The Age of A.I. and Our Human Future

by Henry Kissinger

Network platforms are inherently large-scale phenomena. One of the defining characteristics of a network platform is that the more people it serves, the more useful and desirable it becomes to users.

To the two traditional ways by which people have known the world, faith and reason, AI adds a third.

I find this idea to be very fundamental.

The irony is that even as digitization is making an increasing amount of information available, it is diminishing the space required for deep, concentrated thought. Today’s near-constant stream of media increases the cost, and thus decreases the frequency, of contemplation. Algorithms promote what seizes attention in response to the human desire for stimulation—and what seizes attention is often the dramatic, the surprising, and the emotional.

This paragraphintertwines with "Deep Work" by Cal Newport. "Deep Work" expresses similar idea but in a different context.

Reality explored by AI, or with the assistance of AI, may prove to be something other than what humans had imagined. It may have patterns we have never discerned or cannot conceptualize. Its underlying structure, penetrated by AI, may be inexpressible in human language alone. As one of our colleagues has observed of AlphaZero, “Examples like this show that there are ways of knowing that are not available to human consciousness.”

We may find ourselves one step closer to the concept of pure knowledge, less limited by the structure of our minds and the patterns of conventional human thought.

In liberal nations, such choices may be possible, at least at the level of the individual or the family. But they will not be without cost. Declining to use AI will mean not only opting out of conveniences such as automated movie recommendations and driving directions but also leaving behind vast domains of data, network platforms, and progress in fields from health care to finance.