Why Machines Will Never Understand Us
The Line AI Can’t Cross
The one thing AI will never truly be able to replicate is the human perspective.
Unless we somehow find a way to digitise the entirety of our being – our thoughts, our emotions, our memories, and our physical bodies – there will always be a gap.
A machine might be able to simulate patterns, predict responses, or mimic behaviour, but it can never understand what it means to be human.
And even among humans, that kind of understanding is impossible.
We can relate to each other, we can empathise, we can listen with care – but we will never fully know what it’s like to be someone else. One person's pain can’t be compared to another’s. The meaning we assign to any experience is shaped not just by what we’ve lived through, but by the body we live in.
We’re physically programmed differently – right down to our DNA. And even if it were possible for two people to have the exact same genetic code, their lives would still shape them in entirely different ways. No two people experience the exact same things.
This matters, because it sets a hard boundary for what machines can ever truly know.
No matter how advanced AI becomes, it will always depend on us to describe what something means. But the truth is, there’s no language – spoken, written, or measured – that can fully capture what we’re experiencing. Words come close. Signals can point in a direction.
But the actual feeling? The inner weight of a moment, the complexity of how it hits you – that lives inside us. And it can’t be transferred.
Take something as simple as evaluating a customer journey. A machine can track drop-offs, measure clicks, parse sentiment. But it doesn’t know what it feels like to be confused, or disappointed, or unexpectedly delighted. It can recognise the signals, but it can’t feel the experience. That’s the line it can’t cross.
As we bring AI deeper into how we build, design, and decide, this isn’t a flaw to solve. It’s a boundary to acknowledge. Machines don’t understand people. And truthfully, most people can barely understand each other. That’s the reality we’re working with.