Gen AI and Human Capacity: What’s Important?

From a business perspective, Gen AI’s emerging technology brings exciting new possibilities. But, as history has taught us, what is technically possible is not always desirable. Opportunities can quickly become challenges and adversities if handled wrongly or with bad intentions.

From a people perspective, the most promising feature of Gen AI is the potential to expand human capacity; our ability to grow, adapt, and shape the world — individually, collectively, and as a species. But, if we want Gen AI to expand human capacity and not reduce it, what is important then?

The difference

On my phone, I have my new best friends, ChatGPT, CoPilot, Gemini, among others. New toys and tools. New terms and concepts to learn. Big language models, generative artificial intelligence, and chatbots.

Will the software and algorithms on the phone and in the cloud work with the neuro-coding “wetware” in the brain to give us — all of us — a better life? Will tech take over and reduce human capacity to rudimentary levels in a not-so-distant future? Will it be humans in a tech world or tech in a human world?

“Try to think about it….imagine the two alternatives….feel the difference…. become aware of you having these thoughts and feelings….become aware of you being aware.”

This is the key element of human capacity: awareness of mental processing — thoughts, emotions, sensations. You just had a unique human experience no Gen AI or any other technology could have.

Both humans and Gen AI process quanta (data). But Gen AI doesn’t perceive qualia — and therefore cannot have the raw experience of being alive. It doesn’t enjoy the smell of roses, the thrill of a touch, or feel the ache of love.

Other traits and capabilities where human capacity differs from Gen AI include:

• Self-awareness — the ability to reflect
• Agency — the power to choose and act
• Morality — to judge right from wrong
• Fantasy — to dream beyond limits
• Intuition — to know before thinking
• Empathy — to feel another’s pain.