The Doorman Fallacy of AI

~ When efficiency quietly replaces connection ~

Yesterday, I came across an Instagram reel that introduced me to something called the Doorman Fallacy. The example was simple. Imagine a luxury hotel deciding to reduce costs. Management looks at the doorman standing near the entrance and thinks: "His job is just to open the door."

 

So they replace him with an automatic sliding door. On paper, it looks like a smart decision.

•  The door opens automatically.
• No salary.
• No breaks.
• No complaints.
• Technology wins.

Or does it?

What management failed to see was that the doorman's real job was never opening the door.

• He greeted guests by name.
• He smiled at tired travellers after a long journey.
• He recognized regular visitors.
• He helped carry luggage.
• He hailed taxis.
• He quietly provided security.
• Most importantly, he created a feeling. A feeling that someone was happy to see you.

 

The automatic door could open. But it could never welcome. And somewhere along the way, guests stopped feeling connected to the place. The hotel had optimized a process but accidentally removed an experience. That reel stayed in my mind longer than expected because it reminded me of something happening around us today.

 

AI.

 

For the last two years, AI has been everywhere.

•      Emails.
•      Presentations.
•      Social media posts.
•      Messages.
•      Even simple greetings

At one point, it felt like every sentence needed AI's approval before being sent. I was doing it too.

Need an email? Ask AI.

Need a LinkedIn post? Ask AI.

Need a message that sounds professional? Ask AI.

Everything became faster. Everything became polished. Everything became grammatically perfect. Yet something felt strange. The more polished the words became, the less they sounded like me.

 

That's when I realized something. AI had quietly become my auto-correct. Now, auto-correct is incredibly useful. When you accidentally type "teh" instead of "the," it saves you. When you're in a hurry, it catches mistakes. But imagine if auto-correct started rewriting every sentence, changing every emotion, replacing every phrase with what it thought sounded better.

 

Eventually, the message would be correct. But it wouldn't be yours. That's the boundary I've started thinking about.

• Technology should correct my spelling.  It shouldn't replace my voice.
•  Technology should help me organize ideas. It shouldn't decide what I feel.
• Technology should save time. It shouldn't remove humanity.

 

The problem isn't AI. Just like the problem wasn't the automatic door. The problem begins when we mistake a tool for the entire experience.

• An automatic door can open an entrance. A doorman creates a welcome.
• AI can generate words. A human creates connection.

 

Today, I still use technology. I use AI to brainstorm. I use it to learn. I use it when I genuinely need assistance. But whenever I write something personal, something meaningful, or something that carries my own experiences, I try to switch off the auto-correct in my mind and let my own voice speak first.

 

Because people rarely remember perfectly optimized sentences. They remember sincerity. They remember imperfections. They remember the human behind the words. And maybe that's the lesson hidden inside the Doorman Fallacy. Not everything that can be automated should be. Some things are valuable precisely because they are human. Just like a hotel entrance isn't really about opening a door, communication isn't really about producing words.

 

It's about making someone feel welcomed on the other side. And no matter how advanced technology becomes, that human touch should never be auto-corrected away.

 

🧾 “Some roles do more than the task they perform.”

🎰‍️ AI can generate words. Humans give them meaning.

🖋️ Until next line of code…