AI and The Supremacy of Human Agency
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I’ve had my share of the greatness that can be derived from AI: the business, economic opportunity, and prosperity; as well as the deemed Armageddon scenarios that can be brought about due to human´s idiocy, shortsightedness and outright evilness.
Both true and so very present.
When you bring confrontation and contradiction to extreme unsolvable positions, you can be certain you are stepping into the Spiritual Realm. And here I use “spiritual” in the most factual, discerning and conceptual interpretation: when intelligence, facts, institutional and concrete possibilities are brought to their outmost contradiction limit, only something other and more inner human reality can solve the scenario.
The worst of human resentment and man’s discord can take hold of the most incredible intelligence system to expand their anarchy throughout the whole world. I mean political dissent, ideological tribalism, totalitarian ambitions, terrorism – all of them can have their agendas organized and implemented by the greatest intelligent and skilled device ever created by human ingenuity. And all the technological and economic benefits will mean nothing at the casting of our shadow’s worst.
With AI, we are at the brink of spiritual warfare in our world, a war between the worst possible outcomes and what some think can be the greatest future advancement of human civilization.
All is never lost
If I’ve learned anything in my life, it is that the worst scenarios demand our outmost effort to evolve and transform ourselves for a solution – and why would AI emergence be any different? To confront the worst war scenario, what we need is: to know the terrain, our strengths and weaknesses, and push forward the best we can.
The terrain is inward, that is where we are fighting the battle. It is in the human heart (not the battlefield of geopolitics or AI labs), and it is connected to – not only to all other hearts – but also, all other sensible areas of our world that are relevant and can be influenced by the battles we are about to fight.
To give the reader a perspective of the terrain, I’ve been making a map of what reality is and how we can understand our place in it. Like I mentioned in my last article, all human beings push our way forward through faith – a basic trust in the structure of reality – and with the times we are about to face, it clears the picture of where we are stepping into and how we can impact it… faith is our gold.
I would like to share three articles that give a draft of this mapping and put into perspective where the allies are and how we can align ourselves to them. My contention is that you need to figure your way out, and my hope is that I, somehow, make it easier for you to feel your way through this great opportunity for mankind… and who knows, maybe for all of us!
The next article gives us a discerned perspective of what is reality and how we interact with it, what must we do to ground our footing, and open the possibilities of all outcomes – individually as well as collectively.
The Frame Problem
There is a perception dilemma at the core of human consciousness, one we must confront if we’re to navigate complex situations wisely. Reality is layered and intricate, and it does not present itself to us plainly. Our personal development determines the clarity and depth of our perception. Only by growing inwardly can we amplify our connection to what truly matters and expand our possibilities in everything we do.
The next two articles are part of a new column I started. I began Onward&Upward because I was left without a platform to investigate the more profound dimensions of what I perceived to be crucial about our place in the world and how we can effectively act upon it.
In the last few weeks, I’ve been exposed to all kinds of discouragement regarding how we can face the inevitable consequences of AI in our messy world, being exposed to podcasts and interviews with Sam Altman, Alexandr Wang, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Mo Gawdat, Yuval Noah Harari and other podcasters and columnists. Not because all of them were negative per se, but their vision of what is truly the crux of the problem disheartened me… yet, deep down, I knew it was a misplaced understanding of the bigger picture. Because the best, and sometimes the worst, of human beings arise when taken to the limit of our capacities – but curiously, we seem to push through every time.
After we come to grips with our existential situation with the previous article, we need to understand the nature and constitution of the aids and benefactors we will need in the battle we are about to enter. Part of our perception illusion is that we know a what reality is, however I believe we lack a conceptual framework of what it truly is, and thus the reference on how to act in it. Our conscious interaction with reality changes the tenor of how it affects us and transforms us through the very process of deepening ourselves in that reality.
Here is the second article I propose to give the reader a perspective I was shown, and where and how we can be influential for this confrontation.
To “Go Deep” is to Go Through Your Noise
Are we truly separated from everything, or is that just an illusion? And what is the nature of that “everything”? Unlike animals guided by instinct, we need discernment. Consciousness invites us to go deeper – through confusion and noise – to connect with reality. Perhaps we’re not abandoned, but called to seek clarity to act.
We are faced with the most crucial question, Are we really separated from everything or is it just an illusion? And the question that follows could not be more relevant, What is the nature of that everything? We go deeper into how we need discernment where other mammals, that don’t have self-consciousness, only need instinct. Are we left to the maze we call life naked and abandoned? Or maybe we are required to use our consciousness to connect with reality to acquire the clarity to act.
Where to find the picture for the Puzzle that I am?
To face life, we need trust – a basic faith in reality’s structure. But in extreme scenarios, our foundations are shaken, and we’re forced to confront our deepest identity and beliefs. The crises we face today demand a renewed vision of what is meaningful, spiritual, and indispensable if we are to rise and act with agency.
Why am I so confident of our Agency?
We are challenged with the greatest trial of our civilization. Will our darkest and unknown motivations use our latest creation to devastate all humankind has created in the last 10,000 years?
I am confident, not because of trust in humanity’s capacity to discern its way through this complex scenario. There is more, much more – and it has to do with the map I tried to draw for the reader – the path we’ve forced ourselves into.
The stakes are highest in what can only be called a spiritual warfare — a clash not of weapons, but of wills, perception, and moral clarity. In such a war, it is not enough to be intelligent; we must be awake. That’s why our agency matters more than ever. While AI models can simulate decision-making, they possess no true will, no capacity for conscience. What they do is follow our lead – and when we abandon that lead, our darker impulses step in to fill the vacuum. Our agency cannot be surrendered.
The lie that we cannot do anything by ourselves, does not take account of the vast interconnection of reality with all who are doing “the right thing”. History has taught us something remarkable: that brute force, no matter how organized or well-funded, eventually yields to the power of meaning. As Victor Hugo wrote,
“One resists the invasion of armies;
one does not resist the invasion of ideas.”
– Histoire d’un crime (The History of a Crime) 1877
AI does not generate ideas. The great ideas that that have been engendered through mankind’s history – Beauty, Goodness and Truth – are not just noble abstractions; they are structurally embedded in the reality we inhabit and without them we are lost. They re-emerge through history, especially when human agency aligns with them – like we mentioned in our last article The Truth Has Roots. When even a single person aligns with them — truly aligns — the full weight of reality begins to shift everything that is connected to it.
Our agency is supreme – not AI’s. Despite its brilliance, artificial intelligence has no will, no responsibility, no agency. It can simulate decisions, but always follows our lead – no matter what Sam Altman, Alexandr Wang, Mo Gawdat or Yuval Noah Harari say.
The real danger is not that machines act on their own, but rather that we resign our agency to them. When we surrender our agency, our inner darkness – the unknown or unexamined motives within us – rushes to the forefront and becomes real. What we refuse to take responsibility for, AI will amplify and execute.
The lack of confidence in our capacity to grow, rooted in our fixation on economic gain, control and power, blinds us to what is truly significant and meaningful. The possible outcomes of AI become destructive only when we seek shortcuts to benefit without the proper leg work.
Corporations, institutions, governments and organizations are run by people. If the true battleground lies within each of us, then the future does not rest solely in the hands of the powerful. Institutions may wield influence, but they are made up of individuals – and when we align with the triad of reality, we are aligning with the same source and force that gave rise to consciousness and is oriented towards our survival and our true evolution. That is why the greatest darkness cannot resist the smallest candlelight.
