In this essay, Houda Nait El Barj examines how artificial intelligence may reshape human relationships and society’s sources of meaning. She contrasts AI’s ability to provide patient, emotionally responsive companionship with humans’ distinct role in genuine participation, including grief, vulnerability, and shared embodied experience. The essay argues that as machine intelligence becomes abundant, unoptimized human presence and ritual will become comparatively more valuable, precisely because they cost something and change people through sacrifice rather than convenience.
