The book
Forthcoming
What must remain human when intelligence no longer is.
Human beings do not become less valuable as machines become more capable.
About the book
Artificial intelligence is forcing humanity toward a confrontation we have never experienced before.
What happens when machines can perform much of the intellectual and productive work around which modern civilization has organized human identity?
The Human Foundation argues that the answer cannot simply be economic. The AI transition will compel us to reconsider work, education, status, purpose, participation, wisdom, relationships, dignity, leadership, and ultimately the meaning we assign to human life.
This is not a prediction that humanity will become obsolete. It is an argument that the age of intelligent machines may force us to understand humanity more clearly than ever before.
From the back cover
“The future will be intelligent. The question is — will it remain human?”
Key themes
Capability and worth
Why the performance of machines cannot serve as a verdict on the value of people.
The end of intelligence scarcity
What happens to institutions built on the assumption that skilled thought is rare.
Work, status, and identity
How modern life compressed human meaning into occupation, and what follows.
Participation over provision
Why an income is not the same as a place in the life of a society.
Wisdom after intelligence
The qualities that are formed slowly and cannot be generated on demand.
A human civilization
What extraordinary capability should be used to build.
Who should read it
- Leaders deciding what work should remain human
- Educators rethinking what children need to learn
- Workers facing changing professions
- Parents preparing children for an uncertain future
- Technologists who want their work to serve people well
- Policymakers redesigning social systems
- Anyone asking where they fit in the future that is coming
From the book
“We are about to learn whether our respect for one another was ever about ability at all.”
“A machine that becomes more capable does not make a human being less valuable.”
“Function belongs to systems of capability. Worth belongs to a deeper moral category.”
“The expert increasingly has to show how conclusions were reached, where uncertainty remains, what evidence matters, and what would change the recommendation.”
“Dignity protects the possibility that a person can be more than a prediction.”
“When intelligence becomes abundant, character becomes scarce infrastructure.”
“Loving another person requires encountering a center of experience that does not exist for our convenience.”
“The purpose is not to preserve the former economy forever. It is to carry actual human beings across the interval between what technology makes unnecessary and what civilization has not yet learned to value.”
“Wisdom asks what should be done with what intelligence has revealed.”
“A civilization could preserve nearly everything and still fail to transmit what deserves to continue.”
“Good ancestors do not demand reverence. Good heirs do not assume superiority.”
Reading & discussion resources
A discussion guide is in development
Book-club guides, a downloadable discussion guide, and institutional resources are being prepared. Bulk and institutional inquiries are welcome through the contact page.
Join the conversation
The future of humanity should not be decided only by the people building the machines.
Join readers, leaders, educators, technologists, thinkers, workers, parents, and citizens exploring how humanity can flourish in an age of extraordinary machine intelligence.