The Three Layers of the AI Transition (inspired by the X-Post above)

1. Technology

• Build AI systems that outperform humans on many cognitive tasks.
• Make intelligence abundant, cheap, and widely available.
• Primary question: Can we do it?

2. Economics

• Productivity surges.
• Cost of expertise collapses.
• Labor markets, ownership, and wealth distribution must adapt (but don't….)
• Primary question: How do we organize society around abundance?

3. Human Meaning

• Intelligence is no longer humanity's unique advantage.
• Traditional identities built around achievement and productivity are challenged.
• Primary question: What gives life meaning when survival and work are largely automated?

Central Arguments

The Key Insights

AI is a civilizational transition from solving the problem of survival to solving the problem of meaning. The technological challenge is building capable machines. The economic challenge is distributing abundance. The philosophical challenge is: Who are we when our worth is no longer measured primarily by what we can produce?

My 10 year-old framework on the future of technology, digital ethics, androrithms and The Good Future of Humanity line up beautifully with Pope Leo XIV’s recent, historic encyclical Magnifica Humanitas. I am not religious (or catholic) but it is really fascinating to see how my core concepts run completely parallel to the moral warnings emerging from the Vatican, at this moment.

Update: New Video on Gerd.TV

New: the FT on ‘the pope disrupts silicon valley‘ (gift link)

“We are a desire, not an algorithm” – Pope Leo XIV, May 14th, 2026

Here is a simple comparison:

1. “Hellven“: The Fork in the Road

• My Vision: I have long argued that we are at a “fork in the road” moment. Technology itself could lead us to “Heaven”—solving climate change, cancer, and energy crises—or it can lead to “Hell” if left entirely to unchecked commercial monopolies. I call this tension “Hellven.“
• The Pope’s Stance: Leo XIV mirrors this precisely using biblical imagery. He warns that humanity faces a pivotal choice: either construct a new Tower of Babel (a grandiose, hyper-efficient, but ultimately dehumanizing technocratic project) or build Jerusalem piece by piece (a human-centered project of shared responsibility).

2. “Embrace Technology, But Don’t Become It”

• My Vision: A cornerstone of my philosophy is that technology is a magnificent tool, but it lacks existence, agency… a soul. I emphasize that while machines excel at computational data processing, humans must protect what makes them unique: creativity, empathy, and ethics. I warn against the dangers of cognitive outsourcing—atrophying our own critical thinking by relying completely on chatbots.
• The Pope’s Stance: The Pope writes that AI merely “imitates” human functions. He notes that AI can never truly know love, friendship, or responsibility because it lacks a body, a soul, and an inner life. He similarly warns that when technology weakens our critical sense, our inner freedom and peace are placed at severe risk.

3. Disarming AI: Calling out the Monopolies

• My Vision: I have frequently highlighted the massive risk of allowing just two or three private Silicon Valley giants to reshape humanity, operating purely under commercial and geopolitical pressures. I advocate for global “red lines” and strict regulatory frameworks to keep power distributed.
• The Pope’s Stance: In a key segment of his speech, Leo XIV asserts that “Artificial Intelligence needs to be disarmed.” (nice way to put it! He points out that digital power does not rest with states, but with opaque technological actors who evade public oversight. He calls for “disarming” AI, which means freeing it from the mentality of “armed” commercial and geopolitical competition and making it open to democratic debate.

4. The Value of Work vs. Machine Efficiency

• My Vision: I have noted many times that “if you can easily explain your job, it will probably be automated,” but I also maintain that human-only work is our future. I stress that when machines take over the routine, society must totally redefine work and protect the livelihoods of those displaced.
• The Pope’s Stance: The Pope explicitly hits out at the “technocratic paradigm” that reduces human beings to productivity metrics, cognitive performance, or mere data points. He notes that AI paradoxically de-skills workers and subjects them to automated surveillance. He demands that access to dignified work remain a central priority for public policy, ensuring that innovation frees up human time rather than causing mass exclusion.

