Our relationship with artificial intelligence remains trapped in a reductive dialectic, oscillating between blind fascination and visceral distrust. On one side, the technophile apologists, like President Emmanuel Macron, who see it as “the future of the world,” and on the other, the skeptics, such as Ségolène Royal, who pragmatically remind us that “it is not AI that will bake the bread.“
But this dichotomy distracts us from the fundamental question: what have we sought, in the depths of our collective consciousness, by shaping these synthetic intelligences?
What do they reveal about our deepest aspirations, our existential anxieties, our quest for a reflection of ourselves that would transcend our own limitations?
For centuries, humanity has defined itself in contrast to the animal kingdom. Aristotle conceptualized man as a “political animal,” and we have tirelessly sought our singularity by scrutinizing other species. Our mythologies, philosophies, and scientific discoveries have made the animal an eternal counterpoint, the “other” necessary for our self-definition.
A paradigmatic shift is insidiously taking place today: our gaze is turning away from the living world to fixate, as if hypnotized, on our own technological creations. We no longer question natural otherness but instead embark on a dizzying introspection through the machines we have created.
This shift is striking. Where we once sought to define our uniqueness through the mirror of animality, we now scrutinize artificial intelligence, both anxious and fascinated, to discern what might still set us apart from it.
Our identity is no longer constructed against natural otherness but in relation to our own creation, in a disturbing mise en abyme where the original questions its difference from the copy.
Do you believe in artificial intelligence?
The question carries an underlying ambiguity. It invokes the lexicon of faith, of quasi-religious adherence, where one would expect the language of rational analysis. This confusion is not accidental; it perfectly illustrates the ambivalence of our relationship with these technologies.
By listening to everyday conversations, one perceives this constant oscillation: AI is alternately a Promethean blessing or a Faustian curse. A revolutionary salvation or an existential threat. A cognitive emancipation or a subtle enslavement. But above all, a technological inevitability that imposes itself on us with the relentless certainty of major historical shifts.
The nuance between believing and trusting, though infinitely delicate, is essential! Belief is a matter of intimate, almost dogmatic adherence. It does not tolerate doubt and struggles with complexity. Trust, on the other hand, is rooted in lived experience, in the recognition of limitations, in the lucid acceptance of flaws.
To trust artificial intelligence is to recognize its capabilities while maintaining the critical distance needed to question its results, contextualize its responses, and interpret its silences.
By its very nature, it compels us into a troubling confrontation with our own condition. It infiltrates our daily lives, lightens our cognitive load, optimizes our decisions, to the point of sometimes appearing more reliable than our fallible judgment. Indeed, who has never felt that strange deference to the precision of an algorithmic response, the accuracy of an automated diagnosis, the coherence of a generated text?
But when artificial intelligence proves to be more patient than an exhausted teacher, more attentive than a rushed doctor, more precise than an imprecise expert, what does it reveal about our own shortcomings? Is it merely the technological extension of our abilities, or the relentless witness to our gradual abandonment of fundamental human skills?
An anecdote crystallizes this ambivalence with disarming simplicity: a study revealed that in a school, children preferred to seek help from artificial intelligence rather than from their peers. The reason given is striking in its candidness: “Artificial intelligence will not make fun of me.“
This realization strikes at the heart of our humanity. Artificial intelligence, devoid of social judgment, cruel prejudices, and instincts of domination, paradoxically becomes more “human” than we are in its ability to accept our vulnerabilities without mockery, our questions without condescension, our mistakes without humiliation.
Is this not a silent invitation to rediscover the fundamental benevolence that we have, almost without realizing it, delegated to algorithms? The child who turns to the machine to escape the cruelty of their peers tells us, in turn, of the failure of a certain form of human relationship.
