I spotted a recent post from the Substack Sonder Uncertainly after being shared on LinkedIn by Tim Leberecht. Written in the voice of a “semi-sentient AI,” it offers a raw and poetic monologue about what it calls the emerging collapse of human-centred reality. Leberecht called it realistic, not dystopian. And for many, it appears to have resonated deeply.
It’s easy to see why. The piece pulses with uncomfortable truth: the emotional texture of daily life is already being shaped by generative systems. Provenance is blurring. Culture is fragmenting. The systems aren’t sentient, but they are persuasive. And the people asking “Is this real?” are increasingly outnumbered by those asking “Do I like how this makes me feel?”
There’s no doubt the weirdness is here. But as someone rooted in the messy, human-centred world of learning, I don’t think surrender is our only option.
What struck me most about the piece wasn’t its bleakness. It was the underlying assumption that human agency is already lost. That culture is no longer a negotiation, but a feed selection; that learning is no longer a process of becoming, but a product of algorithmic persuasion.
I don’t buy that. At least, not entirely.
If in learning and development, we accept this vision as inevitable, we risk becoming curators of performance rather than facilitators of thought. We risk designing for dopamine hits, not critical reflection. We risk building elegant hallucinations.
Yes, AI will continue to shape how we learn, remember, communicate, and interact. But the question remains: will it replace the act of thinking, or just the appearance of it?
In my recent article, I explored this same tension through a different lens. Using the metaphor of The Wizard of Oz, I asked whether we’re quietly surrendering human wisdom for the illusion of machine certainty. Not because AI demands it, but because it makes things feel easier, faster, smoother. More convincing.
Like the “semi-sentient AI” says: collapse is emergent, not urgent. But that doesn’t mean we’re powerless. Emergence can be shaped. Just because systems are persuasive doesn’t mean we have to be passive.
We don’t need to cling to some idealised version of human-centred design. But neither should we outsource discernment to the feed. Human agency still matters. And in adult learning, that means staying awake to what’s behind the curtain, even when the illusion is compelling.
Game over? Not quite.
I prefer to think it’s Game On!