5. Digital Ethics and the “Invisible” Underclass

• My Vision: I urge the world to look past the shiny, flawless interfaces leaving the “tech factories” and have a serious conversation about digital ethics and real-world consequences.
• The Pope’s Stance: The Pope pulls back the curtain on the tech industry, noting that nothing in AI is magical or entirely immaterial. He brings up the “new forms of slavery” driving the digital economy: the millions of hidden, exploited workers in the Global South doing low-wage data labeling and content moderation, alongside children mining rare earth elements in dangerous conditions just to keep the algorithmic pipeline flowing.

A Comparison Summary

My concept of “The Good Future” attempts to capture the structural, economic, and philosophical shifts of the AI era, while the Pope’s “Civilization of Love” acts as its theological and moral mirror—both are screaming the exact same warning: Keep humanity at the center, or risk losing our essence entirely.

Related reads:

The Atlantic

The Guardian

From the BBC

Pope Leo says AI must be ‘disarmed' in first major teaching….”No algorithm can make war morally acceptable”. …Not only does AI not remove the “intrinsic inhumanity” of war, he said, but it also risks sparking conflict more quickly and rendering it more impersonal by “lowering the threshold for resorting to violence, transforming defense into threat prediction and thus reducing victims to data“.

He suggested comparisons of failing to act against the risks of AI today with the “delay with which both society and the Church came to denounce the scourge of slavery”. He even referred to the risks of “digital colonialism,” linking the abuses of the colonial era to modern tech practices. At one point in this document, the Pope directly issued a “special appeal” to those who develop AI. “Developers bear a particular ethical and spiritual responsibility, for every design choice reflects a vision of humanity,” he said.

For context, see what I said about what I call “The Technocratic Oath”:

AI needs to be disarmed:

Notebook LM Materials:

“In the 2026 encyclical Magnifica Humanitas, Pope Leo XIV addresses the moral implications of artificial intelligence and the shifting landscape of human dignity. He warns against a technocratic paradigm where efficiency and profit override the sanctity of the person, advocating for the “disarming” of AI to prevent it from fueling global conflict or economic exclusion. The sources highlight the Pope’s call for strict ethical governance and transparency, emphasizing that technological power must not reside solely with private corporations but should serve the common good. Beyond digital concerns, the Pontiff offers a historic apology for the Church’s past role in slavery while condemning modern forms of digital exploitation. Ultimately, the text urges humanity to choose a path of fraternal communion over the self-destructive pride symbolized by the biblical Tower of Babel. This comprehensive framework reinforces the Church's commitment to integral human development in an increasingly automated and divided world.

Watch this Explainer video on my Gerd.tv site (download available).

And here is a notebookLM generated podcast (very fitting if somewhat ironic use of AI, in this context:)))

Here is an important realisation I have recently arrived at: AI is taking over the Internet, there is no way to go back to what was before… and we need to be prepared for a dramatic reboot of our entire economic logic. Which means, in this order:

1. The AI-Internet Synthesis: AI is eating the Internet. This total integration of AI into the global digital infrastructure leads to…
2. Mandatory Participation: An outright rejection of AI would basically mean exclusion from modern society, which leads to the need for…
3. Dramatic Counter-Balancing Measures: We must proactively mitigate AI’s disruption of our society, our economic logic and our humanity… which brings us to…
4. The 5P, Future-Fit Framework: We must shift from the outdated profit & growth model to the 5Ps: People, Planet, Purpose, Peace, and Prosperity which would allow us to…
5. Socialize AI's Productivity Gains: This means exploring UBI or UBC (Universal Basic Capital) and beyond… 
6. Post-Ideology Policies: Abandon outdated political labels (Left/Right, Socialist/Capitalist) in favour of pragmatic solutions

And here's another angle on this:

