Raluca Maria

I see the same thing repeated in my work: anxiety, burnout, a deep sense of "I can't go on like this." People who have everything (or seem to) and are empty inside. I've been there. That's what made me change direction. I believe many of us have become profoundly disconnected from what we truly feel. What's inside speaks to us, but we've learned to move away from what we feel. And now we live in a world of emperors whose beautifully tailored clothes show everyone just how empty we've become...

I look at how we treat one another, and I recognize — not without a certain discomfort — that what bothers me in others, I find in myself too. And then comes the question that won't leave me alone: how do we end up behaving in ways that contradict who we believe we are? We polarize quickly. There are those who take up the other person's space too, often without realizing it. And there are those who withdraw, who make room, who would rather disappear, avoid, than occupy. I've been in both...

Since AI came along, I've gone through several phases, just like everyone else: from enthusiasm, to testing its limits, to testing my own limits, to worry, to questions. I was fascinated by how much I could learn, but it also made me wonder about the enormous energy costs and the responsibility around user confidentiality. As an observer of both internal and external processes, I noticed a pattern that keeps repeating itself: the race to implement something new as fast as possible. FOMO. I've...