Remembering the Human: What Anthropology Teaches Us in the Age of AI

AI may be learning fast, but human emotion hasn’t changed in 50,000 years.

And that’s still what drives every decision, every brand, every story. We’re living in the fastest age of technological change in human history. Every day brings a new promise of efficiency, prediction, and automation.

And yet, every day when I listen to people, hear their stories, and observe their lives, I’m reminded of something beautifully simple yet profound: we haven’t evolved as quickly as our technology. Our core emotions of love, fear, belonging, joy, envy, and safety are almost identical to those felt by our ancestors thousands of years ago.

The tools around us have changed. The architecture of feeling has not. Anthropology teaches us this. We are cultural beings, but we are also biological ones.

Yuval Noah Harari reminds us that “biologically, we are still the same animals who lived thousands of years ago.” When I observe teenagers gaming, I’m reminded that if anthropology and technology were in sync, they’d have longer thumbs!

Paul Ekman showed that our facial expressions for happiness, sadness, fear, and anger are universal. Even subtle cues, like a smile or a look of surprise, can reveal what resonates, connects, or moves people beyond what words alone can capture.

Robin Dunbar proved our capacity for relationships hasn’t expanded, even as our digital circles have. Daniel Kahneman and Antonio Damasio demonstrated that emotion, not logic, drives decision-making and that without emotion, we don’t decide well at all.

Our work is rooted in this truth. We spend our days engaging with people in their homes, online communities, and cultural spaces, watching how they navigate identity, connection, and self-worth.

A teenager doom-scrolling TikTok isn’t chasing trends, he’s seeking belonging and a sense that he fits in. A new mom posting her baby’s schedule isn’t looking for advice, she’s longing for validation. Sharing a photo of a bowl of Häagen-Dazs isn’t about attention. It’s a way of marking a small moment of comfort.

Technology amplifies these expressions. It surfaces, shares, and broadcasts them, but it doesn’t replace their origin. The human condition remains the same: our desire to connect, to feel seen, and to be loved.

Advertising and marketing, at their best, understand this. They don’t just inform; they move.

Les Binet and Peter Field’s research shows that emotional advertising drives growth far more effectively than rational messages. Byron Sharp reminds us that emotion builds the memory structures that make brands grow.

You may agree that the potential danger in an age of automation isn’t that machines will outthink us. It’s that we’ll start trying to think like them - optimizing, predicting, and reducing complexity, rather than valuing the messy, nuanced ways people think and feel.

So perhaps this is the moment to pause and to remember that our audiences are still human. Beneath every data point is a person. Beneath every purchase, a feeling. We must use technology to listen better, not to feel less. Let’s design for empathy, not just for engagement.

We can’t code away our humanity. We can only understand it more deeply, and that’s what will make the next chapter of marketing genuinely intelligent and incredibly exciting. I’m in. Are you?

References

Harari, Yuval Noah. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. London:
Harvill Secker, 2014.

Ekman, Paul. Emotions Revealed: Recognizing Faces and Feelings to Improve Communication and Emotional Life. New York: Times Books, 2003.

Dunbar, Robin. Grooming, Gossip, and the Evolution of Language. London: Faber and Faber, 1996.

Damasio, Antonio. Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain. New York: Putnam, 1994.

Kahneman, Daniel. Thinking, Fast and Slow. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011.

Binet, Les, and Peter Field. The Long and the Short of It: Balancing Short and Long-Term Marketing Strategies. London: IPA, 2013.

Sharp, Byron. How Brands Grow: What Marketers Don’t Know. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.

Harris, Tristan, Center for Humane Technology. The Social Dilemma [Documentary]. Netflix, 2020.