1. The Convergence: AI is no longer just a tool on the internet; it is becoming the very fabric of the internet itself.
2. The Inevitability: To outright reject AI would be, by extension, to exile oneself from the modern digital world.
3. The Necessity of Balance: Since total withdrawal is pretty much impossible, we must urgently architect a counterbalance to AI’s sweeping influence on our social, professional, and economic structures (and we're only at the very beginning, at this point)
4. A New Paradigm: This equilibrium requires a shift from a “1P” logic (Profit) to a holistic 5P framework: People, Planet, Purpose, Peace, and Prosperity.
5. The Great Transition: As AI masters routine labor, work will cease to be the central pillar of human identity. We must prepare for this shift by establishing a Universal Basic Capital (UBC) fund to ensure the dividends of automation are distributed equitably.
6. Transcending Labels: We must move beyond the binary “isms” of the past. Whether we call it capitalism or socialism or something else is irrelevant; what matters is that we implement solutions that fit our new reality now.

I will have a new GerdsTake video on this topic next week. Have a look at my NotebookLM collection to dive deeper (just request access and I will confirm). Linked video in screenshot above: Peter Yang. NEW: I curated this pretty cool NotebookLM video that really nails it (for a quick overview).

Check out www.gerd.tv – my new TV platfor and home for all my new videos

Gerd Leonhard – For the Human Future
Public thinker. Futurist. Advocate for The Good Future. Defender of #Androrithms. Keynote speaker, filmmaker, and Author of five books, including the bestseller Technology vs. Humanity.

Host of gerd.tv (wait for my announcement next week:)

*In an era of exponential technological change, Gerd Leonhard is a leading voice for human values, ethics, and agency. Through his powerful keynotes and presentations, films, and digital media outlets, he champions The Good Future—a world where technology serves humanity and advances the 5Ps: People, Planet, Purpose, Peace, and Prosperity. While many focus on the “next big thing,” Gerd focuses on the only big thing: preserving our humanity in the age of AI.

Over the past 25 years, Gerd has delivered 2,000+ keynotes in more than 65 countries, reaching audiences of over 3.5 million people. His films and videos on technology, AI, and humanity have garnered millions of views and are widely featured at global conferences and leading universities.

His clients include leading global events, Fortune 500 companies, governments, NGOs, the United Nations, and the European Commission. A recognized global influencer in digital ethics, Gerd has also redefined keynote speaking by blending storytelling with film, animation, music, and immersive media—creating experiences that are provocative, inspiring, and deeply human. The Wall Street Journal named him “one of the leading futurists in the world,” and Wired listed him among Europe’s top 100 influencers. Born in Germany and formerly based in the U.S., Gerd now lives in Zürich, Switzerland, and also spends time in Lanzarote. He presents in both English and German and is a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts (London)”

I will have more details on this change soon

https://digitalethics.co

This is a 5* must watch featuring Jacob Ward and Thomas Friedman (NYT). I have said this countless times in the past 3 years: we urgently need a global AI safety council NOW, not a Manhattan Project!

We are at a PIVOT POINT: An AI that could instantly find bugs and backdoors to any global IT system, websites, apps, devices and clouds… that would bring the world to a grinding halt. This is 500x more important than the already really worrisome geopolitical troubles aka #thebadfuture

Updated: some quotes from other places, below:).

“Anthropic has decided not to release its latest AI model called #mythos to the full public. Now this version is apparently so advanced it can find vulnerabilities in a huge variety of  software applications which is both a great great advancement potentially for improving  cyber security and also a huge danger if used by criminals or others to hack into systems…. Tom, you write this is potentially as fundamental and  significant a turning point as was the emergence of mutually assured destruction and the need for nuclear-non proliferation.

That's a huge statement. Our economy now, all our biggest systems,  our water systems, our airlines, our airports, our transportation and telecommunication systems,  all run on software and operating systems as do those of every other major economy in   the world that we are interlinked with. if basically we now have a a software that not only  is fantastically good at writing new code, but it turns out is fantastically good at finding  bugs in your own code or other people's codes. Um that tool, that power now can be used  all over the world. Um it would be in the hands of everyone. Imagine a world where everyone had  a nuclear bazooka basically… We're we're birthing a new species. It's not carbon based like we are, but silicon-based. But it is a new species that we're going to have to learn to control and collaborate before it makes us its pet. So this is the front end of a really big problem…”

The worst part of this is that while Anthropic ie Dario Amodei has said they will NOT release Mythos because of these concerns, most other AI companies such as the ‘New Tyrell' OpenAI will have no such compunction. This is happening NOW.

