There’s been a lot of conversation about the existential risks posed by AI. Some of it is warranted. We should think about worst-case scenarios. We should pressure-test what could go wrong. We should think seriously about alignment, control, incentives, concentration of power, and what happens when systems become more capable than the people using them.
But there’s something about the conversation that bothers me. We spend a lot of time imagining what AI might become. We spend far less time imagining what humans might become because of it.
Why?
Why do so many future scenarios assume AI keeps getting more capable while humans just stand there? Humans don’t do that. Humans are hard to kill. Of course, there are things that could wipe us out. An asteroid. All-out nuclear war. Something catastrophic enough that adaptability no longer matters.
But short of that?
I wouldn’t bet against us.
Humans are adaptable. Ingenious. Curious. Resilient. Unfortunately, some of our best qualities tend to show up when our backs are against the wall. We have a pretty good track record of getting ourselves into trouble and then innovating our way out of it.
That doesn’t mean we always make good decisions. We clearly don’t. It means we respond. That’s why I’m bullish on humans.
We’ve done this before
Humans have always resisted technology. Electricity. Telecommunications. The internet. Pick almost any general-purpose technology, and you’ll find people who believed it would destroy jobs, culture, relationships, attention, society, or some essential part of being human.
Sometimes they were right. Technology destroys things. It changes behaviors. Kills industries. Creates new problems. Makes some skills irrelevant. But that’s not the whole story. Humans change too. We adapt. We reorganize. We develop new skills. We create new industries. We figure out new ways to create value.
This is the part I think gets missed. Technology doesn’t change in isolation. We change with it.
We’re asking the wrong question
Much of the AI conversation is framed as a competition. What can AI do better than humans? When will AI become smarter than us? What happens when it can do most intellectual work?
Fine. Those are useful questions. But I think there’s a better one:
What can we accomplish now that we couldn’t before because we have this capability at our disposal?
That’s much more interesting to me.
I don’t primarily see AI as something that replaces human capability. I see it as something that extends it.
When I encounter a new capability, I get excited. Blank page. What can I build now? What can I try? What was too expensive before? Too difficult? Too slow? Completely impractical?
That’s where my mind goes. Not: “What happens when this replaces me?” More like: “What can I do now that I couldn’t do yesterday?”
There’s a huge difference between those two mindsets.
Intelligence isn’t everything
Another assumption is buried inside a lot of AI doom. That intelligence is what makes humans valuable. So if AI becomes more intelligent than us, then what? I don’t buy that.
Intelligence matters. A lot. But it doesn’t determine direction. It doesn’t determine what is worth pursuing. It doesn’t decide what kind of future we should create. It doesn’t tell us what deserves our attention.
There are other things that matter. Empathy. Judgment. Taste. Creativity. Imagination. Curiosity. Critical thinking. Agency.
And some of those are already scarce. Taste is scarce. Critical thinking is scarce. Curiosity is really scarce. Most people copy. That isn’t curiosity. Curiosity is pushing boundaries. It’s acting like you don’t know a damn thing. It’s approaching something with a beginner’s mind when everyone around you has already decided they understand it.
AI might make intelligence abundant. That doesn’t mean judgment becomes abundant. Or taste. Or curiosity. Or agency. If anything, those may become more valuable.
Agency matters even more now
Choosing what to pursue has always mattered. That won’t change. What is changing is the leverage available to the person doing the choosing. Someone with agency now has access to capabilities that, not that long ago, would have required teams, money, specialists, or years of experience.
That person just became more powerful.
Someone without agency? They can become more dependent. More passive. More willing to let the machine decide.
That’s what concerns me most.
Who is driving? Humans should be in the driver’s seat. If we’re not careful, AI can start determining our objectives for us. What we consume. What we pay attention to. What we create. What we value. What we pursue. You can already see versions of this happening.
So the answer isn’t to reject AI. It’s to exercise more agency. Use it. Shape it. Decide where you’re going before asking it for directions.
Technology changes us too
When I ran Netek, my affective computing startup, we worked on technology that could understand human emotion. Something interesting happened. We became more empathetic. We spent so much time thinking about emotion, testing for it, observing it, trying to understand what people were feeling, that we became more aware ourselves.
The technology was supposed to become better at understanding humans. But the humans using it changed too. That stayed with me.
So when people ask whether AI will make us less human, I think there’s another possibility worth considering. What if it makes us more aware of what actually makes us human? If machines become better at analysis, maybe judgment matters more. If machines can generate endless content, maybe taste matters more. If machines can simulate interaction, maybe genuine empathy matters more. If machines can answer almost anything, maybe asking better questions matters more.
Technology doesn’t just replace capability. Sometimes it forces us to develop the things we neglected.
The problem with worst-case thinking
I don’t think we should dismiss existential risk. That would be stupid. But I also think humans love drama. Drama sells. A machine turns against humanity and destroys civilization? Easy to visualize. Slow-moving problems with massive consequences? Much harder.
Climate change is a good example. The scale is enormous, but it doesn’t always produce the same kind of cinematic narrative. Our brains like stories. Especially dramatic ones. The problem is when one story becomes the story. When the worst-case scenario becomes the default future.
That’s when we start treating the future as something that happens to us. I don’t believe that.
Don’t let it
What if AI becomes better than us at many intellectual tasks? Learn how to use it. What if certain human skills become less valuable? Develop others. What if AI makes some people feel irrelevant? Don’t let it. Do something about it.
Humans have this strange belief that we need to be omnipotent to matter. We don’t. I’m confident there are things in the universe more capable than we are. Maybe even intelligent life far beyond us. So what?
Our value was never dependent on being the most powerful thing that exists. The point isn’t to prove humans will always beat machines. The point is to decide what kind of humans we want to become. That’s what I think is missing from a lot of the AI conversation.
We imagine AI changing dramatically. But humans? Apparently we stay frozen in place. I don’t buy it. We adapt. We learn. We fight. We create. We invent. We reorganize. And when our backs are against the wall, sometimes we become much more capable than anyone expected.
I’m bullish on humans because I think our best is still ahead of us. We have the vision, ambition, curiosity, and desire to create a better future for ourselves and the generations that come after us.
The mistake we make when imagining an AI future is thinking about the worst-case scenario and believing it is the only scenario. It isn’t. The future won’t be determined only by how capable AI becomes. It’ll also be determined by what we decide to do with it.
We’ve always had the power to create new worlds. That’s what we have to do. We have to be shapers. That’s why I’m bullish on humans.
