The Bowl and the Machine

From building AI to studying ancient sound: exploring what makes us human in an accelerating world.

Lauren Berkowitz · Oct 8, 2025

I've spent my career at the edge of technology, from digital music to cloud computing, AI and memory storage. I've built products, shaped strategy, and helped drive transformations that have redefined industries.

A health scare recently forced me to pause. I realized I was stretched thin, overstimulated and disconnected -- from people, and from myself. In trying to reset, I ended up back where my career began: music. Or rather, sound. Not the produced tracks from my Sony and EMI days with artists like Beyonce and Coldplay, but ancient sounds, made from Tibetan and crystal bowls and Ohms. Vibrations that you feel as much as you hear. At first it was therapy. Then curiosity took over.

Studying how frequencies and materials affect our brains, I saw the same kind of system thinking I've used in tech, but aimed at restoring presence instead of extracting productivity.

The more advanced the machine becomes, the more clearly our humanness stands out, and the more opportunities we have to explore each other and ourselves. I believe this will be one of the true gifts technology brings us over the coming decade.

I still work in technology. This reflection isn't about stepping away from that world. It's about understanding it more deeply, and exploring how humans can thrive within it.

That's why I started Ctrl Alt Human, as a personal reflection on what it means to be human in a world dominated by technological advances.