I just started the last year of my master's degree. In the very first week, to encourage team building and creative thinking, we had an art thinking workshop. The two day task: create an artwork on a topic of choice.

I want to talk about the performance we came up with. Because I can’t stop thinking about it.

Inspired by Marina Abramovic’s The Artist is Present (2010) we placed a table in the middle of the room - a stack of papers on one side, a laptop on the other. Each paper with a personal question: Tell me about the last time you cried. Tell me about the last time you felt overwhelmed. Tell me about a time you felt alone.

At the vernissage, people would sit down, choose a paper, and share a story, a memory, a piece of themselves. I sat across from them with a laptop and listened. But instead of responding from my heart, I typed their words into chat gpt. As the person on the other side of the table looked at me – waiting for a response, confused, irritated – I read gpt’s answer back to them as if it were mine.

It was uncomfortable – in the best way.

People had just opened up about grief, about feeling lost, about moments of overwhelming fear and got back something that sounded helpful but felt hollow. The AI responses weren't bad. Indeed they were perfect – encouraging, well-structured, the kind of thing you find in a self-help book. But that was exactly the problem. There was no real empathy there, no compassion, no sense of being truly understood by someone who had felt similar pain. My mother telling me about her own heartbreak to help me get through mine. A best friend believing in me when I don't have the power to believe in myself. The AI's words were true, correct, perfect - but meaningless.

What surprised me most was what happened after. People didn't just walk away. They stayed, they talked, they wanted to understand what they'd just experienced. There was this hunger for real conversation that I hadn't expected. It made me realize how rare it is to sit with someone and ask questions that go beyond small talk and day to day topics.

Lately I've been reading everywhere about what makes us human when AI becomes better at so many tasks. Sitting in that room, watching people share their stories, I began to think the question is backward. Maybe it's not about what we can do better than AI. Maybe it's about what we can do that AI fundamentally cannot – not because it lacks skill, but because it lacks experience. AI can offer perfect words about loss, but it has never lost anything. It can describe loneliness, but it has never felt alone. When you're lonely, what you need isn't perfect advice – it's a friend, family member, or even a stranger telling and showing you they are here. That moment of real connection, of feeling supported by someone who exists in the world with you.

There was something so beautiful about the simplicity of the setup: two people, a table, an honest question. Two strangers sitting across from each other and talking about real things. Not work, not politics, not the weather – but how they actually feel. Even with AI mediating the response, something important happened in that moment of sharing.

I think about how often I use chat gpt to find words when I'm stuck, to phrase difficult conversations, to make sense of my feelings. There's something seductive about getting clean, measured responses to messy thoughts. But this small journey into the art world made me realize what we might be trading away: the messy, uncertain, sometimes disappointing work of trying to understand each other.

AI will always be there, ready with smooth answers. The person across from you might not be.

These are some of the questions we placed on the table.

• Tell me about the last time you cried.

• Tell me about the last time you felt overwhelmed.

• Tell me about a time you felt alone.

• Tell me about a moment that changed the way you see the world.

• Tell me about the last time you felt truly proud of yourself.

• Tell me about a time when you felt completely at peace.

• Tell me about a moment you doubted yourself.

• Tell me about something you’ve never said out loud.

• Tell me about the last time you felt truly vulnerable.

• Tell me about a time when you felt rejected.

• Tell me about the last time you couldn’t stop overthinking.

• Tell me about a time when you felt invisible.

• Tell me about the last time you doubted yourself.

• Tell me about a memory that still makes you smile, no matter what.

• Tell me about the last time you felt really supported by someone.

• Tell me about a time when you surprised yourself with your own strength.

• Tell me about a time when you felt abandoned.

• Tell me about the last time you struggled to let go.

• Tell me about a time when you felt like you weren’t enough.

• Tell me about the last time you felt lost.

• …

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