Read Thomas's NYT piece (gift link)

“This is not a marginal change to the threat landscape. Every institution that prices cyber risk – insurers, infrastructure investors, governments – has built its models on one foundational assumption: that offensive capability requires scarce human expertise. Mythos removes that scarcity. It’s not surprising that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent convened Wall Street CEOs at short notice. Bessent understood the systemic risk quickly, but markets have yet to reach the same conclusion….The threat model that underwrites cyber insurance premiums is built on a decade of ransomware, data breach and extortion – attack patterns that are slow, sequential and human-constrained. An autonomous agent operates differently: thousands of attack vectors in parallel, learning from responses, adapting in real time. Premiums are already forecast to rise 15% to 20% over the next twelve months, but that figure still assumes the old threat geometry…Reinsurers face something worse than higher claims: a risk that current methodologies cannot adequately price. You cannot underwrite what you cannot model…What governance architecture could address this? Nothing adequate currently exists along the lines of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) model, which made an existential technology legible, inspectable and governable. Mandatory pre-release third-party capability evaluations would be a start, but they require international coordination and a level of technical access to frontier systems that no regulatory body currently has.” Azeem Azhar

Via The Economist: According to Anthropic, the capabilities of Mythos are “substantially beyond those of any model we have previously trained”. The lab says it is particularly alarmed by the system’s ability to find software vulnerabilities and either fix them (if set to work as a defender) or exploit them (if acting as a hacker). Such claims ought normally to be taken with a pinch of salt. Anthropic built the model, ran the tests—and stands to benefit from the perception that its system is far more brilliant than anything to have come before it. The lab has been on a roll lately. On April 6th it announced that its annualised revenue had reached $30bn, up from just $9bn at the end of last year. It is surely eager to maintain its momentum.

Yet there are reasons to take Anthropic’s latest warnings seriously. The first is their gravity: Anthropic says that Mythos has already found severe vulnerabilities in “every major operating system and web browser”, including one that had gone undetected for 27 years…Hackers are not the only ones who may be miffed by Project Glasswing. America’s government has long sought to exploit weaknesses in adversaries’ cyber-defences. That has meant hoarding undiscovered vulnerabilities, including in American software used abroad, for use at a time when these “zero days” will have most impact. If Project Glasswing works, it could disarm many of America’s cyber-weapons.”

Thomas Friedman via the NTY: “The good news is that Anthropic discovered in the process of developing Claude Mythos that the A.I. could not only write software code more easily and with greater complexity than any model currently available, but as a byproduct of that capability, it could also find vulnerabilities in virtually all of the world’s most popular software systems more easily than before.

The bad news is that if this tool falls into the hands of bad actors, they could hack pretty much every major software system in the world, including all those made by the companies in the consortium…. Mythos Preview has already found thousands of high-severity vulnerabilities, including some in every major operating system and web browser. Given the rate of A.I. progress, it will not be long before such capabilities proliferate, potentially beyond actors who committed to deploying them safely. The fallout — economics, public safety and national security — could be severe.’

So…in addition, I made a pretty interesting NotebookLM video using my own voice as overdub:

Related: https://thebadfuture.com/

UPDATE April 20, 2026

Made with GoogleNotebookLM and about 4 hours of research and prompting:))

“Washington is essentially staring down a tidal wave without a life jacket, according to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. The company recently released a 13-page blueprint—appropriately titled “Industrial Policy for the Intelligence Age”—warning that we need a “New Deal” for the AI era because superintelligence is arriving faster than society is prepared to adapt. https://openai.com/index/industrial-p…

“Altman contends that we have reached a new paradigm where AI is already performing significant economic and scientific work. He believes that if we do not rewrite the social contract now, we risk widespread upheaval and a systemic loss of control over the technology. To manage the potential “hollowing out” of the traditional workforce, the proposal suggests radical economic shifts, including a Public Wealth Fund that would distribute dividends from AI growth directly to every citizen.

