What It Means to Be Human in the Age of AI

(Written/Researched as part of an essay, but heavily re-adapted for this blog).

As machines increasingly demonstrate capabilities we once considered uniquely human, one question keeps me awake: When machines can replicate nearly everything we once believed only humans could do, what, if anything, still defines us as human?

We're driven by the need to constantly find challenges for ourselves. At the very top of Maslow's hierarchy of needs sits Self-actualization and Esteem. It is no longer about immediate survival, but about purpose and challenge. And just like muscles that need to break down before they can be built up stronger (creative destruction living in our bones), we're looking for challenges that .

Another aspect of being human is understanding that not everything is optimizable. An AI works by optimizing for a predefined goal - whether it is the next likely word, or the most accurate number according to a line-of-best-fit.

But being human is to recognize that not everything can be quantified or calculated. We have the ability to reject metrically superior outcomes when they are premised on morally unacceptable conditions. We have "gray areas," but every decision an AI makes is something it has already predetermined, something it already has an answer to as encoded in its weights.

There are dangers when we focus on outcomes alone, when we use AI to automate all parts of the process and just focus on the result. A machine just produces results without becoming anything, while humans become something through the process of result creation. For us, the “how” matters as much as the “what”, because it shapes who we are. In confucianism, the process of learning is itself a central goal, not merely for its practical outcomes, but because life’s purpose is the continual pursuit of self improvement and refinement. 

Deciding whether to automate a task, then, is not merely about speeding it up, but about judging whether human participation still carries developmental value. In a future of increasingly capable AI, what defines us as humans lies in the practices we choose to keep for ourselves, precisely because they shape who we become.

The question, then, is no longer what machines can do for us, but what we are willing to give up doing, and what that choice makes us become. And the challenge is deciding which inefficiencies are worth preserving, and which are unjustifiable. If autonomous vehicles can drastically reduce accidents, or robotic surgeons can significantly improve surgical outcomes, is it still ethical for humans to insist on occupying those roles? Perhaps these are the defining questions we are forced to confront as AI continues to advance.