At the risk of stating the obvious, AI is absolutely everywhere lately. Theres AI in your car, AI in your messaging app, AI in your glasses. Ive gotten pretty desensitized to it all as a hazard of the job, but it was Spotifys AI DJ that actually got my attention.Ive listened to a top 40 radio station in the past two decades, so Im familiar with the concept of a robot picking music for me. In that context, an AI DJ doesnt seem like much of a stretch. But after using it on and off for a week, Im convinced its the perfect analogy for our AI-everything moment. Its eerily human, and it plays a lot of music I like. But take it from someone with access to a high-quality local indie radio station one that employs human DJs! there just aint nothing like the real thing.Spotifys AI DJ has been around since early 2023, but it piqued my interest recently when I was scrounging around the app looking for some work-friendly tunes. The AI voice greeted me by name, then after a little preamble, told me it had some dream pop and neo-psychedelic waves picked out. As the music started, I was annoyed at how extremely my shit it was. I shouldnt have been surprised, considering that Spotify has nearly a decades worth of data on my musical listening habits. It drew on my previous listening for the next track, too: a song by Classixx, whose Hanging Gardens album I listened to on repeat last year. But while I listened to Hanging Gardens on Spotify, I didnt discover it there. I heard it first on KEXP a local station where real humans pick the music.DJ X is represented by an animated green circle that moves as it talks.Do I want to listen to Santigold? Yeah, but its more meaningful coming from a human curator. See, here in Seattle, were extremely spoiled. In between the robot-programmed, conglomerate-owned stations, we have a real honest-to-god independent station on our radio dials: 90.3, to be precise. I started listening to KEXP through their online stream years before I moved to Seattle. Being a local has only made me more of a fan; I celebrated the opening of the new KEXP location in 2016 and saw one of my favorite bands play a free in-studio show there not long before they broke up. Ive logged countless hours working on my laptop in the community gathering space. Being able to walk into my favorite radio station and just like, hang out, remains cool as hell all these years later. I wish every city in the country had a KEXP.Its not that I like everything that I hear on KEXP. The Friday song is banned in my house because my husband and I are both so sick of it. And as much as Ive tried, I cant get into Wet Leg. Its a me problem. But thats kind of the point of a radio station, isnt it? You hear some stuff you like and some stuff youre not as into. Maybe you hear a song you forgot about but love or a band you dig that youve never heard before. Its a well-rounded meal, while an AI-curated set feels like a dessert buffet. Its all the stuff you love, and its great at first, but then it gives you a stomach ache after a while.It hits different than when it comes from an algorithmIn the era of Spotify algorithms and top 40 stations, a DJ might seem like an abstract concept. But KEXPs DJs are very much real people that I see out in the community, emceeing local music festivals and shopping at the co-op grocery store. Its an obvious but crucial difference. When a real human plays a song you really like because they really like it, too, it hits different than when it comes from an algorithm.Being on air and sharing music is a way of connection with thousands of people across the world, says Evie Stokes, DJ and host of KEXPs Drive Time. Its a great way for me to be honest and have accountability and community that I think we so desperately need.Her connection to the audience is built through and alongside the music; Stokes has shared her journey into sobriety with her listeners. Every time I talk about it on air I get an influx of messages from folks who are going through similar paths in their life. That connection simply cant exist when the only thing running the station is a robot.One of the downsides of being employed as a writer is that its basically impossible for me to listen to the radio while I work. I cant write to songs with lyrics, and I definitely cant write while a DJ is talking. So I turn to Spotify a lot during the workday, and Ive listened to plenty of lofi and smooth jazz beats playlists while blogging. Ive used another of Spotifys AI features, too: AI-created playlists. For the purpose, theyre fine. Best of all, theres no pretense that a human is picking the music for me. I tell the computer what mood Im in, and it assembles a playlist of tunes that fit the assignment.If nothing else, the AI DJ is a kind of totem of the particular AI moment were in. Generative AI is buzzy, and tech companies are busy shoving it into every corner of every product they make, whether it has any business being there or not. Theres plenty of stuff AI can do and probably will do for us in the near future. But standing in for a real human, especially in creative applications, isnt one of them. Take it from the Polish radio station that tried and failed spectacularly to replace its human presenters with AI characters.A podcast is just humans talking to each otherDoes anyone actually want an AI DJ calling them by name? Does anybody want an AI-generated DM from their favorite creator? Does anyone want to have a Zoom meeting with your AI avatar? Maybe, but I think the tech executives pushing for more of this stuff are vastly overestimating this demand and underestimating the value that a real human brings to an exchange. People want to listen to podcasts, for Christs sake. A podcast is just humans talking to each other. Conceptually, listening to a podcast is about as advanced as gathering round the radio for your favorite program like people did a hundred years ago. Some things are constants.On the day I started listening to the Spotify AI DJ, I got in the car that afternoon to pick my kid up from daycare. DJ Riz was hosting Drive Time on KEXP, and the first thing I heard him play was Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows by Lesley Gore, released in 1963. Its a bop thats as syrupy-sweet as the candy in its title. Riz followed that up with Love from Mos Defs 1999 album Black on Both Sides. Im sure I wouldnt have listened to either of those songs on my own that afternoon, let alone back to back. But it worked, and the juxtaposition made me smile. You just dont get that kind of thing from AI.