PRINCETON – The rapid march of artificial intelligence is not only disrupting conventional notions of work. It is also changing the essence of human identity. Whereas previous technological developments altered human behavior and appearances, AI will fundamentally reshape individuals’ core social and political beliefs, including about the nature and role of the state.
In the nineteenth-century Industrial Revolution, mechanical power – mostly fueled by burning carbon – replaced human and animal power as a source for energy to be used in the transformation of nature and the production of industrial and consumer goods. As the revolution matured in the twentieth century, hard physical labor was left to only a dwindling group of occupations.