The counter-movement nobody saw coming
For three years, we've been talking about everything AI does in our place. Dystopian articles abound: massive disruption, job replacement, the end of human art, the death of conversation, emotional dependency, loss of cognitive skills. We ourselves, at Alyriaz, have devoted several articles to these dimensions, such as our analysis of the disruption of graphic designers or our study of AI companions. These concerns are legitimate and documented.
But there is a parallel movement that no media outlet really digs into. While AI takes over the calculable, productive, optimisable tasks, something else is happening. Print book sales are picking up again in France and Germany after decades of decline. Vinyl has overtaken CDs in the United States for the first time since 1987. Mountain hiking is hitting record visitor numbers. Pottery, sewing and woodworking workshops are filling up. Cafés where people take the time to talk are coming back. Pilgrimages are booming (the Camino de Santiago welcomes 500,000 walkers a year, against 65,000 in 2000).
Coincidence? Probably not. Here is a hypothesis we should at least explore: the better AI becomes at the quantifiable, the more we seek out what isn't. The more everything becomes instantaneous, the more we value what takes time. The more the virtual saturates our daily lives, the more we are drawn to what is physical. This article is an exploration of that silent counter-movement, and of what it might mean.
Why this counter-movement is coherent
To understand what is happening, we have to accept a simple idea. The more dominant a technology becomes, the more it highlights by contrast what it does not do. The car made walking more precious as a wellbeing activity. Photography made oil painting more prestigious as an art. Emails made handwritten letters precious for important occasions. Podcasts enhanced the value of live talks.
This mechanism is old and well documented by sociologists of culture. With every technological revolution, what becomes rare gains value. With every saturation, we look for contrast. This is probably what is happening with AI, but on an unprecedented scale: because AI covers far more domains simultaneously than any previous technology.
A few converging data points. Print book sales in France rose by +2.3% in 2024 according to Livres Hebdo. Vinyl accounted for 71% of physical music sales in the United States in 2024 according to the RIAA. Experiential tourism (local crafts, gastronomy, hiking) has been growing by 10 to 15% a year since 2022 according to the UNWTO. Enrolments in manual workshops (pottery, sewing, woodworking) tripled in France between 2020 and 2025. Subscriptions to quality print magazines (Le Monde Diplomatique, La Croix Hebdo, Society) are rising against the tide of the press decline. Something is happening.
Five areas where the real is making a comeback
To make the hypothesis concrete, let us look at five specific areas where this movement can be observed.
Area 1: deep reading. For two decades, the death of the paper book was predicted. E-readers, ebooks, audiobooks, educational YouTube videos: everything seemed to be converging towards dematerialisation. And then, surprise. The paper book is holding its ground, and even gaining in some countries. Independent bookshops are multiplying in France (+15% between 2020 and 2025). Reading groups are booming. Subscriptions to long-form, in-depth media (Le Monde Diplomatique, The Atlantic, The New Yorker) are growing. Part of the younger generations is rediscovering the cognitive advantage of paper: you remember more, you concentrate better, you are not interrupted by notifications. At a time when AI can summarise any book in 30 seconds, actually reading a book becomes an almost subversive act. And a precious one.
Area 2: home cooking. For two decades, ready meals, home delivery and fast food kept gaining ground. And then, here too, a counter-movement. The market for cookery classes in France tripled between 2018 and 2025. Farmers' markets are returning to big cities. Fermentation, sourdough bread, home baking: all practices that young parents are actively rediscovering. Why? Because at a time when you can order a meal in 3 clicks, taking 3 hours to cook becomes an act that says something. An act of attention to taste, to health, to conviviality, to the time one chooses to spend.
Area 3: human relationships in person. Remote working was massively rolled out during the pandemic. And then, to many people's surprise, the majority of employees asked to return to the office at least a few days a week. Not out of obligation. Out of need. Crossing paths with real people, chatting at the coffee machine, having colleagues you see physically — that was missed. Likewise, cafés and restaurants are developing again, particularly in mid-sized French towns. The ritual of "having a coffee with someone" is regaining value. As we explored in our article on conversations with AI, loneliness is massive. The most powerful response is probably not technological: it is to rebuild settings for human encounters.
