The future of humans and AI

We're using the worst version of AI that will ever exist. What will future generations be capable of, and what's left for us humans to do – besides drinking coffee and playing Padel with the boys? Our columnist Markus Sekulla explores what it's like to live in the tension between dystopia and utopia. And what do we as humans still need to bring to the table to turn this into an intelligent coexistence?

AI, AI, AI. The topic is so omnipresent that there's barely a conversation where it doesn't come up. Even at a barbecue with old school friends, they are all about what they use ChatGPT for. In a professional context, it goes further. The test is simple: in your next meeting, check how many minutes it takes before someone drops one of the words ChatGPT, Claude, CoPilot, AI, or prompt. You could make a AI Bragging Bingo, and after 15 minutes you'd surely have a full card.

All or nothing?

The crystal ball is particularly hard to read with AI, because let's be honest, nobody really understands it. If someone presents themselves as an expert, you should be cautious by default. Because even at Anthropic and OpenAI, they don't know exactly how LLMs really work. What we're all "experts" in is how to use these platforms. Platform knowledge – how to prompt, which new features n8n just dropped – is what we have. And in my humble opinion it is what clouds the actual discussion.

What irritates me most: the excitement is often bigger than the understanding. LinkedIn posts about personal AI workflows get celebrated as if someone invented fire, when really a PDF got summarised. Companies have "AI-first" on their flag before a single use case exists. And at conferences, auditoriums applaud demos that will be obsolete three months later. We're cheering the speed without asking where we're actually headed so fast.

Let's get to the point. Machines, in the human sense, still haven't become more intelligent. But they've become far more capable of performing economically relevant tasks. And new ones are added every day. The often heard idea that AI won't take our jobs, but people who know how to use AI will, strikes me as a bit short-sighted. Agents are so powerful that humans aren't being replaced 1 to 1, but rather 1 to 5 or even 1 to 1,000.

And yes, we're sugarcoating this. Both sides. The optimists say: millions of new jobs will emerge. The sceptics say: my job will be safe. And both are right and wrong at the same time. Because the problem isn't whether new jobs are coming... they are. The problem is the pace. With the internet, a generation had time to reorient. With AI agents, we're talking months.

Medicine shows the tension most clearly. According to Regine Rathmann, 18 percent more cases of cancer can be detected with AI support than without. What therapies emerge from that is still decided by humans. Skin screening by AI? Yes please, immediately. Job cuts by AI? No thanks. But it's the same technology. We cherry-pick what suits us and tune out what hurts.

Between dystopia and utopia

A conversation with a journalist friend showed me how much we still distrust AI. If this article had declared "AI-generated" as its author up top, most of you probably wouldn't have made it to this point. Myself included. We simply don't want to read, hear, or see anything generated by AI, yet.

But what if that changes? What if, in five years, it's a mark of quality that an article was written by AI because more thorough research went into it than any human could ever deliver? The article won't be more human, but maybe it'll be more rigorous, more comprehensive, and better?

On one hand, a deep resistance to AI. On the other, I'd love for AI to keep an eye on my moles to check whether anything suspicious has developed. We'll have to live in this tension between utopia and dystopia for a few more years.

Nobody really knows. No one can seriously predict where AI is headed. When Anthropic doesn't launch a new model for everyone because it's too powerful and could compromise international security, and even the Pope weighs in, it's time to look more closely. Not in panic. Not in euphoria. But with open eyes, in a race that hardly anyone ordered but all of us are running in.

Disclaimer: Parts of this article were written or edited by AI. Feel free to guess which ones :)