Staying Human and Creatively Grounded in a Time of Hyper-AI Acceleration 

By Andy Murray, Executive Chairman and Founder

Lately, I’ve found myself returning to two very different thinkers: René Girard, a literary theorist who explored the dangers of imitation and unfettered innovation, and Bret Weinstein, an evolutionary biologist warning about the mismatch between modern life and ancient instincts. 
 
Neither one wrote directly about artificial intelligence. But together, their work has helped me see the human consequences of accelerated innovation. 
 
Their core questions have been helping me ask my own: 
- What does it mean to desire, to learn, to grow in a world shaped by algorithms? 
- Are we adapting to innovation or are slowly being unmade by it? 
- Will our tools sharpen us—or soften us?  

The Seduction of Speed 
Weinstein points to a subtle but potent threat: When things get easier and faster than we evolve, danger hides in delight. 
 
One of his clearest examples is the grocery store. We’ve brilliantly engineered shelf-stable, hyper-palatable foods: salt, sugar, fat optimized to hit our evolutionary pleasure centers. But our biology hasn’t caught up. The result? A slow-motion public health disaster: obesity, diabetes, chronic illness. 
 
We made food easier—but not better. 
 
Apply that same lens to learning. AI can now write, summarize, ideate, and code. It can ace standardized tests. It can do what used to require intellectual friction—hours of reading, failing, revising, reworking—in a fraction of the time. 
 
But in removing the struggle, do we also remove the learning? 
 
- If thinking becomes passive, what happens to personal mastery? 
- If we outsource reasoning, will our critical faculties wither? 
- If AI solves for speed, will we mistake that for wisdom? 
 
This is not a call to resist the tools. I’m all for speed and augmentation. But we must ask: What is being eroded beneath the surface? 

Sometimes it’s not the task that matters. It’s what the task requires of us that shapes character. 

Girard's Warning: Innovation Needs a Frame 
René Girard saw imitation as foundational. We imitate each other’s desires. That’s how culture spreads—but also how it collapses. When too many people chase the same signals, competition escalates, distinctions vanish, and societies fracture. 
 
To avoid collapse, Girard believed societies developed rituals of repetition: ceremonies, stories, constraints. These weren’t anti-innovation—they were its scaffolding. They helped communities metabolize novelty without being consumed by it. 
 
Today, AI and technological acceleration are breaking down that scaffolding. The pace of change exceeds our capacity for integration. We’re innovating faster than we’re reflecting. And that’s the real risk. 

So What Do We Do with This? 
We need a new relationship with innovation—one that respects the biological, emotional, and mimetic limits of being human. 
 
1. Recover the Value in Struggle 
Learning isn’t just about getting the right answer. It’s about confronting the unknown and wrestling with it. Friction builds cognitive muscle. AI may reduce the friction—but we should still design spaces where human thinking has to stretch. 
 
2. Constraint for Depth 
Weinstein reminds us that evolution thrives on limits. In work, education, and leadership, we need to value constraint as a crucible—not a cage. Timeboxes, manual processes, and hard problems are how mastery is forged.  
 
3. Ask Harder Questions 
We often ask, “Will AI make us faster?” The better question is, “Will it make us wiser?” 
Or even more pointedly, “Will we still know how to think when we no longer have to?” 

Innovation, on its own, is indifferent. It expands possibilities, but it doesn’t choose the path. That’s still up to us. The real opportunity isn’t to outrun the future—it’s to meet it more consciously. 
 
We can’t outsource the deep work of being human. 
We can’t automate understanding. 
And we can’t confuse speed with meaning. 
 
Girard and Weinstein both remind us that the most dangerous transformations are not the ones we invent but the ones we stop questioning. 

In fact, I just returned from the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. What struck me most wasn’t the rows of technology vendors, media platforms, or AI demos strung along the Croisette. It was what happened inside the Palais—the work. 

The best entries, the Gold Lions, and the ones that truly resonated weren’t celebrations of innovation for its own sake. They were manifestations of deeply human truths. Insights about who we are, what we long for, what makes us laugh, what makes us cry—and crucially, what connects us to brands in ways that feel timeless—, not just timely. 

These campaigns weren’t just faster or more efficient; they were wiser. The teams behind them asked better questions. Not “How can we use GenAI?” or “What’s trending?” but “What truly matters to people—and how do we honor that through creativity?” 

In an age of acceleration, this is our challenge and our opportunity—to use technology not to mimic what’s already been done, but to find new dig sites of relevance and connection. To amplify the imperfect, the humorous, the human. Because if the future belongs to those who move people, then we will need to be more human—not less. 

References 

1. Girard, René. Deceit, Desire, and the Novel. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1965.
2. Girard, René. Violence and the Sacred. Continuum, 1972.
3. Girard, René. The Scapegoat. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986.
4. Girard, René. “Innovation and Repetition.” Substance, vol. 19, no. 2/3, 1990, pp. 7–20.
5. Weinstein, Bret, and Heather Heying. A Hunter-Gatherer's Guide to the 21st Century. Penguin Random House, 2021.
6. Weinstein, Bret. Various podcast appearances, including The DarkHorse Podcast, 2020–2024.

About the Author  

Andy Murray is a highly accomplished executive in the retail and consumer packaged goods industries with over 30 years of experience working in some of the largest corporations, including P&G, Walmart, and Asda. With his expertise in global trends, marketing, and customer-centric transformation, Andy is a valuable strategic advisor and mentor to Saatchi X and Publicis Commerce.