It's been a while since I was so brilliantly offended by something that at best felt like a joke and at worst something of a nightmare.

The thought process I'd assume went something like this:

"Let's make money,"

"Pop stardom is good, we don't really have any new big superstars,"

"Well we can fake one,"

"Quick throw Ariana Grande, BLACKPINK, and Lady Gaga in a blender and see what comes out,"

"We'll call her KION."

I mean, an SNL skit couldn't have done a better job.

Look, I get it. The economics are obvious. AI artists cost pennies compared to real ones: no advances, no creative differences, no aging out of demographics, no inconvenient opinions about their art. Pure efficiency. What we’re really seeing is a shift from artists as investments to algorithms as assets — the human being becomes an overhead cost while the algorithm becomes the profit center.

But there's something deeper that kept me up the other night as I contemplated the societal impact of all this. I reflected on my own childhood and how much music videos were part of the culture. It was a short glimpse into the soundtracks of our lifetime delivered by stars that made the world a little brighter. I thought about what it felt like to witness greatness, and how the possibility it sparked in me made me believe I could do the same. We're losing that. And what replaces it is something hollow, spectacle without spirit.

The act of self-expression is likely one of the most human things we have. When our imaginations burn so fiercely they boil over into a written song or short story, into a performance, an Olympic feat or a vocal arrangement. That grit, joy and pain is what crystallizes into self-expression, and to witness it in real time is an unexplained tether to a higher power.

There is no doubt in my mind that Whitney Houston was placed on this earth to sing. It was too powerful, too world-shifting for it to be happenstance. When we see people do things that are so clearly more than human it moves something in us. For believers, it's a reminder that our creator is real. Even a non-believer seeing Michael Jackson's first Moonwalk, or Simone Biles doing a double-twisting double backflip dismount, knows there’s an undeniable awareness that the source of what was just witnessed is more than human: it’s the awe of divine calling.

When greatness is witnessed, it doesn’t just stay with the performer. It reverberates outward — into living rooms, playgrounds, classrooms, and hearts across the world. That resonance shapes culture itself. It’s the aftershock of awe that lingers long after the performance ends, nudging each of us to reach higher, dig deeper, believe bigger. What happens when those reverberations quiet, when the atmosphere itself carries fewer echoes of human transcendence?

To witness someone not only connect to, but manifest and express their calling, reminds us that God exists. We are entering an era where there will be exponentially fewer examples of that expression. The undeniable human manifestations of God-given talent will shrink in the generative AI era, and it’s being accelerated by the profit obsession that capitalism demands.

I can’t help but imagine the world that children today will inherit. At the rate we're going, they will grow up in a world drowned in the artificial. Generated hot pots of what AI thinks is the recipe of greatness, celebrity, and talent. The music they listen to, the performances they see, the movies they watch, less and less of it will be exhibited by actual human beings. I'm arguing that the reduction of raw human expression will shrink the pool of expressive human greatness along with the inspiration it sparks, and as a result, fewer opportunities to witness and be compelled by talent that feels divinely orchestrated.

Your personal religious affiliations aren’t a prerequisite for this reality. Whether you say God, a higher power or “the universe”, the exhibition of extreme human talent is proof that it exists. Musicianship and the not-easily-defined aura that Pop Stardom once required is just one example of that.

It's the difference between watching a computer-generated sunset and standing on a mountaintop at dusk. Both might be beautiful, but only one reminds you that you're alive. The things humans create through AI may be impressive, but they aren’t as moving. What takes our breath away isn’t just the voice, the choreography, or the athleticism on display…it’s the acknowledgment of the spirit required to pull it off.

Awe requires witness to struggle, to breakthrough, to the moment when limitation becomes limitless. The human spirit being stretched to its limits, the person reaching beyond themselves to harness a greater power, and the honor that comes with being the one chosen to do it. That is what gives us chills. AI cannot replicate that, and the reality of what we’re losing makes me both sad for the future and grateful for a time long gone. I'm grateful to have been born pre-internet. Every generation has its own DNA but I can’t imagine a life without the authenticity and raw talent that grounded my generation’s upbringing. I carry a quiet ache for those who may only know computer-generated exhibitions of human expression.

What happens to a world void of visible human greatness? Think about children being born as you read this, or the ten-year-old currently discovering AI-generated music, influencers and content. The majority of what they see, hear and experience will be decreasingly exhibited by actual humans. If steeped in that climate for too long, will they understand the difference between algorithmic optimization and human transcendence? Will they be able to tell that the human version is actually the source material for the artificial creations they're used to, or will the attribution of value go to the algorithm? Where will they feel the spiritual reverberation of witnessing something spectacular? Where will their hunger for meaning come from if everything they see is tethered to a generative model or data center?

What happens to a generation starved of human inspiration and authenticity…fed only machine-diluted creativity and driven by the relentless pursuit of revenue that ensures its endless reproduction?

The cruel irony of the emerging AI era is that in a time where it's easier than ever to document and share moments of human transcendence, we're choosing to replace those moments with synthetic alternatives.

As a design leader in the tech space I'm clearly not anti-technology or anti-innovation, but there's a difference between using tools to amplify human brilliance and using tools to replace them entirely. Or even darker, actively muffle them. What we all need to be asking ourselves and each other is: In a world where anything can be faked, what becomes precious? In a world where perfection can be generated, what takes our breath away? As we lose but don’t replace living vessels of transcendence—our Whitneys, our Michaels, our Princes, we also lose visible proof of human potential. We lose moments that make us believe in something greater than ourselves.

If awe is one of the few forces that consistently reconnects us to the divine, its erosion is more than cultural, it’s civilizational. A world less inspired is a world more vulnerable: to despair, to distraction, to domination. Without awe as a compass, we risk mistaking being rich for having purpose, and profit for meaning.

If awe dies, we lose one of the clearest reminders of what it means to be human. It’s a quake that tilts the world further from authenticity, from mastery, from the 10,000 hours it takes to become great, further from the God-given gut feeling of knowing you were put on Earth to do more. In its place, we celebrate the fleeting, the artificial, the easily attained carbon-copy of natural creation. Maybe not all at once, but over generations. A shift in hope. A rewriting of what inspires us. And an uninspired world is the most dangerous kind of world: one where mankind takes the credit for what was once proof of God-given purpose.

As the natural essence of divine expression becomes scarce in our cultural atmosphere, our individual spiritual practices become more crucial than ever. In a world increasingly devoid of human transcendence, that personal tether to the divine will be an increasing source of purpose, inspiration, spiritual nourishment, and survival. While we've always needed our own spiritual grounding, I'm arguing that the one-to-one connection will be evermore important because the natural essence of it in the atmosphere will have less conduits to come forth. We'll have to seek it rather than stumble upon it. We'll have to cultivate it rather than witness it naturally through the once honored but increasingly scarce exhibition of raw human expression.

In the end, awe is more than a feeling, it’s proof that we’re alive, connected, and capable of more than we imagine. From here forward, we’ll have to fight to keep it alive.

Thanks for reading, as always. Stay Curious, Stay Inspired.