The company also floats the idea of “robot taxes” and a shift in the tax base from payroll to capital gains to protect social safety nets like Social Security from shrinking wage revenue. Additionally, OpenAI advocates for a “Right to AI” as a basic utility and suggests piloting 32-hour workweeks at full pay, framing extra time back as an “efficiency dividend” for workers. The risks go far beyond job losses, with Altman identifying “world-shaking” cyberattacks and biological weapons as the most immediate, non-theoretical dangers.

The blueprint even includes “containment playbooks” for extreme scenarios where rogue AI systems might replicate themselves or evade human recall. While presented as a starting point for bipartisan conversation, analysts suggest this is also a savvy move to shape regulations ahead of a potential IPO while securing OpenAI's image as the responsible leader in a high-stakes industry” wow. watch and wonder”

And NotebookLM also generated – after much poking – this pretty amazing slideshow.

Think back to February 2020. Most of us weren't paying attention to a virus spreading overseas while we planned trips and shook hands. Then, in three weeks, the entire world changed. 

We are now in a similar “this seems overblown” phase of something much, much bigger than COVID: Artificial Intelligence.

In February 2026, two major AI labs released models- GPT-5.3 Codex and Opus 4.6. That shifted the trajectory of technology forever: the technical ‘commodity' tasks in many professions simply vanished. You can describe a desired outcome in plain English, walk away for an hour, and return to find the work done —often better than you could have done it ourselves (even if not quite perfect, yet – and still requiring human fixes)

But here is the honest conclusion that sounds like we’ve lost our minds: AI is no longer just a tool; it is poised to become a general purpose substitution mechanism for Human Cognitive work, especially for those commodity tasks where “Good Enough” (and 95% cheaper) maybe just fine.

The Good Enough dilemma

* I will have a separate video on that soon – be sure to get alerts via my YT channel*

This dilemma unfolds like this: While AI can now take care of many previously human-only routine tasks such as research, analysis, evaluation and basic prediction, it can only do so on a ‘Good Enough’ level, i.e. it kind of works; and without any certainty or control as to when it's amazing or mostly useless. AI is simply missing those critical human components such as context and common sense, judgement, embodied thinking, intuition and imagination – what I call the Androrithms.

The tough thing about Good Enough is that it’s often vastly cheaper than truly GOOD i.e. made by Humans (think about restaurants vs fast food places, for example). Now companies (and consumers) are going all-in: good enough customer service, good enough financial advice, good enough shopping agents, even good enough personal therapists.

Here is the bottom line: In non-mission critical commodity tasks, AI will take over everywhere – simply because it is vastly more efficient at a fraction of the cost. And as I keep saying, replacing humans with good-enough AI may just be the biggest business opportunity in recent history (and even if that is a mirage, ultimately, todays VCs and Markets are betting the farm on this).

AI is now moving from software engineering into law, finance, medicine, and consulting. Some industry leaders like Dario Amodei and other pundits predict it could eliminate 50% of entry-level white-collar jobs within five years (see more links below) – and even it it is just the tasks rather than jobs, themselves – this amounts to a reboot of our entire work-jobs-education ecosystem.

This seduction towards our cognitive outsourcing (followed by surrender) – is what AI is designed to do. It’s not a bug – it’s a feature. 

• Generative AI is engineered to lure you into laziness, complacency and a creeping state of non-agency, by offering to reduce your own efforts to near-zero, thus doing away with cognitive friction and the pain of creating things

Three peer-reviewed studies:

…prove the cost of ‘too much of a good thing’ when it’s about AI. First, we are facing a Memory Crisis. Students using AI retained 11% less knowledge after just 45 days. Because the brain never had to work for the answer, it never stored it. Second, we see a Critical Thinking Decay. Frequent AI users show a -0.68 correlation with critical thinking scores—one of the strongest negative correlations in recent research. 

