Making Sense of Human Intelligence in an Age of AI
Last month, I wrote about making sense of artificial intelligence in a rapidly changing world. AI itself has been around for decades, but the pace of its development has accelerated dramatically, bringing with it both extraordinary possibilities and very real questions about how we choose to use it.
I ended that article by saying I wanted to explore next what it means to cultivate our own intelligence, creativity, and judgment in an age increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence. It's a question I've been thinking about for some time, particularly as I've watched AI change expectations in my own professional life and read more about where this technology may be taking us.
Recently, I listened to Dr. Fei-Fei Li, a Stanford University professor of computer science, reflect on something decidedly human. One of the things humanity never seems to learn, she observed, is that the older generation inevitably laments the younger one: they don't know anything, they're rude, they're forgetting the past. Yet when we look at the broader arc of human history, she said, by and large, humanity has advanced for the better.
I found that really interesting.
Every generation encounters a world that looks different from the one before it, and every generation has to figure out how to live in it.
But that doesn't mean our concerns about change are unfounded. The technologies we adopt do change us. Most of us no longer memorize phone numbers the way we once did. We rely on GPS rather than learning every route. We can find in seconds information that once required a trip to the library. Along the way, some capabilities become less necessary, others become more important, and entirely new ones become possible.
Perhaps that's a more useful way to think about this moment. The question isn't whether technology will change what we're capable of—it already has. It's what we gain, what we give up, and what we choose to continue cultivating.
AI has already been working alongside us for years—in navigation, recommendations, fraud detection, forecasting, automation and countless other systems. What's changing now is the range of things we can ask increasingly capable AI systems to do, including work we have traditionally associated with our own thinking.
Human beings have always created tools to extend what we can do and find efficiencies. Calculators handle calculations, GPS helps us navigate, and search engines give us immediate access to information we once had to remember—or know where to find.
But AI introduces an interesting wrinkle. Increasingly, the work we can offload includes parts of the thinking itself.
AI can analyze enormous amounts of data, identify patterns, make predictions, optimize decisions and, increasingly, take actions on our behalf. Generative AI brings those capabilities closer to us, allowing us to brainstorm, analyze, learn, create, or reason through a problem using everyday language.
Again, none of those things is inherently good or bad. I use AI regularly for many of them myself. I've experienced how useful it can be in helping me learn, explore an idea, organize information, analyze something complicated, or see something from another perspective.
But I have also begun to wonder about the distinction between offloading work and outsourcing our thinking.
Doing something the hard way isn't automatically better. There is little virtue in spending an hour on something technology can accomplish well in five minutes. But there are also forms of effort through which we develop judgment, curiosity, creativity, reasoning, and understanding.
And there may be another side to this that we don't talk about as much.
If technology can increasingly summarize information, identify patterns, analyze data, generate options and execute tasks, what does that ask of us?
Our contribution may have to move further toward understanding the problem, asking better questions, interpreting what comes back, making connections, challenging assumptions, applying context and ultimately exercising judgment about what to do.
In other words, AI may not simply change what we do. It may change what is required of us.
Are we prepared for that cognitive shift?
Some of what we're seeing about the skills we'll need in the future makes that question even more interesting—and not only for those of us still in the workforce.
The World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs Report 2025 asked employers which skills they expect to grow most rapidly in importance through 2030. AI and big data topped the list. That probably won't surprise anyone. But look at what else is there: creative thinking; resilience, flexibility and agility; curiosity and lifelong learning; leadership and social influence; and analytical thinking.
What strikes me about that list isn't simply that we need to become more technologically capable. Look at how many of the other skills ask something of us.
Creative thinking. Resilience. Curiosity. Learning. Leadership. Analytical thinking.
And while the report is about the future of work, those capabilities don't suddenly stop mattering when we leave the workplace. They matter when we're raising children, entering retirement, navigating change, learning something unfamiliar, making decisions, or simply trying to understand the world around us.
We're also beginning to see organizations translate this into what they expect from people. Zapier, for example, now includes AI fluency in its expectations for employees and new hires. But what I find interesting is that its approach isn't simply about knowing how to use an AI tool. It includes things like strategy, judgment, building and accountability—understanding the work well enough to know where and how AI can improve it.
That feels like an important distinction.
The expectation isn't simply learn the technology. Increasingly, it may be understand what you do well enough to know how the technology changes what you can contribute.
And that requires something from our own intelligence.
It requires us to keep learning. To understand enough to recognize when something doesn't make sense. To ask better questions. To connect information across different areas. To know when efficiency matters and when slowing down and thinking something through matters more. And perhaps to become increasingly comfortable learning things we don't yet know.
That doesn't sound to me like human intelligence becoming less important.
It sounds like we're being asked to exercise it differently—and in some ways, perhaps more.
From Strategy to Intentional Living
For me, this is where the idea moves from strategy to intentional living.
If AI is going to become increasingly capable, I don't think the question is simply whether we should use it. It's about making conscious choices about where, why, and how we use it—and what we want our own role to be.
Before reaching for an AI tool, there are some questions I think are worth asking:
What am I actually trying to accomplish?
Do I want AI to do this for me, or help me do it?
What do I need to understand or learn myself?
Where does my own judgment need to remain involved?
What might this technology allow me to do that I couldn't do—or couldn't do as effectively—before?
And is the way I'm using it aligned with what matters to me?
I'm on my own learning curve with this right now.
I recently started a new position in an industry that is new to me, and my organization has more than 150 products. I need enough understanding of those products to see how they relate to my role and to the customers I'm there to serve.
I also have a new organization, industry, role and people to learn. My time and attention matter.
So, I built an AI learning agent.
I sit down with my virtual tutor for 30-minute learning sessions. It takes me through the products in manageable pieces, asks me questions, helps me distinguish between products that can easily be confused, and relates what I'm learning back to my role.
The AI isn't learning the products for me. I'm still doing the learning.
What I've handed over is some of the work around the learning—building the lessons, determining what comes next, testing what I remember and adapting the material to what I need to know. That allows me to concentrate on understanding the information, making connections, asking questions and applying what I'm learning to my role.
For me, that's not giving up agency. It's actually giving me more of it. I'm using technology to accelerate my learning curve while keeping my attention on the things that require more from me: understanding the business, making connections, exercising judgment and eventually having an impact.
And I think that's an important distinction.
Agency isn't about doing everything ourselves. And intentionality isn't about resisting technology. Sometimes the most intentional choice may be to let technology carry something we no longer need to carry so that we can put more of ourselves somewhere that matters.
Other times, the intentional choice may be to wrestle with the question ourselves. To challenge what AI gives us rather than simply accept it. To ask for another perspective rather than reassurance. To learn rather than simply retrieve an answer. Or to recognize that judgment, responsibility, or even the experience of doing something belongs with us.
Those choices won't be the same for everyone. They probably won't even be the same for us from one situation to another.
But I don't think we can expect our own capabilities to remain static while the capabilities of the technology around us continue to advance. Maybe that's the opportunity in front of us now.
Not simply to become proficient with artificial intelligence, but to consider what its capabilities make possible for ours. What can I learn or do that I couldn't as easily before? And where does that ask me to stretch, learn, or think differently?
Living intentionally in a rapidly changing world isn't about resisting change. It's about remaining an active participant in who we become as we move through it.
And perhaps the question isn't only how intelligent our technology becomes.
It's what we choose to do with our own.
Sources
Li, Fei-Fei, PhD. Using AI to Increase Your Intelligence & Enrich Humanity. Interview with Andrew Huberman, Huberman Lab, August 10, 2026.
World Economic Forum. Future of Jobs Report 2025.
