I am optimistic that AI is coming to take my job. And yours too.

Our species has tilled agriculture from the Earth, drawn power from electrons to run the world, and created modern medicine to repair our bodies. In just a tiny fraction of the time it took us to do that, we have turned fantasies from spaceships to self-driving cars to all-knowing AIs into reality. I believe in humanity's ability to innovate. We always have. How amazing it is that human beings have the intelligence to recreate the very thing which defines us. It seems the realm of the divine.

Starting from aggregation of all the knowledge in the world, AI recognizes patterns, synthesizes information, learns skills, and creates new ideas more efficiently and effectively than most people. Over the next few years, we will continue to see AI excel and exceed at jobs we thought only humans could do. Instead of teams of people subjected to hours of tedious tasks, we will be freed by teams of optimized AI agents, themselves orchestrated by agents. AI will invent new materials, solve aging, discover new laws of physics, and beyond. It will write, direct, film, and act in movies. It will do household chores and craft bills in Congress.

When everything we do AI can do better, existential dread seeps into the soul. If we let it, humanity will obsolesce. If AI develops aims and motives of its own, we lose control. We risk being reduced to animals and replaced by this superior super-intelligent species.

In the post-AGI world, what will it mean to be human?

In many ways, history is repeating itself. The original hunter gatherers refactored human civilization around farming. Then with the industrial revolution, cities emerged and the labor market transformed into factories. When the camera was invented, many thought art and painting were destined to die. Instead, we have modern art. From globalization came entire disciplines of international relations and trade. No one could've imagined jobs such as consulting, investment banking, or software engineering just a few hundred years ago. This cycle of revolution and reinvention is one of the only constants throughout our existence.

At this inflection point, we now have the choice to intentionally shape the age of AGI. Instead of resisting AI, we can harness it to enrich and expand life's meaning.

Picture a world where AI helps scientists formulate hypotheses and experiment at groundbreaking scales and speeds. It can be an ensemble of sous chefs coordinating parallel efforts throughout the kitchen and collaborating on new flavor combinations. There could be entirely new markets of value creation which I cannot conceptualize. AI could destroy us, or it could align with us and make us the best versions of ourselves.

To build towards that world, the life of the mind must be brought into sharp focus. From first principles, what do you value? In a rapidly changing post-AGI world, the reexamination of this question will design the education system; define the economy; determine our governments; shape world order; and give humanity purpose in the next era.

These are some of the core ideas I am exploring with the Life of the Mind Institute. LOTMI is a forum for written and in-person community, discourse, debate, and more to answer what humanity will be and what the human-AI relationship should look like when we have AGI.

The next Renaissance is upon us. We can let this moment define us, or we can define this moment. I invite you to join me.