Humans and AI — Once the Trend Arrives, It Will Not Pause for Anyone
English translation of the Chinese original (AI-assisted). Read the original in Chinese.
After AI appeared, human reactions became very polarized. On one side, people believe AI will replace humans, from their jobs to their very existence; on the other, people deify AI and hand everything over to it, including thinking. Both extremes are exaggerated, but they are understandable.
My own understanding is this: AI is neither God nor a monster. It is simply an inevitable product of the development of civilization. When the era arrives, it naturally appears.
If you asked me now to return to a life without smartphones or the internet, I definitely would not want to. Not because smartphones and the internet are perfect, but because we have become used to them and cannot go back.
AI is the same. Once it appears, it will be difficult for humanity to turn back.
Even if it brings problems—crime, deception, misinformation, moral issues, and all sorts of other messy problems—it still cannot stop the trend.
Humans have emotions, needs, goals, and responsibilities; they get tired, make mistakes, and have biological cycles. AI does not. It is computing power, memory, logic, and execution, always online and always stable.
But AI does not have goals. All directions come from humans.
Ultimately, no matter how powerful AI becomes, human nature is still behind it. Whatever humans want to do, AI will be pushed in that direction. Whatever human nature is like, the results produced by AI will reflect it.
So if, in the future, we see competition between nations, capital monopolies, financial markets becoming more efficient at fleecing ordinary investors, and all kinds of legal and moral problems—none of this is surprising.
These things are not caused by AI. They are always driven by human desires. AI is merely a puppet. A knife can hurt people or serve people; a knife is only a tool. It has no purpose of its own. The purpose belongs to the person.
The trend is right there, moving forward. It does not wait for you, nor does it ask for your opinion. Whether you like it or not, it is there.
From the steam engine to electricity and then to the internet, humanity has followed this same rhythm every time. Once something reaches scale, there is no turning back.
The same applies to individuals. You can reject it, doubt it, or resist it, but the trend will not pause because of an individual opinion. It will simply continue moving forward.
The emergence of AI is like giving humanity an external add-on. Humans keep their intuition, quirks, hesitation, inspiration, and limitations, while AI fills in computing power, structure, speed, and stability. Together, the two enable human civilization to leap forward.
The emergence of AI has made me more certain of one thing. In the future:
- Technology will be learned by AI
- Strategies will be optimized by AI
- Speed will be surpassed by AI
But there are three things AI cannot learn:
- Knowing oneself (AI has no "self")
- Accepting limitations (AI does not need to "accept")
- Living with uncertainty (AI only calculates probabilities)
So what we should think about is not "How can I be better than AI?" but rather "How can I become a person AI cannot replace?"
- Honestly face yourself
- Build your own system
- Preserve your humanity amid chaos
AI will make markets more efficient, but it will also make "humanity" scarcer.