Autonomous Transformation

CHAPTER 2What Does It Mean to Be Human in the Era of Artificial Intelligence?

A child may ask, “What is the world's story about?” And a grown man or woman may wonder, “What way will the world go? How does it end and, while we're at it, what's the story about?”

—John Steinbeck, East of Eden

Since the beginning of human cognition, humankind's search for meaning has produced works of art and literature, breakthroughs in science and technology, and voyages across oceans and into outer space. This search for meaning is so fundamental to the human experience as to exist independent of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, as evidenced by cave paintings from the Paleolithic Period, the Pyramids of Giza, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composing his Requiem on his deathbed.

Despite this search's antiquity and the many cultures and individuals who believe that the question of the meaning of humankind has been answered, no collective answer has been found or agreed to. Perhaps this is why scientific and technological advancements, in particular, recenter the human gaze on the age‐old question: What does it mean to be human?

• What does it mean to be human if the Earth is not the center of the universe? (1543)
• if we can journey beneath the ocean? (1776)
• if we travel to the moon and beyond? (1969)
• if machines can beat us at chess? (1997)
• if machines can create art? (2018)
• if machines can write convincingly? (2022)

This is not a question asked at the natural history museum. The fact that the upper‐body ...