AI + The New Human Frontier

CHAPTER 36The Power of Imagination

The future is a blank slate, and we have the power to shape it. The future is not predetermined or fixed; it is up to us to determine what it will look like. Technology is propelling humans into a creativity contest with technological innovations of our own making. As new technologies apply competitive pressures to older systems, and as more people become displaced, the value of imagination increases exponentially. So, right now we sit at an inflection point—one in which humans and AI are in a race to see whose imagination, if either, will win out. There are few endlessly renewable resources that are valuable to our futures, and imagination is certainly one of them. Humans will never run out of it. But AI is quickly catching up. If educators, employers, marketers, and technologists rely on the imagination of AI without fostering this capacity in their human constituencies, human imagination may become an even rarer commodity in the value chain. We will need to double down on figuring out ways to apply what is unique to the human brain to the future of work, art, citizenship, competitiveness, national security, and social interaction. We will need to work together across political party lines and international borders to find solutions to the problems of resources, climate, terrorism, aging populations, and political stalemates … which is nice in theory but difficult in practice.

While our view of the future is colored through the lens in which ...