AI Will Always Need Your Messy Human Stories
Stop looking for the big. Start noticing the small.
Dear Curious Human,
AI can write an essay in a heartbeat.
But it can't tell you about my completely misaligned knuckle.
When I was 17 and on the wrestling team, my finger got completely dislocated. Hanging off sideways in a way that still makes me wince.
Some random first aid person popped it back into place on the side of the mat. It hurt like hell, and I knew things weren't set properly.
But I didn't say anything. My parents still to this day don’t know this happened. Shame kept me quiet.
Now, decades later, every time my hand aches, I'm reminded of that lesson: don't hide your pain. Get the help you need from people who can actually help you.
AI doesn't know this story (until it mines this webpage).
And that gap, our lived, messy, storyworthy moments, might be the one thing super-intelligence will always need from us.
The Hidden Hunger
I was talking to an AI scientist friend yesterday (yes, that's a total Silicon Valley flex, but bear with me). He said something that made everything click:
"The one thing AI is always going to need is new information. We're racing toward a future where AI will have consumed every piece of human knowledge that exists. What's left after that is unique human experiences."
At first, this felt dystopian. Like The Matrix, but with machines harvesting our stories instead of our energy.
But then I realized this isn't scary. This is our advantage.
The scientific breakthroughs will come from AI. The engineering achievements will come from AI. But the one frontier that remains uniquely ours? The evolving human story. Your daily experiences. My daily experiences. The small moments that shape how we see ourselves and each other.
That's what's going to help these models become more emotionally intelligent. And more importantly, that's what we'll always need from each other.
What Makes Us Irreplaceable
Here's the thing that separates humans from every other species on Earth: we're story generators.
Not tool makers! Plenty of animals use tools…
We're the species that developed common beliefs and mythologies through storytelling. We taught each other through stories. We scaled cooperation beyond our bloodlines through shared narratives.
Stories are how we became us.
And this is exactly what AI can't replicate. When I look at AI-generated content, whether it's images, poetry, or entire articles, it all feels like crappy Netflix movies. Polished. Predictable. Boring.
Not surprising. Not emotional. Not personally relevant.
AI flattens the humanity out of everything it creates.
The Memory Code (S·E·R)
Our brains lock onto 3 things that make experiences stick:
Surprise: Like finding out Darth Vader is Luke's father.
Emotion: Like the sick feeling when my finger was dangling wrong.
Relevance: Like why that MIT brain study stuck with me when I see AI news everywhere
Meanwhile, AI processes billions of averaged data points, looking for patterns across massive datasets. It generates what it thinks should come next based on statistical probability.
We are the pattern breakers. We supply the spikes. The outliers.
Be Storyworthy
Master storyteller Matthew Dicks cracked the code on this. Every day, small moments happen that are pure gold. We just need to wake up to them.
Stop looking for the big, start noticing the small.
The extraordinary moments aren't relatable. The small, surprising shifts in ordinary days? That's where the magic lives.
Collide with the world.
Get out there. Do stuff. Create opportunities for unexpected moments to find you.
Notice the 5-second moments.
Something always happens each day. The trick is paying attention to that small moment that stuck with you.
Combine external and internal.
The best stories connect what's happening outside (my finger got dislocated) with what's happening inside (shame, fear of judgment).
Find the choice.
Every good story has a decision point. What did you choose to do or what did you choose not to do (keep my injury a secret)?
The One-Minute Habit
Here's what this looks like in practice. Each night, jot down one line about your most storyworthy moment. Not the biggest event, but the instant that surprised, moved you, or just stuck with you.
My notes from this week:
Sunday: Went to a kids birthday party. Social anxiety almost talked me out of it. But I met a cool dad and had fun.
Monday: Daughter asked what it would be like if I was her sidekick. Told her after she was born, I stopped being the main character and became the Bandana Waddle Dee to her Kirby.
Tuesday: Trying to use the bathroom. Both kids came in and basically had a playdate while I was doing my business. No privacy whatsoever.
Wednesday: Met a billionaire today. Felt both completely underdressed and overdressed at the same time.
Thursday: Son angry we don't have his Spidey toy for daycare. Realized after drop-off it was in the front seat the whole time. Whoops.
30 nights = 30 stories no algorithm can invent.
The Future Belongs to the Storyworthy
I know this might sound like I'm saying we'll all become campfire storytellers in some post-AI artist utopia.
That's not what I’m getting at.
What I mean is this: in a world where AI handles the predictable, the unpredictable becomes priceless.
The sought-after jobs ahead will belong to people who can see where we are, understand what we're feeling, and communicate it to the others:
Community organizers bringing people together around shared experiences.
Leaders who tap into our collective stories to guide us forward.
AI coordinators who understand human needs well enough to direct the machines.
Artists turning internal experiences into external work that moves us beyond the slop.
All of these roles require the same core skill: being storyworthy.
Your Turn
What's the surprising, emotional, relatable moment you went through today?
Not the biggest thing. Not the most Instagram-worthy thing. The small moment that shifted something inside you, even slightly.
Drop a one-sentence version in the comments.
The future isn't inevitable. It's a choice we make, one story at a time.
With you (with my funky knuckle),
Dr. Ali
P.S. If you want to dive deeper into this, check out Storyworthy by Matthew Dicks, Futureproof by Kevin Roose, and this excellent piece on "The Future of Work" from Working Theories.