"Come for the code and stay for the community" — that's a phrase that runs deep in the Drupal psyche. It's what pulled me in over 20yrs ago. It might be the same for you. But why is that? It's because yes, tools and the things that we can build with them are fun, but we need more than that. As humans, we need purpose, community, and accomplishment.

For the last few decades the technology that we’ve built has been stark and heartless. While we’ve learned how to craft websites that harness colour, and media to hint at emotions, we’ve only been able to achieve limited success. We’ve done the best that we could with the tools that we had available, but real human experience runs deeper: hope, fear, belonging, curiosity, uncertainty, and so much more. With AI we now have a tool that, if we use it well, is capable of responding to people as people—not just as “users”.

We need to expand our perceptions of what a web site could be. Rather than just creating websites that show lists of stuff (and leaving the bulk of the effort on the user), let’s envision interfaces that can help create deeper engagement and deeper interaction than what a simple “card grid” can accomplish.