A few days ago, someone shared one of my cabinet reshuffle articles on Reddit.
Predictably, the discussion eventually drifted toward AI.
Some people objected to the use of AI.
Others rolled their eyes at yet another AI-related discussion.
And the more I thought about it, the more I realised something.
Perhaps the problem was never AI.
Perhaps we’re simply tired.
Tired of content.
Tired of algorithms.
Tired of clickbait.
Tired of influencers.
Tired of “thought leaders.”
Tired of being told that every new app, platform, tool, or technology is going to change our lives forever.
Over the past few years, the internet has become incredibly good at producing content.
What it seems less capable of producing is meaning.
The arrival of AI only accelerated the trend.
Today we can generate articles, images, videos, songs, presentations, logos, captions, comments, and entire social media accounts in minutes.
Yet despite having more content than any generation in history, many people seem less engaged than ever.
Maybe that’s because content was never the scarce resource.
Attention is.
Curiosity is.
Original thought is.
A meaningful story is.
A genuine human experience is.
Anyone can ask AI to write an article.
Not everyone has something worth writing about.
Anyone can generate a song.
Not everyone has lived a story worth turning into one.
Perhaps that is why so much AI-generated content feels empty.
Not because the technology is flawed.
But because the intention behind it often is.
The problem was never AI.
The problem is that technology keeps making it easier to create things while forcing us to think harder about whether those things are worth creating in the first place.
Maybe that is the real challenge for our generation.
Not how to make more content.
But how to make something worth paying attention to.