The Inherent Danger of a Frictionless Future

Leaning into Humanity in the Age of Computation

By: Jaime Church

A good friend of mine (who happens to be an art history professor,) was recently telling me about how fun and useful it would be to teach a class on “the art of living.” Something that would attempt to synthesize all the aspects of daily life that can be better taught, perceived, and experienced that could qualify the act of living its own art form. Now I know this sounds an awful lot like the current YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest trends of “romanticizing one’s life,” and while I do fully acknowledge they have lots of overlap, I want to address the bigger social, cognitive-science based issues that put increasingly uncomfortable pressure on the way we experience time, computation, social interaction, and gratification in the year 2026. The art of life has everything to do with the human experience and the tools we use to achieve the lives we want. So it would seem logical that to design for humans, we must understand what the human experience looks like and feels like. The crux of the issue, however, is that I do not feel like the tools we are using and designing are solving the problems we’re facing. I am going to microdose a couple concepts all at once that I find particularly interesting and relevant in how we define “human-centered design,” and how, in my opinion, it can exist in authentic and/or commodified forms. I will echo novelist and philosopher Iris Murdock’s claim that attention, care, and perception are moral acts, not aesthetic indulgences. And, as a disclaimer, I will admit that while I studied cognitive science at UC San Diego for four years and have a somewhat credible basis of understanding, these thoughts are not shared without the subjective lens of a 22 year old girl in the year 2026. I’ll do it in four “chapters”- human-centered design, the cult of ease and the death of difficulty, computer time vs. human time, and outsourcing humanity.

1) “Human-Centered” Design 

Sydney Harris, an influential American journalist and essayist known for his wry and humanist style in the mid 20th century, famously stated “the real danger is not that computers will begin to think like men, but that men will begin to think like computers.” In doing so, I personally believe Harris unknowingly articulated the danger of AI in a very powerful manner. That is to say, AI becoming more human-like in its diction or cadence is not inherently bad, but its increased usage is bound to indirectly change how humans articulate and present ideas, let alone the ideas themselves. This is something that I wish I understood better before I started studying cognitive science in school. Cog sci is literally defined as “The study of thought, learning, and mental organization, which draws upon aspects of psychology, linguistics, philosophy, and computer modeling.” I specialized in design and interaction, and minored in design. In doing so, I looked at patterns of human behavior and what an individual is most likely to notice or what impulses they are most likely to act on when navigating a certain situation. The situation in question was almost always a web page, app, or other digital interface that will be displayed on a screen. This makes sense for designers who aim to go into the world of UX or UI design. 

But onto the thing that bothered me, and why I wish I had known about and better understood that Sydney Harris quote. I studied human-centered design under the implication that it would teach me how to build better interfaces. And  I would be lying if I said it didn’t. But the overarching assumption here is that better digital interfaces are what the world needs more of. I’m not saying that studying human-computer interaction won’t help you to build better digital products. I am saying that better digital products lack the intrinsically human trait that I believe is required to solve a lot of the poignant systematic problems of today. I started to think that no matter how intuitive or cohesive a userflow pans out, if the medium is the message, then I have to make sure the two actually align, instead of assuming an app will fix the issue. To me, saying a product is “human-centered”  felt like the cage-free advertisement on egg cartons. It sounds good and ethical so it's not particularly questioned. But oftentimes, it’s used because the phrase itself knows it has good credibility. So it gets hollowed out into a slogan. This leads me to be very cautious about any product that sounds too good to be true. Because if it seems too good to be true, it probably is. 

I believe we overlook and undervalue experiences that aren’t “tailored to our needs.” I don’t want another product that is “effortlessly customizable.” A frictionless experience in everything that has the potential to be in any way uncomfortable is not something to strive for. Because I want a product that understands my complexity and helps me make sense of it. Something that does not promise to solve my problems, but something that is willing to understand them. This leads me to my next chapter, 

2) The Cult of Ease & the Death of Difficulty

I believe we have to be really careful when we use terms like “frictionless” “intuitive” and “streamlined,” because they are all too synonymous with ease. Ease is not inherently bad, but it is not at all conducive for creativity. So for creative platforms to promise systems that will streamline the creative process seems like an oxymoron. I will call this the death of difficulty. There are lots of videos out there that address various instances of this issue, such as why architecture is ugly now or why all the color palettes are muted grays and blues. Why, in essence, is the homogenous “simplistic”, “modern”, “efficient” and “clean” aesthetics the default. I think it is in the aftermath of all this sterile setup that we get girls so obsessed with romanticizing life. And while the interests and hobbies of young girls are often socially dismissed under the pretense of frivolous or uneducated ideas, I think the idea of bringing personality and nuance back to creative spaces is wildly valuable.

