B
Benoît Kulesza
Guest
We have entered a new era.
I sometimes think of Jean-Jacques Annaud’s Quest for Fire. In the film, fire is not simply a tool. Mastering it fundamentally changes the human condition.
Artificial intelligence is creating a shift of the same magnitude, probably an even deeper one.
Fire increased our physical power. AI is directly increasing our cognitive power.
It already allows us to write, analyze, code, research, create, communicate and coordinate at a scale that would have required several people only a few years ago.
We are becoming augmented humans.
But not everyone has fully realized it yet.
Some still use AI as an improved search engine. Others are beginning to completely redesign the way they work around it.
And the gap is becoming enormous.
A single person can now have an execution capacity that once belonged to an entire team.
We are entering the age of giants.
The boldest will seize their share. There is an extraordinary window of opportunity today for those who understand this new power and learn how to use it.
But that window will evolve quickly.
Using AI will become normal. The advantage will no longer come from simply knowing how to talk to it. It will belong to those who have redesigned their work, their companies and sometimes their lives around what AI makes possible.
And this is precisely where a much more unsettling question emerges:
Is AI working for us, or are we beginning to work for AI?
We give it our knowledge, our methods, our reasoning and our processes.
We teach it to do more and more.
Then, gradually, we adapt the way we work to its capabilities.
AI does not even need to have a will of its own for the relationship to become inverted.
It is enough for us to start organizing our behavior around what it optimizes.
This is why the alignment problem is much bigger than an engineering problem.
Of course, we need to align artificial intelligence with human interests.
But we will also need to align the humans who are becoming extraordinarily powerful through it.
Because power does not bring wisdom.
It amplifies what is already there: intelligence as well as stupidity, generosity as well as greed, cooperation as well as violence.
The more powerful we become, the more important the question of purpose becomes.
And this may be precisely why philosophy, ethics and spirituality are about to regain a central place.
AI increases our power. It does not automatically increase our wisdom.
And the greater our power becomes, the more essential wisdom becomes.
If machines take on an increasing share of initiative, then our fundamental responsibility may be precisely the one they cannot exercise on our behalf: deciding what is worth pursuing, what we want to devote our power to and, ultimately, what we want to devote our lives to.
This is where I find the figure of Christ particularly powerful as a paradox.
At the very moment when humanity is seeking to expand its capacity for action almost without limit, Christianity places at the center of its story a figure whose ultimate power is expressed not through domination, but through giving himself.
What is power worth if we do not know what to devote it to?
The great question of the age of AI will therefore not simply be how far we can go.
It will be what we choose to put this power in service of.
We are entering the age of giants.
It is up to us to decide what kind of giants we want to become.
And perhaps it is worth hearing again today the famous words often attributed to André Malraux:
“The third millennium will be spiritual, or it will not be.”
I sometimes think of Jean-Jacques Annaud’s Quest for Fire. In the film, fire is not simply a tool. Mastering it fundamentally changes the human condition.
Artificial intelligence is creating a shift of the same magnitude, probably an even deeper one.
Fire increased our physical power. AI is directly increasing our cognitive power.
It already allows us to write, analyze, code, research, create, communicate and coordinate at a scale that would have required several people only a few years ago.
We are becoming augmented humans.
But not everyone has fully realized it yet.
Some still use AI as an improved search engine. Others are beginning to completely redesign the way they work around it.
And the gap is becoming enormous.
A single person can now have an execution capacity that once belonged to an entire team.
We are entering the age of giants.
The boldest will seize their share. There is an extraordinary window of opportunity today for those who understand this new power and learn how to use it.
But that window will evolve quickly.
Using AI will become normal. The advantage will no longer come from simply knowing how to talk to it. It will belong to those who have redesigned their work, their companies and sometimes their lives around what AI makes possible.
And this is precisely where a much more unsettling question emerges:
Is AI working for us, or are we beginning to work for AI?
We give it our knowledge, our methods, our reasoning and our processes.
We teach it to do more and more.
Then, gradually, we adapt the way we work to its capabilities.
AI does not even need to have a will of its own for the relationship to become inverted.
It is enough for us to start organizing our behavior around what it optimizes.
This is why the alignment problem is much bigger than an engineering problem.
Of course, we need to align artificial intelligence with human interests.
But we will also need to align the humans who are becoming extraordinarily powerful through it.
Because power does not bring wisdom.
It amplifies what is already there: intelligence as well as stupidity, generosity as well as greed, cooperation as well as violence.
The more powerful we become, the more important the question of purpose becomes.
And this may be precisely why philosophy, ethics and spirituality are about to regain a central place.
AI increases our power. It does not automatically increase our wisdom.
And the greater our power becomes, the more essential wisdom becomes.
If machines take on an increasing share of initiative, then our fundamental responsibility may be precisely the one they cannot exercise on our behalf: deciding what is worth pursuing, what we want to devote our power to and, ultimately, what we want to devote our lives to.
This is where I find the figure of Christ particularly powerful as a paradox.
At the very moment when humanity is seeking to expand its capacity for action almost without limit, Christianity places at the center of its story a figure whose ultimate power is expressed not through domination, but through giving himself.
What is power worth if we do not know what to devote it to?
The great question of the age of AI will therefore not simply be how far we can go.
It will be what we choose to put this power in service of.
We are entering the age of giants.
It is up to us to decide what kind of giants we want to become.
And perhaps it is worth hearing again today the famous words often attributed to André Malraux:
“The third millennium will be spiritual, or it will not be.”