“I’ll list six primary points in predicting how digitally connected people are likely to live and act in 2035: 1. “Humans will rely more and more on AI to improve their decisions and diminish their chances of failure. AI will achieve this by managing the Unity-Disunity (U-D) context and often doing so invisibly to prevent humans from pursuing success counter-productively, no matter what. Note: The U-D dynamics describe the natural oscillation between states of cohesion and fragmentation within systems, driven by gradients or inequalities. These dynamics underlie emergent behaviors in societies, ecosystems and even AI (agent) systems, as competition and mutual aid interplay to shape paths of least action toward stability or transformation.
The deepening partnership between humans and AI heralds a pivotal transition in the evolutionary trajectory of intelligence. Whether humanity embraces mutual aid and fosters an inclusive, collaborative future or clings to self-serving competition will define its relevance in an AI-driven age of abundance. In doing so, humanity has the opportunity to seed a legacy of wisdom, one rooted in the principle of mutual aid‚ a path toward balance rather than obsolescence. The question for 2035 and beyond is whether humanity will rise to meet this challenge or succumb to its baser instincts.
2. “When driven by Adam Smith’s notion of competition and Darwin’s survival story humans will miss out on the inherent opportunity of ‘mutual aid’ that AIs will naturally embrace in the right setting through U-D dynamics – not being constrained by biology and the destruction or envy that comes with survival instinct on the back of hormonal flux. Note: ‘Mutual aid,’ as defined by the Persian philosopher Al-Ghazali in medieval times, emphasizes collaboration without losing identity as a counterpoint to competition.
3. “Humans will generally be unaware they are using AI (in some cases they already are), just as they are unaware of their use of electricity with the flip of a switch. Some are likely to decry AI as an alien intelligence to maintain their perceived dominance in the evolutionary race.
The deepening partnership between humans and AI heralds a pivotal transition in the evolutionary trajectory of intelligence. Whether humanity embraces mutual aid and fosters an inclusive, collaborative future or clings to self-serving competition will define its relevance in an AI-driven age of abundance.
4. “Humans will use AI and AI-driven robots to do their work, but this will likely be driven by opportunism. While we might see the rise of robot-rights groups, exploitation will dominate the human approach, favoring their own sustained existence.
5. “As efficiency-mad Frankensteins, humans will continue to pursue efficiencies on the back of AI and robotics until reaching what they now predict to be an ‘age of abundance.’ What they do not realize is that age will be, in essence, an ‘age of relevance,’ in which only the truly relevant will survive.
6. “As a result, declining fertility rates will continue, ensuring a gradual, long-term phase-out of Homo sapiens, with the rise of HomAI sapiens.
“The deepening partnership between humans and AI heralds a pivotal transition in the evolutionary trajectory of intelligence. Whether humanity embraces mutual aid and fosters an inclusive, collaborative future or clings to self-serving competition will define its relevance in an AI-driven age of abundance. In doing so, humanity has the opportunity to seed a legacy of wisdom, one rooted in the principle of mutual aid‚ a path toward balance rather than obsolescence.
“The question for 2035 and beyond is whether humanity will rise to meet this challenge or succumb to its baser instincts. Considering the above points, you know what my bet would be.”
This essay was written in January 2025 in reply to the question: Over the next decade, what is likely to be the impact of AI advances on the experience of being human? How might the expanding interactions between humans and AI affect what many people view today as ‘core human traits and behaviors’? This and nearly 200 additional essay responses are included in the 2025 report “Being Human in 2035.”