Third, we see Cognitive Sedation. MIT wired users to EEG headsets and found a 55% drop in brain engagement. The conclusion: we are accumulating “cognitive debt” that may be changing the very connectivity of our brains. (more links to the studies are below). In other words, the USE IT OR LOSE IT – problem has sharply escalated because of AI.

Related: In a recent Elon University study, strategist Roger Spitz argued the real existential threat is far more banal: the rise of “superstupidity” – the condition of humans becoming dangerously reliant on complex systems they no longer comprehend.

Recently, Nobel laureate Daron Acemoglu et al have presented their “Knowledge Collapse” concept (PDF). Daron explains that human knowledge is not a static library; it is a living system that requires continuous reproduction. His latest model shows a “non-monotone welfare curve”: When AI accuracy is modest, it’s a net positive—humans must still do the mental heavy lifting. But once AI hits a certain accuracy threshold, the system tips, and Learning feels unnecessary (wow).

We stop building the “intuition” and the “tacit knowledge” that ultimately allows us to push the frontiers of science and medicine. All the while, the AIs will continue to give even more correct and more personalized answers – while the collective capacity to ask questions that nobody has asked before quietly disappears.

While our cognitive abilities atrophy, the AIs and machines are entering an “Intelligence Explosion”?

GPT-5.3 Codex was the first model instrumental in creating itself (repeat that and ponder!)  It debugged its own training and managed its own deployment. AI is now writing “much of the code” at the very companies that are building it. Reminder: AI is GROWN not PROGRAMMED (watch Geoffrey Hinton’s talk on this).

AI is now essentially a “digital enclave” of millions of synthetic ‘alien' intelligences, each potentially smarter than any Nobel-prize winner, thinking 100 times faster than us – and they never sleep, or fail to rise to the challenge. The reality is that every white-collar / “office job” behind a screen is now exposed (on that note, have a look what I think about the Future of Futurists) – while the plumbers and carpenters seem safe (oh the irony).

My conclusion: Intelligent assistants are DESIGNED to amplify – and then, thrive – from human stupidity 

But what is the antidote?

Thinking takes time. Realization requires effort. Excellence requires struggle, and often, pain. Embrace it. Consciousness is not just more logical intelligence topped off with a sprinkling of agency – it is embodied, holistic, interconnected and organic. Consciousness is about BEING not DOING – something that is out of reach for machines, and certainly should be, as well.

To avoid spreading darkness at the speed of light, we must now change how we engage with AI: First, struggle with the task or the problem on your own. Use AI to ask questions, not just to provide answers. If you find yourself in a state of “sedation”  i.e. reading without critiquing, pause. Go deeper, not faster, take your time to digest and contemplate. Second, resist the temptation to ‘cut and paste' AI-generated content because it it is ‘good enough' and you're in a hurry (I struggle with this rule, every day, including during the writing of this piece

It’s been said in many places that the person who uses AI to do three days of work in one hour is becoming the most valuable person in the room – but imho, this is only true if he/she uses that extra time to think, to build, to grow and to learn, to become more human not less.

The Human Resistance: Taking Back Tomorrow

This is the challenge we must react to, and this is why we must reject, resist and refute the technology optimists’ core message: give it all to technology, just enjoy the fruits of your effortless labour, and eventually, merge with the machines to achieve perpetual bliss.

I think we must ‘take back tomorrow’ and maintain, fortify, protect and expand our own embodied and human-only intelligence. More on that soon!

Gerd

RESOURCES

Your brain on ChatGPT

Pia Lauritzen

Is AI dulling our minds?

Knowledge Collapse

TheHumanResistance

RELATED IMAGES

RELATED VIDEOS

Read this first: Christof Koch

This brilliant piece “The inner life we’re trading away” by Neuroscientist Christof Koch: Why reflective self-consciousness separates us from intelligent machines has so many morsels and wisdoms, that my team and I decided to make a narrated voice-over video with it, quoting the essays and illustrating the key points.