From Super Mario to AI: Technology Changes, Connection Doesn’t
I still remember sitting with my brother in Cleveland and playing Super Mario for the first time. By today’s standards, the graphics were simple. But to us, it was unbelievable. We were controlling a character inside another world.
What stayed with me was not really the technology. It was experiencing it with my brother. The game captured our attention, but the bond is what I remember.
Growing up in the 1990s was different. Going to Blockbuster was an event. We did not carry cell phones. Connecting to AOL meant listening to those strange dial-up sounds and waiting what felt like ten minutes just to get online.
Then I left Cleveland to attend a religious boarding school in Milwaukee, and my world became much smaller.
It was a secluded and religiously restrictive environment. We had no technology and essentially no access to the outside world. My only connection to home was calling my parents from a payphone. We were not even allowed to put on headphones and listen to music.
There was nowhere to disappear into a screen or a pair of headphones. We had each other.
Because there was nothing else to do, I formed a close group of friends. We talked, spent time together, and created relationships that may never have developed in today’s world of constant distractions.
The environment was restrictive, but it shaped me.
Looking back, those experiences taught me the same lesson in completely different ways. Technology can bring people together, but sometimes its absence can do the same. Either way, the connection between people is what remains.
Today, artificial intelligence can do things I could never have imagined as a child. At Gamzeh Dental Group, we are partnering with Smile PreVue, which allows us to create an AI-generated simulation of what a patient’s smile could potentially look like after cosmetic treatment—in about 30 seconds.
But once again, the technology itself is not the most meaningful part.
The value is in the conversation it creates. A patient can look at the preview and tell us, “That is too white,” “I want something more natural,” or “That does not feel like me.” It gives patients a stronger voice and helps us understand what they truly want.
Of course, the preview is not a promise, diagnosis, or final treatment design. Honest clinical judgment and the patient’s health will always come first.
From playing Super Mario with my brother to forming friendships in a place almost completely disconnected from the outside world, I learned that technology matters most when it strengthens human connection.
That is how we intend to use it at Gamzeh Dental Group—not to replace conversations, relationships, or trust, but to deepen them.
The future will continue to change. I want to make sure the human connection is never lost along the way.
Dr. Liron Gamzeh
Founder & CEO, Gamzeh Dental Group