Invented Intelligence vs Human Potential

How humanity will survive. Part 1.

The development of the web and our generational entanglement with it has become one of the major curses of the day. On the one hand, indeed, we’ve got access to education and the ability to stay connected with loved ones (although blessed be the one who lives within driving distance of extended family). On the other hand, each of us has become privy to every global, national, and municipal problem — even when it is not in your backyard.

The line between being a good citizen of the world and one without anxiety psychosis has become a very fine one, hasn’t it?

Semantic Keys to What We Are to Unlock

In reality, we are all different; our innate aptitudes, talents, and leanings are different. Whilst we won’t advocate for the everlasting caste system of India (kudos to India for staying loyal to its natural order of things) or re-enact the Platonic idea of a class of ruler-philosophers, warriors, and everyone else — with that, we still can build a beautiful case for people pursuing self-discovery of talents where they can genuinely succeed.

Talent here is far from being only about a musical ear — physical strength, endurance, the ability to cure people, not panic (even the ability to play politics!), cultivate gardens (those who have ever tried to grow anything in the house just to trash dried or rotten soil a few months later know — nothing to do with intelligence). We are all different. Everyone is valuable in his own pursuits and capabilities. To assume we are smarter than nature is to take on an omnipresent will; one shall act with caution — the mirage of the Tower of Babel blinking far ahead of you.

What do we do with AI? One thing is clear: we don’t call it supreme. History has seen several supreme commanders, and none of them were necessarily welcomed at the United Nations. Artificial intelligence — machine intelligence — invented intelligence. Why indeed didn’t we call it an invented intelligence?

To attribute anything with supreme intelligence is to establish a ruler-subservient relationship between the machine & future generations of human beings. It is a path to depriving an individual of free will and agency. One shall not play with semantics. In a rather famous cartoon of my childhood, there was a memorable saying by the captain — the main character: your ship’s name will define its destiny — whether it will sail or sink.

As human beings, we do want humanity, as a whole and on an individual level, to both survive and thrive.

Which "Progress" Worth A Fight 

Technological progress is a clear, measurable term — what about human potential? Increased literacy rates, inoculation rates, reduced childhood mortality, etc etc. Measured. 

From where we are today, where we already don't compete on computing speed with machines, where we have a continuous progress of medicine advancing age and reducing mortality rates - How do we define the development of human potential in the 21st century?

There were common words we use — or used to use — implying movement toward a better state. Evolution. Progress. Ask a child, and he will intuitively say that progress seems to be more mechanical, industrial, and/or technological.

Today, policymakers often equate technological progress (AI) and industrial-base development with humankind’s development.

What is human potential? What is needed for the parts of a human being — intellectual, physical, emotional, spiritual, electromagnetic — to evolve and thrive? If we flip the order, then we can recognize that policymaking has been making the outer world progress — measured in absolute terms of GDP and YOY growth — while omitting to define what it means to be a human being, and what characteristics of a human being should be served by the industrial, technological, financial complex of the day.

Are we surprised that it is AI residents of Silicon Valley who are hiring philosophers of the day? (For more on that, check "Why big AI labs are hiring so many philosophers by the Economist, Summer 2026). With that, it is really not their job to ask those questions. We are likely to run into the same predicament as with the harmful effects of social media on teens, where the teens were left to their own devices for way too long.

If we hope that it is the job of private-sector businesses to think about the fundamentals of human potential development and care for the survival of the human race — then, indeed, tech-bro libertarians are winning (already in your mind).

Going back to Plato, and to the global forums of the UN and those that are to come — how do we define national policies centered on human potential development?

This is the most fundamental question of the 2020s.