minute, then confirm it again — and this went on for like five minutes. If I had known that it would take that long, I wouldn’t have pulled over and parked the car. I would have just made the order in the car via Bluetooth while stuck in the traffic I knew I’d have to sit through anyway and even accounted for in my 15 minute countdown.

And while the Wendy’s thing was weird, the Donato’s thing actually pissed me off, ‘cause why are you making things harder for me? Who does this help? It certainly doesn’t help the workers, and plus it’s going to be done too early which is why I called instead of doing an online order because I figured I’ll just tell them when I’ll be there based on what the GPS says.

Also, I thought it would be faster than having to put all my info in the online order thing but because it’s an AI it’s just like “okay, your order is going to be ready at this time which happens to be 10 minutes from now and you literally can’t do anything to change it.” Even though you asked me a million times if my order was correct, you couldn’t let me tell you how long.

And when this was all finally over, I wasn’t even sure if my order actually went through because there’s no real person to say “we’ll see you here shortly” and hang up. I had to awkwardly hang up myself because the AI just stayed on the line after confirming my order yet again.

I then got to the store and of course, they didn’t have my order. I told the girl at the counter I had to talk to some weird AI thing so she just put in my order again, and as she did that, I realized the truth: I actually sent my order to the wrong location.

But look, I was already confused since I know the location in my head and I know what big street it’s off of but I didn’t know what the actual address was. In fact I again had planned to ask during my order hey, is this the such-and-such location? But I got so caught off guard, and I couldn’t have asked the AI anyway.

This isn’t to excuse my own idiocy. I could’ve pulled up the map and figured out if it was the right place. However, just as AI makes mistakes, so do humans. Only our mistakes become a part of our experience and impact us in some way that we might even share with the world.

But the story doesn’t end here, because after that realization, I called the original location, sidestepped the AI to talk to a real employee, told them I made a mistake and needed to cancel my order, and done! Just like that!

(And if anyone cares, there was something off about the pizza so my brother got to eat the whole thing again anyway.)

The Value of Human Interaction

See, it’s not just about our own individual experiences — humanity is also about connecting with other humans.

Honestly, I’m the type of person who would rather schedule an appointment online than speak to an actual person. I prefer the self-checkout at the grocery store, I don’t mind in-store fast food kiosks with the whole menu accessible, and I would much rather work remotely.

But I love the part of my day when I go out driving and hit up my usual food spots rather than ordering online or getting delivery. Besides the benefit of not paying more when you can literally just drive there in 10 minutes, you also get to be more precise about exactly what you want.

In fact, I used to go to a few places enough that they recognized me. Sometimes I would even try to switch between different locations of the same franchise so they wouldn’t look at me like I was crazy, though that wasn’t always feasible based on cost or quality sometimes being vastly different across locations in the same region.

So I just had to accept that these people would remember that I showed up in the same jacket every day per season. But this leads to some really unforgettable moments.

One time, this new guy at one of these places was confused about something, and the lady who was processing my check out told him something like “Don’t worry about it; she’s a regular.”

Me? A regular? You know me?

Of course by then, a couple other employees had also referenced seeing me a lot because, to quote one of them, I was in there every day “tearin’ up that brisket.”

Good to know these random strangers whose names I’ll never know who also don’t know my name have such a strong impression of me. I don’t even go that much, to be honest, and if I ever build up my rewards, I’ll generally go to the other location because it’s closer and the price won’t matter since it’s free.

But even the fact that I’m out here playing a game of don’t-go-to-the-same-location-too-much is kind of a fun experience. There’s just something amusing about these private experiences, minor interactions, silly thoughts that contribute to your overall being in this overly chaotic world.

I mean, you wanna talk about getting caught off guard at the drive through, here’s an interaction that really got my goat.

There are two places near me that I switch between, but one day I was picking up my brother from practice so I went to this third one, near his school. I roll down my window, preparing for the person to ask me to order whenever I’m ready, and instead, I hear a voice telling me my order.

Hello????? Who’s there???

I did a double take and told them yes, then pulled ahead. And at the window was an employee from one of the other locations — an employee I only ever interacted with once, by the way.

