It happened to me this week. It took me a few seconds to realize I wasn’t talking to a real person.

In written text, it’s already almost impossible to tell. In The Singularity Challenge, an experiment I created, about half the participants, on average, can’t tell whether an answer was written by AI or by a human expert.

We’re surrounded by bots. When I lose patience with them, I find myself typing angrily: “HUMAN AGENT. NOW!”

We’re also surrounded by amazing music created by AI, like this song. And yet, why do I feel disappointed when I discover that no human actually made it?

Shawn Smucker, an American author who opened a bookstore with his wife, wrote a brilliant post called Please Use AI. With a healthy dose of sarcasm, he recommends using AI for everything. Looking for a recipe? AI is much faster than calling a friend. Because if you call her, you might end up hearing about her father’s serious illness, or how lonely she’s been feeling.

I recently attended a wedding where the bride and groom read beautiful, touching vows. But deep down, I couldn’t help wondering: did they write those words themselves?

I still don’t know. And somehow, that doubt took something away from the moment.

The harder it becomes to tell, the more we want to know.

During the holidays, I was on a family vacation in Amsterdam and walked into a huge vinyl record store.

It reminded me of a neighbor from my childhood. She had an old gramophone with a large horn. I remember placing a record on it, lowering the needle, and listening to music that felt like magic.

Standing in that store, I wondered: in the age of Spotify and AI-generated music, why are people buying vinyl records again?

And it’s not just nostalgia among a few collectors. Last year, nearly 47 million vinyl records were sold in the US, generating more than a billion dollars in revenue.

The old format offers something the technology that replaced it doesn’t.

We have labels for organic vegetables. We have labels for free-range eggs.

Maybe it’s time for a new label:

“No AI Added.”