"Why Choosing the Human Checker is an Act of Resistance"

Self-checkout promised convenience. What it delivered was unpaid labor, eliminated jobs, and one less moment of human contact in your day.
Every time you scan your own groceries, you're making a choice about what kind of world you want to live in. It might feel like efficiency, but it's actually a trade: speed for engagement, autonomy for connection, frictionless transactions for the unpredictable beauty of human encounter.

This isn't about being anti-technology. It's about recognizing that every "solution" makes a claim about what matters and what doesn't. And maybe - just maybe - the brief exchange with a checker who makes eye contact and acknowledges you as a person is worth the extra 90 seconds.

Next time you're at the store and you have a choice, pause. Notice your default impulse. Are you actually in a rush, or have we all just been conditioned to see other people as friction?

Eric Anctil Keeps Evolving is a podcast about staying curious, grounded, and human in a fast-changing world. Each episode unpacks how humans and technology are actively reshaping each other—and what we can do about it.

-|- Keep Evolving with Eric -|-

If you like what you heard, stick around, this is just the start of the conversation about how to stay human in unreal times.

Listen & Subscribe: ericanctil.com

Watch the YouTube Channel: @DrEricAnctil

Join the Newsletter: ericanctil.substack.com

Say hello: eric@ericanctil.com

Guiding real people through unreal times.

Eric Anctil Keeps Evolving is a podcast about staying curious, grounded, and human in a fast-changing world. Each episode unpacks how humans and technology are actively reshaping each other—and what we can do about it.

-|- Keep Evolving with Eric -|-

If you like what you heard, stick around, this is just the start of the conversation about how to stay human in unreal times.

Listen & Subscribe: ericanctil.com

Watch the YouTube Channel: @DrEricAnctil

Join the Newsletter: ericanctil.substack.com

Say hello: eric@ericanctil.com

Guiding real people through unreal times.

What happens when the technology you trust on stage… crashes and burns?

After months of preparation for a major lecture, Eric invited ChatGPT to co-present—and it completely blew it. In this episode, Eric unpacks the failure, the illusion of AI “memory,” and what it reveals about our growing dependence on digital co-thinkers.

It’s part reflection, part confession, and a surprisingly human story about trust, technology, and the limits of artificial intelligence.

Eric Anctil Keeps Evolving is a podcast about staying curious, grounded, and human in a fast-changing world. Each episode unpacks how humans and technology are actively reshaping each other—and what we can do about it.

-|- Keep Evolving with Eric -|-

If you like what you heard, stick around, this is just the start of the conversation about how to stay human in unreal times.

Listen & Subscribe: ericanctil.com

Watch the YouTube Channel: @DrEricAnctil

Join the Newsletter: ericanctil.substack.com

Say hello: eric@ericanctil.com

Guiding real people through unreal times.

When did life start feeling like an unfinished software release? For professor Eric Anctil, it began around 2016—when the world went a little sideways—and since then, we’ve all been living in beta.

This episode explores what it means to exist in a state of constant testing and updating, where nothing ever feels complete and the pressure to keep adapting never stops. Eric digs into how rapid technological, social, and political change has left us feeling unstable and uncertain—and how we might reclaim a sense of balance in a world that seems permanently under construction.

Eric Anctil Keeps Evolving is a podcast about staying curious, grounded, and human in a fast-changing world. Each episode unpacks how humans and technology are actively reshaping each other—and what we can do about it.

Extended Episode Notes

When did the world start to feel so unstable, so unfinished, so… weird? For Eric Anctil, it began somewhere around 2016 when the headlines got strange, our heroes started disappearing, and technology accelerated faster than any of us could process. Since then, it’s felt like we’ve all been living in beta and testing life as we go, waiting for a “final release” that never comes.

In this episode, Eric unpacks what it means to live in a constant state of testing and adaptation, emotionally, socially, and technologically. From the way our phones train us to update ourselves, to how politics and algorithms feed on uncertainty, we’re all trying to make sense of a world that feels perpetually unstable.

But there’s hope here too. Because if we are all beta testers for life right now, maybe that means we can rewrite the code together and rethink how we live, learn, connect, and evolve in the middle of it all.

Topics explored in this episode:

• The rise of “beta life” and why everything feels unfinished

• How technological change pressures us to constantly adapt

• The emotional toll of living in permanent transition

• Why “staying human” is both a challenge and a choice

• What it means to evolve with technology without losing yourself

Eric Anctil Keeps Evolving is a podcast about staying curious, grounded, and human in a fast-changing world. Each episode unpacks how humans and technology are actively reshaping each other—and what we can do about it.

-|- Keep Evolving with Eric -|-

If you like what you heard, stick around, this is just the start of the conversation about how to stay human in unreal times.

Listen & Subscribe: ericanctil.com

Watch the YouTube Channel: @DrEricAnctil

Join the Newsletter: ericanctil.substack.com

Say hello: eric@ericanctil.com

Guiding real people through unreal times.