“Every technological advance conceals a consequent loss, but the novelty is always so glittering and the loss so gradual, we never notice what was lost until long after it is gone. The rapid diffusion of AI in this moment is no exception, but recent history reveals what AI’s most surprising cause of loss might well be.
“Just over a century ago, the advent of internal combustion engines served up a mobility revolution. The near-simultaneous arrival of fractional horsepower electric motors delivered an exponentially unprecedented level of motive power to factories, offices and homes. Suddenly, engines were everywhere. In our kitchens, on our roads and in our skies. The benefits – freedom, convenience, abundance – are vast to say the least.
Seduced by our artifice, we are leading ourselves into a madhouse world of mediated intelligence that will shape us much more profoundly than motors and light could ever accomplish. We will have no silence, no darkness – and no solitude. Like Blanche, let us hope at least that our new strangers are kind.
“But the cost? The loss of silence. Stop for a moment, sit quietly and listen. Is it silent? At first perhaps, but then you notice the low hum of a motor somewhere, or the soft whoosh of an HVAC system. Step outside. Silence? Hardly. The whispered buzz of a distant leaf blower, a car passing blocks away, the whisper of a jet crossing high overhead. It is the unavoidable white noise of technological civilization. Billions of motors toiling away have utterly changed our planetary soundscape. And it is not just humans who have lost essential silence. Birds have changed their songs in a desperate attempt to be heard over the noise. The ancient music of whales is lost in the oceanic cacophony of ship screws and sonar.
“Electric lighting was another life-changing marvel which arrived contemporaneously with the diffusion of small motors. It gave us benefits beyond measure, but the cost? The loss of darkness. Consider images of night-time Earth from space. A hundred fifty years ago, a passing spacefarer would have glimpsed a planet wrapped in darkness, with a few widely separated pools of soft light. But look down today and the dark is retreating before a vast, ever-spreading artificial lightscape. Encased in the harsh glow of artificial light, we are isolated from the ocean of stars overhead, from the intimate darkness once so essential to setting circadian rhythms for human and non-human species alike.
“Now we are racing into a future where AIs are proliferating faster than LEDs are displacing incandescent light bulbs. Forget the hypothetical future of AGIs, this is a 2026 present in which primitive AIs are taking over simple quotidian tasks that once depended upon human brainpower to accomplish. Even as we await the super-intelligences, we will become as utterly dependent upon this exponentially growing cognosphere of thinking devices as we are on motors and electric light.
“Motors stole silence from our world, and electric light severed our intimate connection with all that exists in darkness beyond our illuminated bubble. What will AI take? Solitude. AI will eliminate solitude because the temptation to interact with these primitive new intelligences will prove so beguiling that just as we choose to not sit in the dark, we will now choose to never be alone. Too late, we will realize that solitude is essential to what it means to be human.
“The profundity of this shift cannot be overstated. Motors substitute for muscle. Lighting compensates for frail human vision. AI is now poised to take on cognitive tasks once assumed to be the exclusive domain of the human neopallium. As AI embeds itself ever more deeply into our world, humankind will become like Blanche in ‘A Streetcar Named Desire,’ who, while being led to the madhouse, softly whispered, ‘Whoever you are – I have always relied on the kindness of strangers.’
“Seduced by our artifice, we are leading ourselves into a madhouse world of mediated intelligence that will shape us much more profoundly than motors and light could ever accomplish. We will have no silence, no darkness – and no solitude. Like Blanche, let us hope at least that our new strangers are kind.”
This essay was written in January 2026 in reply to the question: “AI systems are likely to begin to play a much more significant role in shaping our decisions, work and daily lives. How might individuals and societies embrace, resist and/or struggle with such transformative change? As opportunities and challenges arise due to the positive, neutral and negative ripple effects of digital change, what cognitive, emotional, social and ethical capacities must we cultivate to ensure effective resilience? What practices and resources will enable resilience? What actions must we take right now to reinforce human and systems resilience? What new vulnerabilities might arise and what new coping strategies are important to teach and nurture?” This and 200-plus additional essay responses are included in the 2026 report “Building a Human Resilience Infrastructure for the AI Age.”