AI must serve human flourishing

This essay is a part of The Right Way Forward, Restoring America’s new think tank debate series in which leading conservative institutions argue the defining questions of the post-Trump era. Read about the series here.

As artificial intelligence accelerates into every corner of our economy and daily lives, too often, lawmakers and developers’ focus is on efficiency, speed, and scale. But there is a more foundational question: What do we want from AI?

According to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, our corporeal self is a vestigial organ that AI will let us abandon as we upload our consciousness to machines. Google co-founder Larry Page is content with AI completely replacing the human race, and calls people who disagree with him “speciesists” for their bias in favor of humankind. When asked whether the human race should survive, Peter Thiel took an eerie pause before uttering a reluctant “yes, but.” Thiel told an audience that any