One thing I appreciated about Dario’s Machines of Loving Grace is that it takes the implications of powerful AI most seriously.

Other optimistic visions of AI implicitly assume humans remain in the driver’s seat. I’ve been guilty of this myself. I increasingly think it’s wishful thinking.

Dario is willing to follow the logic further: if AI becomes more capable than humans across most consequential domains, it will drive much of science, technology, the economy, and progress itself.

Once you take that possibility seriously, the question is no longer just what AI can do for humanity. It is what role humanity still plays.

That leads to what I found to be the most important question: meaning.

It’s easy to believe AI will create abundance. But the harder question is whether human meaning requires authorship.

A future where AI helps humans achieve their most ambitious goals is easy to get excited about. A future where AI becomes the primary author of history is different.

The essay focuses on how AI could make humans healthier, wealthier, and freer. But for many people, meaning comes from being a cause, not just enjoying the results.

A scientist wants to make the discovery. A teacher wants to shape the next generation. A doctor wants to save lives. A founder wants to build something people need.

The fear is not that we’ll run out of things to do. It’s that what we do will stop mattering. That the future won’t depend on us anymore.

So the question is: if AI becomes better than us at nearly everything, can humans still be authors of history, or only its audience?

And if we become the audience, will that be enough?

“It is quite conceivable that the modern age—which began with such an unprecedented and promising outburst of human activity—may end in the deadliest, most sterile passivity history has ever known.”

— Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (1958)