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How Does Humanity Remain Relevant in the Age of AI?
Irrelevance is worse than exploitation. We need to see our place in the future.
Throughout human history science and technology has been at odds with humanity. From the early church unwilling to conceive of anything other than the Earth at the centre of the universe to Luddites smashing looms, discovery and invention has not always been embraced with enthusiasm. In truth major industrial turnovers have often created as many jobs as they have destroyed, offering new opportunities for workers. The Industrial Revolution saw many farm labourers out of work, so they moved to centres of population and our cities grew. Labour movements grew into unions which in turn influenced politics.
With the hindsight of history we can see that eventually people accept the new normal and the majority benefits from it. Despite these upheavals, at the centre of it all was still the human story. Throughout the collective history of Homo Sapiens, we have found meaning through our place in society. From tribal hunters to industrial workers even if times were hard and food was scarce, work in whatever form it took provided structure and meaning to existence. Humans do not exist solely to toil though. Alongside workers arose writers and artists and engineers, people who created new things or added to culture. It could be argued that the meaning of human…
