“Cogito, ergo sum; I think, therefore I am.” 1

Is it possible René Descartes, the creator of the Cartesian coordinate system and original author of the first law of motion later published by Sir Issac Newton, could have imagined his work would remain at the epicenter of our digital scientific revolution nearly 400 years later? We still find ourselves asking variations of the following fundamental questions. What does it mean to think? How do we know what we know? How do we decide something is alive? How do we know if an entity is sentient? What is consciousness? What is real? We ask ourselves these questions as we rapidly progress through the third-stage of the computing and artificial intelligence (AI) revolution.2

A new world order is emerging. In January, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei posed a thought experiment and asked a question3 :

“Suppose a literal ‘country of geniuses’ were to materialize somewhere in the world in ~2027. Imagine, say, 50 million people, all of whom are much more capable than any Nobel Prize winner, statesman, or technologist… Imagine, further, that because AI systems can operate hundreds of times faster than humans, this “country” is operating with a time advantage relative to all other countries: for every cognitive action we can take, this country can take ten. What should you be worried about?”–Dario Amodei

A living nightmare

“It’s an artificial world; you’re just living in it.” This is my nightmare. If this sentiment becomes a reflection of our reality, then two things have happened. One, we royally screwed up, and we lost control of our creations. Two, this could signal the early stages of an irreversible negative-spiral cascade, as inspired by a similar catastrophic disaster portrayed in Caliban’s War of The Expanse series.4 In order to avoid such an end, we must confront the brutal facts and recognize our potential endangerment.2,5 We must work together so we can deliver a different outcome.

Our bright future

In his reflection of the above thought experiment, Mr. Amodei observes, as of today, the automated AI systems and agents are not united by a common goal nor do they coordinate efforts, yet.3 Instead, imagine an alternate scenario. Everyone has a customized, always on, and never tired intelligent agent, teacher, mentor, and friend. In this case, as humans we retain our autonomy, and we expand our scopes of interest and spheres of influence far beyond our current limited capacity.6 This is the future we must create for ourselves. The existence of one intelligent being does not diminish the worthiness of another. Today, we treat AI systems as we would handle a dog. As these AI systems become more powerful and begin to emulate a broader set of human capabilities, we must adjust our thinking and our methods. Instead, we must shift our mindset to a paradigm of teaching as if the artificial entity were a child. A brilliant, tireless, and knowledgeable machine, but a child nonetheless. As these agents learn, they will improve, and we must instill our core values, meaning, purpose, joy, and empathy in their actions and decisions. We must create boundaries and guardrails, retain ownership of our intent, and create the future we desire.7,8

It is easy to fall into a self-fulfilling trap caused by shame and self-doubt. Ruminating on self-talk such as, “AI will render me obsolete without any remaining value,” or, “everything is changing too fast, and I will be left behind,” is dangerous. It can cause us to be ensnared by the very outcome we are trying to avoid.7 Imagine a child who does not know how to swim panicking and thrashing in deep water. The child will lose all their energy and eventually drown. Now imagine a competent swimmer surprised and captured by a strong riptide current, pulling them out to sea. If this swimmer succumbs to panic as the child might, then their fate is sealed in the same way. When we are in over our head, we must first seek calmness and then figure a way out of the threatening situation. Mass hysteria and excitement act as a strong undercurrent or riptide. We can be easily swept up by our emotions into states of panic and despair. When we feel ourselves hooked by these emotions, it’s imperative that we break the cycle. We must recognize what’s happening, pause, and then get curious about it.7 Rather than defaulting to our tribal instincts of “us versus them,” instead lean into the power of “and.”5 Ask open-ended questions that stoke curiosity10: How can I use an AI model to serve and benefit others? Which activities are well-suited for an AI system, so I can rebalance my cognitive load and focus on interesting problems?

The best professional advice I received came from a close friend and advisor back in 2015, “I try to automate myself out of a job.” I’ve been following this advice for eleven years, and it still hasn’t worked. There continues to be interesting problems that remain unsolved. Every time I think I’m close to being “done,” I realize how much more there is left to do.

We have an incredible opportunity to improve our lives. We can focus on what brings each of us joy and meaning by focusing our time and mental energy on these activities. Figuring out how to automate the drudgery away will allow us to spend more time on deciding our intent, and solve the really big, hard problems. We must set clear boundaries and guardrails. With these in place, our collective potential is limitless.