The definition of aesthetic, by the way, is "concerned with beauty or the appreciation of beauty.” And the definition of beauty is a “quality that makes something pleasurable to perceive, whether through sensory experience, or through a deeper sense of satisfaction from a  meaningful design or personality.” So being concerned with the aesthetic of something, or rather, the potential satisfaction of a visual stimuli or sensory experience is not at all something to overlook or laugh at. Beauty is valuable, I would argue that makes it rather expensive. Expensive in time, thought, and energy that is. It takes practice to make things and experiences beautiful. But practice, or messy iterations of a product or experience, take time. Specifically human time. This brings me to chapter 3. 

3) Computer Time vs. Human Time  

Another way of thinking about computer time vs human time might be the difference between computing and understanding. Where the two approaches might yield the same result, but it is the process of wrestling with meaning that creates the meaning itself. The time it takes to compute something, takes a fraction of the time it takes to understand something. Lewis Mumford, an American historian, sociologist, philosopher of technology, and literary critic of the early-mid 20th century famously stated in his 1934 book Technics and Civilization, “the clock, not the steam engine, is the key-machine of the modern industrial age.” Here, he argues that as technology and machinery continue to advance and improve on capitalistic scales, it will be time and understanding that becomes more rare, and therefore more valuable. From my brief research of Mr. Mumford, I believe that his orientation towards humanity concluded that a healthy society is one in which technology remains embedded in human culture, rather than culture being reshaped to accommodate the logic of machines.

But what is the ‘logic of machines.’ and why should we refrain from building our culture around it? What is ‘computer time’ and why should we be aware and cautious of it? I’ll put it this way. At their core, computers eliminate friction by performing millions of calculations within seconds. Something no human will be able to do. It’s a matter of 1’s and 0’s against the clock. This is computation. Without going down the rabbit hole of whether a computer can pass the turing test, or pass the chinese room experiment, (both very interesting thought exercises that investigate to what degree computers can be considered “sentient”) It can be safely acknowledged that computers are fast and accurate. Far faster and more accurate than us. Humans are riddled with error. This is the danger. That we hold ourselves to a standard of speed and efficiency that only an emotionless, non-sentient data model could achieve. So, if you want to operate on computer time as a human, you’re going to have to outsource your humanity. 

4) Outsourcing Humanity 

SO, we have built a world that measures intelligence, creativity, and productivity against the clock of computation. We are then left behind feeling slow, sentient, flawed—and punished for it. In a piece he did for The New Yorker magazine in 1970 titled The Megamachine 5, Mumford closes by stating  “If man is to avoid self-extinction, he will consciously have to replace the mechanical world picture with a more inclusive organic and personal world picture. The God who saves us will not descend from the machine; he will arise once more in the human heart.” Alright, Mumford. At the very least, this quote is comforting to understand that the threat of mechanical or artificial alternatives to critical human thought have been looming for a while. And for a while, we have found a way to look inside the human heart indeed. I was thinking about this at the San Diego Art Museum, as I was reading the plaque for modern and contemporary art. It detailed how challenging realistic representation became an act of expressive freedom and the abstract nature of the work created space for personal reflection and shared experience. Paintings started to serve a different purpose. They weren’t meant to be clear or easily digestible for the viewer. Instead of becoming obsolete, painters decided to lean into their humanity even harder. 

Conclusion

I think that the appeal of "romanticizing" one's life comes from a very human desire to sort through the digital noise for significance and beauty that is personal. Going to the ballet and buying Trader Joe’s flowers and making paper valentines are genuinely lovely and powerful. And that is not at all something to deem as frivolous. As cynical as I sound in my critiques/frustrations of how daunting the future could be if we descend into a brave-new-world type society, I am constantly amused and delighted by the people and products who champion personality and human authenticity. In the future I’d like to write more on classic literature and why it’s such a great anecdote to the fear of modern-day intensity and slopification. Or why certain characters or comedians are so powerful. The cognitive science behind humor itself is fascinating. Lots to understand in articulating what it means to be a creator and consumer in 2026. So hopefully you find any of this interesting or insightful.