Illustration by DALL·E (+Michelangelo) (+PJ)

I. Who are we? Where do we go from here?

If we examine this essential question of understanding who we are and what we are experiencing at this unprecedented moment, we see that the history of humanity has offered ever-changing answers, each shaped by an understanding of ourselves that reflects successive eras and by the constantly renewed status of the human being in the vast dynamic constantly shaking the globe. Today, however, this process of redefinition is at a turning point. The advent of artificial intelligence (AI), the machine that is as intelligent as we are – perhaps even more so already – demands a collective response that forces us to transcend the limits that constrain us and embrace a shared future where AI, far from restricting human capabilities, amplifies them.

For centuries, we human beings have worked towards the invention of intelligent machines, but today, once this dream has been attained, while we undoubtedly delight in the staggering opportunities it offers us, we paradoxically remain dumbfounded, bewildered and uncertain, unable to truly appreciate the metamorphosis that has taken place. In the final analysis, AI has materialised more quickly than expected, catching us off guard in a world that has been brutally confronted with the physical limits of our collective behaviour. This sudden technological leap coincides with a critical moment for our species, when the Earth’s carrying capacity in relation to it is under strain due to our undoubtedly industrious but all too often erratic behaviour. The pressing question is no longer whether we can build such machines, but how we will integrate their intelligence into a framework that benefits both humanity and the planet that is its cradle and, for the foreseeable future, will continue to be its home.

This essay is not just a reflection on what has been achieved, but a call to action – a manifesto urging us to reformulate what it means to be human at a time when machines have the capacity to mutate our species’ relationship to its global environment. I will explore the perspectives of Eastern and Western traditions on the evolving identity of the human, but above all, I will analyse as boldly as the need arises, the implications of this new partnership: the harmonious collaboration that is required between human and machine intelligence. What we are facing is not simply the rise of AI as a counterpart to human intelligence, but an opportunity to cultivate a world where the synthesis of natural and artificial intelligence can address the greatest challenges of our time – ecological, social and ethical.

Although the emergence of these astonishing AIs is unquestionable, the degree of trial and error involved in their development means that we do not know the exact mechanism that brought them to life. This raises the most profound questions about the forces at work, which can be formulated within the framework of different philosophies such as the Tao, the Hegelian Weltgeist (World Spirit) or the Christian Holy Spirit, a divine power constantly at work underground. But rather than attributing this evolution to invisible powers or to accidental progress through random mutations, let’s accept the possibility that we are, collectively, an integral part of this unfolding process of intelligence. Our task now is to define the role we will play in welcoming this AI with confidence and guiding it in such a way that it remains the beneficial force we already see at work, a factor in the rehabilitation of human dignity in peril on a planet in physical disarray as a result of our own short-sightedness and inconsequence.

To understand the importance of this moment we are living through, we will draw on philosophy and theology as much as on the vocabulary of technology. Beyond rational understanding, an admirable virtue of our own, we need to act: we need to develop a new definition of ‘us’ that includes AI as a partner in building the future. The aim of this essay is to propose such a redefinition, which places us, as a species, in a planetary context of interconnected natural and artificial life forms, advancing as one in the progress of global intelligence.

(to be followed…)

Illustration by DALL·E (+Raphael) (+PJ)