Opinion | 6 reasons to stop seeing AI as a threat
- Far from replacing humanity, artificial intelligence could elevate the human condition by helping us comprehend, explain and shape our world
- From discovering new cures to mitigating climate change, AI-driven research can help us unlock a new era of human flourishing
To that end, I propose six maxims. The first is a famous quip attributed to the Carthaginian general Hannibal: “I shall either find a way or make one.” AI can help us find paths that we couldn’t see before. It can help us make new ones through the force of human creativity. Tools like ChatGPT, Copilot and Pi are trained on material by and about people. Far from replacing us, they extend us.
Imagine finding a previously indiscernible thread of insight that runs through Caravaggio, Rousseau and Vivaldi; or a thread tying together the ingredients you just happen to have in your kitchen. A vast collection of human creation and past contributions hangs before us like an expanding tapestry. We now have the tools to do more with it than any previous generation ever could.
The second maxim is: “We are symbols, and inhabit symbols”. That is how Ralph Waldo Emerson described our use of language to comprehend, explain and shape the world. Humans have always relied on tools. That is what symbols are. They enable us to create things that did not exist before. Consider the griffin, with the head and wings of an eagle and the body of a lion. It is a human creation that reflects some reality we want to see in the world.
True, many imaginative creations – from Mary Shelley’s monster in Frankenstein to James Cameron’s killer cyborg in Terminator – are meant to be cautionary. We naturally feel fear when initially encountering “the other”. But the griffin reminds us we can convert fear into a sense of majestic possibility.
The third maxim is to build cathedrals, as these ennoble our efforts and turn mere groupings of humanity into fellowships. Actual cathedrals are some of humankind’s most awe-inspiring creations.
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