AI Presents an Opportunity to Liberate Humanity but New Norms in Human-Machine Communication Seem More Likely to Diminish Human-to-Human Connections
“Due to the wide range of products in use in 2025, we already have extensive experience with the effects of technology on our individual and collective humanity. Each of us…
‘We Fall in Love With the Technologies of Our Enslavement. … The Next Generation May Be One of No-Skilling in Regard to Essential Human Virtue Ethics’
“The human characteristics (such as empathy, moral judgment, decision-making and problem-solving skills, the capacity to learn) are virtues that are utterly central to human autonomy and flourishing. A ‘virtue’ is…
The Blurring of Societal and Cultural Boundaries Is Shifting the Essence of Being Human in Many Ways, Further Disrupting Human Relationships and Mental Health
“Multiple boundaries are going to blur or melt over the next decade, shifting the experience of being human in disconcerting ways. Among them: The boundary between reality and fiction: Deepfakes…
We can create a great future, but it will require new infrastructure, policies and norms
“How our individual lives and society will change with the diffusion of AI depends less on technological innovations and more on policies and institutional arrangements in which they develop. It…
AI threatens to require society to redefine ‘what it means to be a person’ in the digital realm
“The outcome by 2040 depends a great deal, if not entirely, upon the regulatory framework created around AI. If we just consider the Internet, there have certainly been areas where…
Focus on the long-term welfare of people and society: Ask not what AI can do but what WE can ask it to do
“The question of the future of humans and AI seems impossible to answer because of unexplainable humans, not because of unexplainable AI. So much depends on our use and control of…
What happens to humans’ authenticity and autonomy when they are augmented with AI?
“As we look to the future, we might assume that the biggest existential threats to humanity lie in climate change and nuclear wars. As massive as those problems are, they…
The questions are, ‘Can humans say “no” to AI, and can AI say “no” to humans?’
“There are two critical uncertainties as we imagine 2040 scenarios: “In other words, can humans say ‘no’ to AI, and can AI say ‘no’ to humans? Note that the existence…
Blurred ‘truth’ and the erosion of trust are likely to deliver AI’s most significant impact
“By 2040 AI will permeate everything. It is highly likely that it will have passed the Turing test well before 2040. Many aspects of daily life will be easier and…
Our dilemma: ‘We won’t know what problems are salient until it may be too late’
“By 2040, the implementation of AI tools (along with related innovations and likely policy changes/self-regulatory efforts) will change life in material ways, sometimes for good but sometimes not. And, as…