That’s insane. Like you really remembered me!

She even commented on the fact that I was at a new location, which was amusing, but over time, the frequency with which I visited that location I originally saw her at led to many of them definitely recognizing me, with another person learning my order, too, and inputting it on the screen when as I drive up.

Though most people don’t say anything about “oh, it’s you again,” and that’s fine, because there’s definitely a level of awkwardness when people at the window feel like they have to converse with you, and you gotta start coming up with extremely profound comments like “It’s gloomy today, isn’t it?”

To which one person actually said, “Oh, I wouldn’t say gloomy.” Like I’m just trying to answer your question. But I don’t resent such interactions. They may be awkward, they may catch me off guard, but they’re ultimately amusing and short and they don’t actively ruin my day. It’s also awkward, of course, when they don’t close the window so now you can’t roll up your window and you have to just sit there and hope they don’t ask you anything, but it’s still weirdly amusing as it’s happening.

Eventually, I started favoring the other location of my original two, and guess what? They started recognizing me there, too!

And I got yet another casual acquaintance for a short while, and occasionally when I would pull up, she’d be like, “You want your usual?” and I immediately know who’s there.

We don’t know each other outside of seeing each other a couple random times per week. But that’s what makes it fun! The fact that there are other random people in the world living their own lives, and you cross paths from time to time, and it’s a pleasant experience, that can be pretty cool. I haven’t gone back there in a while anyway, so I probably won’t ever see these people again, but that’s okay.

It’s a reminder that even though we may live in a world that can seem kind of bleak sometimes — with a lot of uncontrollable chaos, horrible and unbelievably stupid people all over social media and in positions of power, and yes, some nasty in-person experiences as a result of all that hate — there are still so many real, living, breathing people out there in the world who are genuinely good, kind, friendly, and care about other human beings.

And that’s something AI can never truly grasp — connection.

Because AI doesn’t live in the real world, doesn’t have experiences, doesn’t have actual thoughts. It can’t magically and singularly help us solve the problems of a world made up of humans, problems created by humans, problems that only exist because of a lack of real interpersonal connections.

It’s why I wanted to be in the business of storytelling, because the ability to reach people through stories is undeniably powerful. Humans connect with other humans. It is the ultimate way to bring about change.

I mean, why else would I give you so much irrelevant information about my fast food excursions? Who cares about the exact circumstances under which all this went down and the minute details? Why do I need you to know I’m a grown adult just in case you read this thinking I’m in high school because I mentioned living with my family?

But that’s the human experience.

I might be a little more fixated on that stuff than the average person, but maybe it’ll make you think about the weird or not so weird and seemingly small interactions you’ve had before.

Have you also been at a Chipotle where you asked for a little hot sauce and they threw in the entire ladle? Or you were too awkward to ask for more rice because you didn’t realize how little they gave you until it was already down the line?

We’ve all had uncomfortable or awkward or weird experiences and interactions with other people on the daily, even outside of lunchtime. But what are you gonna do? Complain? Let it ruin your day? Or just take from the experience something valuable and move on with your life? (Exceptions apply, like we’re not talking horrific experiences here — just awkward moments.)

So the idea that we’re being pushed to accept AI for the sake of maybe eliminating such interactions, it’s quite ridiculous, to say the least. As of writing this, I recently saw an Instagram reel that was surprisingly relevant (and made me question once again if Meta was spying on me). This girl got offered some Meta glasses, and in this video, she expresses her own experience with the loss of human connection.2

Imagine a world where we’re all secluded in these high tech rooms that are customized to give us every experience we could ever want while we’re optimally productive. We get our food delivered, strap on a VR headset to “walk outside” in some distant country, and chat online with strangers we’ve never met who are curated for minimal conflict. Who would ever need to leave?

But why wouldn’t we want to?

Why Human Thought Is Unique

I think there are two different aspects of the human experience — one that is the collective human experience that manifests in our legacy as a species, as a society, and one that is the day-to-day experience of being human.

