Show Notes

AI has been feared for a long time, with concerns that it will make humans irrelevant. However, history has shown that every time we automate something, we also create new value. The same will happen with AI. It may work faster than previous automation, but it will also create new industries and opportunities. AI is a linear thinker, which means it can connect existing dots but not invent new ones. Humans excel at lateral thinking, which is essential for creativity and innovation. AI will complement and support In this episode, Tom explains that AI is a "mirror" that helps us understand what it means to be human, and that we often underestimate humanity's ability to adapt and create new value. He argues that AI will not make us irrelevant, but rather accelerate our evolution and force us to rediscover our purpose and potential as thinkers, dreamers, and creators. Ultimately, our ability to imagine and create what doesn't yet exist is what makes us human and valuable, and no machine can ever take that away.

About

Transcript

The Human Factor: What We Get Wrong About AI Replacing Humans There’s a persistent fear that artificial intelligence will make humans irrelevant—that one day soon, machines will outgrow us. But that fear isn’t new. We’ve had it with every breakthrough in history. When Gutenberg’s printing press emerged, people feared it would destroy knowledge by putting it in the wrong hands. When the first industrial looms appeared, workers smashed them in protest. But history tells a different story: every time we automate, we amplify. Humanity has never lost value to its machines; we’ve simply changed the way we create it. We confuse replacement with redefinition. AI won’t eliminate humans—it will redefine what it means to be valuable. The Myth of Displacement Every era of automation—from the wheel to the web—follows the same pattern: fear, adaptation, and then new value. The printing press didn’t end scribes; it created publishing. Industrialization didn’t kill craftsmanship; it birthed design and branding. Computing didn’t erase jobs; it gave rise to entire economies built on code and creativity. When people say, “AI will eliminate humans,” what they’re really saying is, “I can’t yet imagine what new value looks like.” That’s not extinction—that’s imagination lag. Value has always been a human-to-human proposition. It’s not about output; it’s about meaning. As long as we can create something another human finds valuable, we’ll create industries, economies, and civilizations. The Acceleration Paradox What’s different now is speed. The printing press took centuries to scale. The Industrial Revolution took generations. Computing unfolded over decades. AI will do it all in years. Displacement will happen faster than ever before—but so will the creation of new value. We focus so much on what AI will automate that we ignore what it will activate. When you give billions of people the ability to think, write, and create at infinite scale, you don’t end work—you ignite it. AI isn’t an extinction event. It’s an acceleration event. Linear vs. Lateral Thinking Here’s the key distinction: AI is a linear thinker; humans are lateral thinkers. AI connects every known dot, but it doesn’t invent new ones. It’s brilliant at synthesizing the totality of human knowledge, but it doesn’t surprise us. Humans leap sideways—we collide ideas that shouldn’t fit. We break convention, offend the past, and call it progress. Copernicus, Einstein, Crick and Watson—all were lateral thinkers. They didn’t extend what was known; they redefined it. AI can’t do that. It provides conventional wisdom, not novelty. We need both—linear systems to solve known problems, and lateral thinkers to imagine new realities. AI will take over the linear; humans will own the lateral. And that’s how we’ll create progress together. How AI Expands Human Creativity AI will unburden us from routine cognition. It will free the human mind to see peripherally, to wander creatively. Think of AI as the tool that finally removes the blinders. Automation doesn’t kill creativity—it frees it. It lets us focus on imagination, originality, and insight. Creativity isn’t about doing what hasn’t been done—it’s about thinking what hasn’t been thought. AI will do the heavy lifting of knowledge so we can do the heavy lifting of meaning. The New Economics of Value Every economic era has been defined by what we value. We once valued muscle, then machinery, then information. Now, we value imagination. This is the dawn of the Imaginative Economy—a world where our worth isn’t tied to what we can repeat, but what we can conceive. AI won’t compete in that world—it’ll collaborate. It’s not a replacement; it’s a multiplier. It will create new professions, industries, and experiences we haven’t yet dreamed of. The jobs it destroys will be the jobs we shouldn’t have had to do anymore. The Human Advantage AI may be smarter, but it will never be wiser. It can analyze patterns, but it can’t find meaning. It can write love poems, but it can’t fall in love. It can compose music, but it can’t feel awe. Our advantage isn’t intelligence—it’s intent. The future belongs to those who understand both how AI thinks and why humans feel. Together, we can create a partnership that accelerates progress without losing purpose. The Bottom Line What we get wrong about AI eliminating humans is that we underestimate our superpower: our ability to create new value out of nothing. We’ve done it for millennia—and we’ll do it again. AI isn’t here to end us. It’s here to elevate us. AI won’t make us irrelevant—it’ll make us necessary in new ways. Because as long as we can imagine what hasn’t yet been imagined, we’ll always have something that machines don’t— the ability to create what doesn’t yet exist.