Area 4: manual and craft work. This may be the deepest transformation. Young adults who have been through higher education are massively retraining into manual trades: baking, cabinetmaking, plumbing, farming, brewing. The term "néo-paysan" describes this phenomenon in France: thirty-something professionals leaving Paris to settle in the countryside. Craft schools are full. The Compagnons du Devoir (a French organisation for apprenticeship in excellence in manual trades, dating back to the Middle Ages) are turning candidates away. And it is not out of failure: it is by choice. Many of these people spent 5 to 10 years in offices and realised they wanted something else. To make something with their hands. To see the tangible result. To have a finished product at the end of the day.
Domain 5: nature. France's national parks welcomed more than 12 million visitors in 2024, against 8 million in 2015. Mountain hiking is growing by 5 to 10% a year. Camping, considered naff in the 2010s, has become cool again. Wild bivouacking, pilgrimage routes, long treks: all practices that mean walking for hours without a phone. Why now? Probably because, at a time of digital saturation, we need to be reminded what a horizon is. That wind, cold, rain and silence exist. That the world is not just screens.
What this trend reveals about our deeper needs
If you look at these five movements together, they sketch out something. They reveal what humans need beyond what technology can give.
The need for the tangible. Our bodies evolved over hundreds of thousands of years to interact with a physical world. Kneading bread, walking in the forest, smelling a scent, seeing a sunset. When we spend 8 hours a day in front of a screen, that body protests silently. The counter-movement towards the tangible is not nostalgia: it is a physiological response.
The need for slowness. Our brains work on slow timescales. Learning, understanding deeply, absorbing an experience: that takes time. Instant gratification (having everything, right now) saturates but does not really nourish. The counter-movement towards slowness (reading a whole book, simmering a meal, travelling on foot) answers that forgotten need.
The need for effort. Part of human happiness comes from the feeling of having overcome a difficulty. Without effort, without resistance, we feel nothing. If everything becomes easy (and with AI, much of it does), we have to actively seek out challenges. Walking 800 km on the Camino de Santiago when you could have taken the TGV. Learning to make a piece of furniture when you could have ordered from Ikea. These voluntary choices of effort are ways of recovering that precious feeling.
The need for real community. Digital technology has multiplied pseudo-connections (followers, LinkedIn contacts, Facebook friends) while reducing real bonds. The counter-movement towards in-person communities (sports clubs, associations, neighbourhoods, parishes, coffee with friends) answers a need that technology has failed to meet. As we explored in our article on work and meaning, these dimensions become even more essential if work changes profoundly.
The need for a personal trace. Everything digital looks the same. But a piece of furniture you made yourself, a garden tended for 10 years, a family recipe passed down, an annotated book: all of that bears the mark of a person. This embodied singularity becomes more precious as duplicability increases.
In his book Shop Class as Soulcraft, the American philosopher Matthew Crawford (a former think-tank researcher who became a motorcycle mechanic by choice) defends a simple idea: "When someone does their own work, the result depends on their own efforts. It is a source of satisfaction that no salary can replace." At a time when AI does much of our intellectual work, this satisfaction of visible effort becomes a treasure.
The optimistic long-term hypothesis
If we extend these observations, we can formulate a broader hypothesis. What if AI, by taking over productive and reproducible tasks, paradoxically freed humans to do what makes them truly human?
Aristotle, in his Nicomachean Ethics in the 4th century BC, distinguished three types of human activity. Poiesis (functional production, such as making an object for a use). Praxis (action that has its end in itself, such as playing music for the beauty of the playing). And theoria (contemplation, the search for truth).