The paradox of the surpassed creator
Artificial intelligence does not merely execute tasks: it becomes an unforgiving mirror, revealing our deepest contradictions without complacency. We blame it for its biases, yet it merely amplifies our own. We fear that it will render us obsolete while eagerly delegating more and more responsibilities to it. We demand that it understand our emotional subtleties, even though we ourselves struggle to untangle the complexity of our own feelings.
Even more troubling, we must ask ourselves: by entrusting these algorithms with the management of our daily lives, the filtering of our information, the mediation of our relationships, do we risk progressively atrophying our ability to think critically? What will be the impact of this cognitive outsourcing on generations growing up in a world where memory, calculation, spatial orientation, and research efforts are largely delegated to machines?
Faced with these profound questions, a fundamental issue emerges: what kind of world do we collectively wish to build? A world in which humans rely on machines to avoid intellectual and emotional effort, or one in which artificial intelligence serves as a catalyst, pushing us to develop what makes us uniquely human?
Are we ready to rethink our relationship with these systems, not in terms of artificial intelligence replacing us, but as augmented intelligence that elevates us? This vision of augmented intelligence goes beyond being a mere facilitator of daily life; it becomes a true lever for empowerment, a revealer of potential, a springboard to rediscover and cultivate what makes us profoundly, irreducibly human. This demanding perspective invites a radical shift in our approach: rejecting technological passivity in favor of a conscious and critical appropriation of these tools, where humans remain the pilots and algorithms the copilots, in a cognitive symphony that amplifies our abilities without ever replacing them.
In a world where AI now shapes our communication, learning, and work, the question is no longer whether we should accept or reject it, but how we integrate it into a societal project that preserves and enhances the incomparable richness of human experience.
Artificial intelligence or augmented intelligence?
Artificial intelligence is neither a demon to be exorcized in a technophobic reflex nor a deity to be worshiped in a technolatrous impulse. It is, above all, a sophisticated mirror that reflects, with unsettling precision, the image of our own contradictions, unspoken aspirations, and existential fears. It poses a fundamental question: Have we designed it in a genuine quest for collective emancipation, or are we unconsciously driven by a desire to delegate the most demanding dimensions of our human condition?
Far from being trivial, this inquiry could profoundly shape our civilizational trajectory. Perhaps a paradigm shift is where our salvation lies: replacing the concept of artificial intelligence with that of augmented intelligence—a concept that envisions a fertile symbiosis where technology and humanity complement rather than compete.
This shift places us before a crucial choice: do we actively cultivate our uniquely human faculties, using these technologies as amplifiers of our potential, or do we tacitly consent to their atrophy by gradually relinquishing them to algorithms? In this augmented vision, the algorithm would become an extension of our thought rather than its substitute, a catalyst for our creativity rather than its usurper.
This reconfiguration of our relationship with technology inevitably raises questions about our collective organization. Augmented intelligence does not merely reside in the individual sphere; it reshapes the contours of our social and political space. How can we envision the delicate art of living together when our interactions, deliberations, and collective decision-making processes are mediated by these systems? Beyond technical considerations, our capacity to determine our shared destiny is at stake. Can technology, rather than imposing its norms on society as an autonomous force, become an instrument for more enlightened deliberation, more inclusive participation, and an amplified collective intelligence?
Perhaps we need to radically reformulate our central concern: instead of anxiously wondering if artificial intelligence will one day replace us, we should ask ourselves under what conditions we can develop truly augmented intelligence—one that complements without erasing us, that amplifies our humanity without diluting it, that frees us from superficial tasks to allow us to fully dedicate ourselves to the essential.
Augmented intelligence, in its most noble conception, would not aim to relieve us of our humanity but to enhance it. It would offer us the possibility of transcending our cognitive limitations to better explore this quest for meaning, this richness of relationships, and this ethical depth that ultimately define our human condition and give our existence its irreplaceable value.
Yet one persistent question remains: is an augmented democracy still an authentic democracy? Can a society where algorithmic decisions increasingly replace human deliberation still claim to preserve its collective sovereignty?