I was fortunate to be born in the late 1970s. I experienced the 1980s, the 1990s, the 2000s… and now the age of artificial intelligence.
That perspective allows me to notice something particular: the way our relationship with the world, with others and with ourselves has changed.
Technology has given us a great deal. It has also profoundly changed our habits.
When I was a child, I would cycle to see my friends. I would ride several kilometres without calling first, often arriving unannounced. Their parents always welcomed me with open arms.
Today, meeting someone can sometimes mean planning several weeks ahead, confirming the day before, then sending a message on the day to say we have arrived — before we have even seen each other.
The phone has given us more ways to check and coordinate everything: where someone is, when they will arrive, whether they will definitely be there before we set off.
Something has changed in the way we spend time together.
We have gained efficiency. But have we lost some spontaneity?
I also remember GPS becoming common in cars.
Before that, when I was going somewhere, I would look at a map. Sometimes I would get lost in Belgium — I lived in northern France — and have to find my own way back. Looking back, I feel those experiences helped me develop my sense of direction.
Today, GPS or a phone is often our first choice for getting from A to B. When it stops working, finding our way can suddenly become difficult.
Personally, I try to limit how much I use it, particularly on my motorbike. I look at the route before leaving, memorise it, then ride. If I take a wrong turn, I stop and check.
Why?
Because I have noticed something important in myself: abilities I no longer practise can feel less readily available.
My sense of direction used to feel much stronger. Today, I am learning to reclaim it.
We used to spend time together. We played outside, visited each other’s homes and shared our stories face to face, looking one another in the eye.
Today, children, teenagers and adults sometimes favour messages, texts or voice notes.
Of course, these make it possible to contact someone at almost any time. But they can also create an invisible distance.
We are constantly exchanging messages. Are we still meeting one another as fully?
When we wanted to see someone, we would simply go to their house and ring the doorbell. It felt natural.
Today, digital communication occupies a considerable place in our relationships — sometimes at the expense of being physically present together.
With artificial intelligence, we are entering another stage.
This is no longer only about travelling or communicating. It also concerns thinking, writing and organising our ideas.
We once sent letters and postcards. Then came text messages and spellcheckers.
Today, a few words can sometimes be enough to generate an entire text.
And this is where I begin to question things.
If we increasingly delegate our thinking, our writing and the way we express our ideas, could we lose something of our individuality?
I notice similar phrases and structures in many texts written with AI assistance. Sometimes, I find it difficult to recognise the individual voice behind them.
Are we really ready to hand over more and more of:
All simply to move faster and make as little effort as possible?
Are we fully aware of what we might lose along the way when we consistently choose the easiest option?
Personally, I already notice changes in my own habits. I do not need to read thousands of studies to recognise those changes in myself. That is a personal observation, rather than evidence of what happens to everyone.
It is also why I feel fortunate to have grown up at a time when we learnt to manage without constant digital assistance.
I sincerely wonder about younger generations growing up with smartphones, an ever-present internet, GPS and, increasingly, AI.
When technology can think, write, calculate, navigate and answer on our behalf, what space do we leave for developing our own abilities?
Education systems are already responding in different ways: limiting screen use, restricting phones in some school settings and reconsidering approaches to learning.
I also find myself reflecting on accounts of technology leaders choosing to limit their own children’s screen use. Those individual accounts would need to be examined carefully before drawing broader conclusions. But the question they raise still matters to me: how do we decide what place these tools should have in our lives?
With AI agents, another dimension is opening up.
The change could be deeper still.
Depending on their design, permissions and the tools available to them, AI agents can assist with or automate tasks such as:
We can even imagine organisations in which artificial systems perform a large proportion of tasks, with much smaller human teams.
That is a possible scenario, rather than an inevitable future. Yet it raises a fundamental question:
Are we really ready to delegate everything? And, above all, why?
To save time? To move faster? To avoid effort? Or simply to follow a technological trend because we are afraid of being left behind?
We often hear a message along these lines:
“If you don’t get on board with AI now, you’ll be left behind.”
But as a computer engineer who has lived through successive technological changes, I find myself questioning this deeply.
Creating AI agents is becoming more accessible. The technology is impressive — fascinating, even. What interests me more, however, is what we may be giving up along the way.
What might happen to our capacity to think independently over the next ten or twenty years if we gradually outsource every intellectual task?
What could come next? Implants permanently connected to an artificial intelligence?
And is that necessarily what we mean by “evolution”?
Paradoxically, despite all this technology intended to make life easier, I feel I meet many people who are:
I have the impression that a divide is opening up.
On one side, constant acceleration.
On the other, a deep need to return to ourselves, to human connection, discernment and presence.
For me, this is where individual responsibility comes in.
We still have choices. We can allow technology to shape our habits without much reflection, or we can use it consciously.
We can choose to keep practising abilities that matter to us. To continue thinking for ourselves. To preserve our own inner individuality.
This is why the question has become central to my work.
Not because I want to reject technology. Nor because I want to live in nostalgia for a bygone age — although I admit I sometimes feel nostalgic.
My intention is to help people reconnect with a sense of inner clarity in a world saturated with demands, automation and noise.
Above all, I want to help preserve something I consider essential: our capacity to remain aligned, clear-sighted and deeply human as the world accelerates.
The more technology develops, the more the quality of our discernment matters.
Knowing how to use tools without handing over our capacity to think.
Knowing how to stay connected without becoming disconnected from ourselves.
Knowing how to move forward with technological progress without losing our own centre.
Perhaps the real challenge of the coming years will be profoundly human.
And perhaps that is why we need an inner compass more than ever.
A compass that helps us choose consciously what we want to preserve, develop or delegate.
What I like to call an “anti-chaos compass”.
This reflection connects directly with the Être à sa place method, which I developed to help people return to their centre, listen to their inner compass and act with discernment.
It is not a question of choosing between progress and humanity. It is about learning to use tools consciously, while remaining attentive to what truly matters to us.
To explore this approach further, you can discover my book Être à sa place or consider an individual session.
The book is available in French only.
Michaël Lallemand