Over 200 years of industrialisation, humans were gradually reduced to productive poiesis. The worker was judged on what he produced, measured in hours and quantity. Praxis and theoria became incidental leisure activities, reserved for the rare privileged few who still had time for them.
AI could, paradoxically, reverse this movement. By taking charge of the majority of productive poiesis (which it already does very well), it frees up time and energy for praxis and theoria. And these two dimensions are precisely what humans cannot delegate to the machine: playing, creating for pleasure, contemplating, understanding, loving, developing.
This hypothesis is optimistic. It assumes that societies will make the political choices necessary to redistribute the gains in productivity, as we explored in our article on work. Without these choices, AI enriches those who own it and impoverishes those who are replaced by it. But with these choices, it could enable a human renaissance. Technology does not decide: we decide.
What this changes for you, concretely
Beyond the philosophical debate, what does this imply in 2026?
Actively cultivate what is non-transferable. AI can translate for you, but it cannot learn a foreign language in your place. AI can compose music, but it cannot give you the physical pleasure of playing an instrument. AI can write a book, but it cannot give you the feeling of having read it yourself. Identify these non-transferable dimensions of your life and invest in them actively.
Do not apologise for "unprofitable" activities. If you take 3 hours to cook a meal when Uber Eats would deliver it in 20 minutes, that is a choice that cannot be justified by efficiency. It is a choice of lifestyle, of attention, of presence. The more AI optimises, the more these deliberately non-optimal choices become an affirmation of what you want to be.
Invest in rituals. Sunday family dinner, morning coffee without a phone, the weekend walk, the birthday celebrated every year with the same people. These rituals that no notification can replace structure a human life and give it meaning. They are also what creates bonds and shared memory.
Learn a new manual skill every year. Not to become a pro, just for the pleasure of it. Learning to bake bread, to build a dry-stone wall, to sew a garment, to repair a bike, to prune a tree. Each of these skills anchors you in the physical world and gives you real autonomy.
Protect your attention. Our capacity for deep focus has become rare. It is precisely what sets us apart most from distracting machines. Protecting stretches of time without screens, without notifications, without interruptions is probably one of the most valuable investments anyone can make in 2026.
Do things in order to see them. Not to post them. That nuance is crucial. Cooking a meal to eat it, not to photograph it. Travelling to cross a place, not to make an Instagram story. Reading a book for what it does to you, not so you can say you have read it. The more AI can document and share everything, the more value the undocumented experience takes on.
The return of the long term
At bottom, what is happening may be this. For 200 years, we have been accelerating. The steam engine, the telegraph, the telephone, the internet, smartphones: at every stage, life became faster. AI is the ultimate acceleration: everything becomes instantaneous, everything becomes possible, everything becomes producible in a few seconds.
That acceleration has a limit. Humans are not machines. Our body, our brain, our emotions have a temporality of their own, biological, that no technology changes. A true friendship takes years to build. A deep skill takes 10,000 hours to master. Grief takes the time it takes. Love does not accelerate.
AI, by saturating the entire space of acceleration, paradoxically reminds us of the value of the long term. Not because we are nostalgic. Because we need it to exist truly as humans.
As we explored in our article on art and AI, what distinguishes a human work from an AI production is that the human put their skin, their time, their life into it. The more AI does in our place, the more precious what requires our presence becomes. Reading, walking, cooking, talking, creating, loving: so many gestures that cannot be delegated. And which constitute, perhaps, the essence of what living means.
The future will be neither total dystopia nor automatic paradise. It will probably be what we make of it. And if we make the right choices, AI could paradoxically become the occasion for a human rebirth. Not by chance. By contrast. Because by dint of having machines that do everything, we will finally remember what no one, ever, will be able to do in our place.
To go further, you can read our article on what we pass on to our children, which extends this reflection to the next generation, and our analysis of the 30-year scenarios, which places these issues in a longer-term vision. The question is not whether AI will transform our lives. It is deciding what we want to keep that is precious in that transformation. And that remains up to us.