7/30/2026
Yesterday I was talking with another grandparent about our newborn grandson and the future of higher education.
With the rapid development of artificial intelligence, it's difficult to imagine what education will look like twenty years from now. AI is becoming increasingly capable while it costs only a fraction of human labor. Some people even wonder whether AI will eventually replace many human teachers.
As I looked at my tiny grandson, however, another thought touched me.
No matter how advanced AI becomes, what a baby needs most during the first years of his life is still human attachment—the warmth and feeling of being held, spoken to, comforted, encouraged, protected and loved.
That thought reminded me of a new expression that has become popular on Chinese social media: 活人感 (huórén gǎn).
Literally, 活人 means "a living person," and 感 means a feeling or sense.
It describes someone who feels genuinely human—authentic, emotional, unpretentious, and refreshingly real. Such a person doesn't sound scripted or mechanically polite. They have quirks, imperfections, spontaneous reactions, and genuine emotions.
Interestingly, calling someone "very有活人感" has become one of the highest compliments on the Chinese internet.
The expression says something about our times.
Many people feel that AI-generated writing is impeccably organized, endlessly polite, grammatically correct, and highly predictable. Social media has also encouraged carefully curated online personas. Against this backdrop, someone who simply feels like authentic human stands out.
What intrigues me most is the irony.
For centuries, people admired perfection. Today, one of the highest compliments is to say that someone simply feels human who is not perfect.
Is it because the perfection of AI makes us appreciate the imperfections of human beings even more?
Or is it because, in the age of AI, authenticity has become increasingly rare? People naturally value what is rare, just as they treasure pandas.
Or perhaps the answer is even simpler. Unlike AI, we are emotional beings. However much we strive for perfection, we still want to remain authentically ourselves.
Our occasional hesitation, spontaneous laughter, genuine curiosity, emotional warmth, human attachments and even our flaws remind others that there is a real person behind the words.
And perhaps that is the enduring lesson for my grandson.
No matter how intelligent and error-free AI becomes, the qualities that shape a meaningful life—and meaningful relationships—will still be profoundly human.
