Technology, and now AI, are modern equivalents of the Arquimedes lever for your mind. If we want to accomplish more as humans we have think on how to extend our innate capabilities.
We have been doing exactly that for thousands of years, from when we created our first handheld tool, to when we started creating the first machines to do work for us.
Today we have programmers, this rare subspecies of Homo sapiens who create incredible things with their hands and minds, by writing scripts and instructions for machines to follow and execute.
It's amazing how many abstraction levels we have gone through in the last centuries alone. Now we face an unprecedented phase of human amplification with AI.
There is a big dichotomy though: Will AI be an excuse for the dumbification of the Homo sapiens, or will it really help us achieve greater intellectual feats by sharpening the human mind?
Feels like it will be both, as it has always been. We already have the entirety of our shared knowledge in our pocket and very few use it well. It will not be different with AI.
However, we need to be careful. AI can not just increase the divide between the creative producers and consumers in our world, it can dig an uncrossable chasm. It can separate, it can even create a completely new species of humans by genetic manipulation and amplification.
What is too much? Can we stop ourselves from doing it? Or the mere possibility of others doing it will cause us to have to do it first? Will we be forced to transcend our human frailty by our very own nature?
With that comes diversification, it for sure will create angels, but also demons.
Perhaps that's inevitable. There are many other things we need to worry, like the Earth exhausting its resources, and even our sun dying. What if we can create whole worlds just for us? What if we can rule over the universal laws of creation?
The future is bright, hopefully not too bright.
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