Neither aspect should be taken for granted. It is a privilege to think and drive around and talk to others and create something out of nothing. It’s a wonder to look back through history and speculate on the future, and think not just about technology or geopolitical shifts, but specifically about how these affect human civilization. It’s crazy to think about what people in the future might think about us, and how different they might be, and what we should leave behind for them.

Why would we want a world that doesn’t value our humanity? What would be the purpose of that?

Even the mere act of me starting this whole blog thing (?) is so human. I have so many problems and complaints and normally, I just keep them to myself or develop a whole project idea not meant to see daylight for who knows how long.

I’m sure as hell not gonna post every little grievance or major analysis on my one social media which I barely use myself. So what am I supposed to do then? Throw my feelings into ChatGPT and let it validate me? What would be the point of that? It doesn’t ultimately impact the world in any sort of way.

But I can put them here, let random people find it, and maybe that’ll be my contribution to my own human experience and the minute experiences of others.

Even the writing of this post is taking a lot longer than I hoped because I’m coming up with new things to say and incorporating other ideas as I go and I have a life outside of this. So even though all this fast food chaos actually happened weeks ago, I’m still building on that experience just by trying to communicate something about it.

This whole chaotic thing turned into a story to capture a lot of ideas that have been swimming in my head for a while because the very essence of humanity is turning the chaos and vastness of reality into a story to communicate to others.

And it’s not just the mere ability to communicate with others. I could brain dump into a chatbot and generate an article, but it wouldn’t be anything more than just what I’ve already thought of in a specific paragraph order. An AI can’t get up and go live life and come back to the article days later and think of a new idea to add. Sometimes all you need is a good night’s sleep to allow your brain to process and reinvigorate itself.

Plus, who wants to just consume content for the sake of it and not know there’s a real personality behind it? Why do people watch certain content creators or subscribe to certain writers? It’s because they want to show up for the person, not the content.

Even the fact that I feel compelled to let you know every extraneous detail and remind you about the timeline yet again and how this all happened way before you’re reading it, even though said timeline doesn’t affect you at all, that’s the weirdness of humanity.

It’s the ability to communicate who we are — and to have something to communicate in the first place. Otherwise, what’s the point? You can have AI generate a bunch of topics for you to discuss, but if you don’t care and you haven’t lived life, then what exactly do you have to say? And to whom?

This is the value of human thought.

Reactions to the real world based on your own life experiences, the instinct to connect dots that have never before been connected, a fighting urge to put your imperfect voice out into the world — even the most polished piece of prose can’t capture this lived experience.

I’m not saying you’ll never need AI for anything ever. In fact, I’d love to see if AI can help out in the world of medicine and healthcare, for instance (though that might come with its own issues to sort out).

Yes, the world is changing and there are new technologies on the rise. Maybe this tech can help us do things we’ve never done before.

But let’s not underestimate our own capacity for thought, the value of our experience, and our ability to connect with others. We need to think intentionally about what these new technologies should be used for rather than using it to replace what makes us human.

In that case, maybe this AI craze is actually a good thing.

Just as it took a pandemic for us to realize we’d rather be home with friends and family than stuck in a cubicle or classroom 40+ hours a week, maybe we’ll now learn to better value human thought, experience, connection, and communication.

Because no computer in the world can ever go outside, take a short drive to Wendy’s, and in a series of chaotic events, have to pawn off the spicy nuggets to its brother because an automation forgot to write down honey mustard.

Update

I had to order Donato’s again for my brother and I got so fed up with the system, I just hung up, called back, and bypassed directly to the in-store person.

On the other hand, I had to go to that Wendy’s again (also for my brother, I sense a pattern here), and it actually went well? This time I was prepared, there was a display where they were transcribing my order, and when the AI asked if there was anything else I could say no and move ahead.

My concern with this though is again, you can’t exactly ask stuff or interact with it if you have questions about the menu. Also, it might have trouble picking up non-American accents, and it obviously still has the capacity to make mistakes. But again, it remains to be seen whether this will actually become a usefully incorporated tool that alleviates stress for the workers, or if it’s just another burden both employees and customers have to deal with.

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