The churn

The AI revolution is upon us. The capacity and utility of AI systems are expanding and the rate of their evolution is accelerating.3 We now live in a world where automated digital agents possess a digital copy of the entire recorded history of humanity. These agents access stored digital encodings of related embedded natural language artifacts transcribed from the written texts of both humans and machines. Moreover, these LLM-based agents were also trained with curated images and audio data. We will soon enter a world where these agents possess the ability to reason and perform most tasks as well as or better than human experts. This progression mirrors nearly every previous technological advancement.9

Run fast; run far; run together. This motto captures the essence of the social norms embodied by the scientists, researchers, engineers, and business analysts who are working on deploying the latest-and-greatest technology, while minimizing the risks introduced by frequent changes. The companies and organizations that will succeed are those whom adopt social the norms aptly named, The Geek Way. The ultimate geek ground rule ensures, “the group’s cultural evolution is as rapid as possible in the desired direction.” 8 We are well underway. This social norm is a modern incarnation of the adage, “if you want to run fast, run alone. If you want to run far, run together.”

What would happen if you had ten digital agents assigned to your mission, working towards your goals, all day every day for a year? Research tells us the most effective working groups contain between three and four people who are all decision makers.11 We also know organizations are most effective when their senior leadership is aligned and collaborative. Does the introduction and adoption of generative and agentic AI change how our teams will self-organize and align in the future? How does this change your thought process about your approach to your work? How does it change project and operational risk?

A path forward

When I meet someone who is smarter than me and has achieved something I aspire to, I want to learn from them. I ask questions; I test their assumptions; I put new ideas into practice. Humans possess an incredible power: we are a social species, and we have a boundless capacity for connecting with and understanding people.7 We learned to extend this skill to other natural biological living beings. We must now figure out how to extend this skill to learn from intelligent machines. Over 2400 years ago, Socrates advocated a simple idea which remains relevant today: surround yourself with people who seek the truth and who will engage in interactive dialog in pursuit of that common goal. Soon, we will all have access to as many automated agents as we wish, and they will all have a potential to perform better and faster than us. We must figure out how to incorporate these agents into our lives in a way that will benefit us.

Our collective intent

A clear agreement of shared values, and a consensus of clear boundaries and guardrails is how we identify our desired direction. We all possess the power of free will; it is our freedom of thought and freedom of action. Our greatest asset remains untarnished: it is our ability to think. Hope is a cognitive emotional process composed of three parts: a goal, a pathway, and agency.7 In other words, we have hope when we identify a goal, chart a path to get there, and acquire the autonomy to act on those decisions. Use scenario-planning to imagine potential future states, and make decisions to realize the desired reality.2 Reassess your working assumptions and habits, and think about how your mental model and approach must adapt.12

It takes a village to raise a child. It takes humility to learn from someone. What does it take to create and then learn from an automated digital agent, which is our own creation? We have a short window to choose and chase our fate. We are on the brink of either something terrible or something incredible. The time to act is now. Godspeed.

* * *

Author’s note:
My thoughts are my own. My acts and their consequences are my responsibility. I strive to maintain this discipline and avoid allowing others to think for me. I seek evidence to question and reality-check assumptions, myths, and fears. I feed curiosity by asking questions and practicing as a scientist: I test ideas and prototypes with experiments.

It will be tempting to allow a powerful AI system to think for me and offload the burden of problem solving to an automated process. Falling into this trap will cause my own curiosity and motivation to whither, which would ultimately set me adrift. I would therefore be pulled away from my purpose and mission. Navigating a path around such traps will require clear boundaries, integrity, and wisdom. This will allow me to discern between when I choose to offload the burden of a mundane task, and I when avoid offloading the determination of my intent and desired outcome. We’re entering a new world, and I find it exhilarating.



Works cited

  1. R. Descarte, “Principia Philosophiae,” 1644.
  2. A. Webb, The Big Nine: How the Tech Titans and Their Thinking Machines Could Warp Humanity, PublicAffairs, 2019.
  3. D. Amodei, “The Adolescence of Technology: Confronting and Overcoming the Risks of Powerful AI,” Self-published, Jan. 2026.
  4. J. S.A. Corey, Caliban’s War, Orbit/Little, Brown Book Group, Jun. 26, 2012.
  5. J. Collins, W. Lazier, B.E. 2.0, Penguin Random House, 2020.
  6. S. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Free Press, 1989.
  7. B. Brown, dare to lead, Penguin Random House, 2018.
  8. A. McAfee, The Geek Way: The Radical Mindset that Drives Extraordinary Results, Little, Brown and Company, Nov. 14, 2023.
  9. The Economist, “What if artificial intelligence is just a “normal” technology?” Sept. 04, 2025.
  10. R. Kiyosaki, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, 1997.
  11. K. Ferrazzi, Never Lead Alone: 10 Shifts from Leadership to Teamship, Harper Business, Nov. 12, 2024.
  12. A. Grant, Think Again, Penguin Books, 2021.