The Day Humanity Lost Its Purpose and Found Its Soul
Updated: 5 hours ago
Recently, I was listening to The New York Times podcast The Daily with Cornell math professor Stephen Strogatz. I will admit I was moved to tears by their discussion.
On the surface, Dr. Strogatz was there to discuss how ChatGPT had recently solved two of the most complex problems in mathematics: the Erdős unit distance conjecture and the fundamental flaw with the Navier–Stokes equations.
Dr. Strogatz highlighted that not only are these some of the most difficult problems in mathematics, but when ChatGPT solved the distance conjecture, it did so elegantly.
Solving an equation with elegance means the result has a surprise value that is inevitable once you see it. To be told you solved an equation elegantly is one of the greatest compliments you can receive from another mathematician.
Why this matters is that when ChatGPT first emerged in 2022, it could not handle simple arithmetic. Four years later, it’s solving the world’s most complex math problems with ease and elegance.
This is when the interview became about something much deeper and more profound: What happens to your purpose when your passion in life becomes a rounding error?
To be clear, the focus of my article is not the economic displacement caused by AI, which is real and deserves the plethora of articles written about the subject.
What I’m more concerned about is what Dr. Strogatz addresses in his interview: When a machine eviscerates our purpose in life, how do we move forward?
The Pleasure of Discovery
Dr. Strogatz explained that his greatest pleasure in life is solving equations that no one else has solved. Whereas the great explorers of the fifteenth century set out on boats to discover foreign lands, Dr. Strogatz is an explorer of mathematics.
Solving these equations requires years of pondering. Like the great thinkers before him, through endless trial and error, Dr. Strogatz approaches a problem from various angles until, one day, his contemplation produces a eureka moment.
ChatGPT can perform this trial-and-error dance at light speed. The rate at which ChatGPT is solving equations means that, in short order, there will be no significant problems left for mathematicians to ponder.
What’s even more soul-crushing is that, in the future, any time a new problem is posed by the academic community, ChatGPT will likely solve the problem in a matter of hours.
The only way humans will have the pleasure of solving a new math problem is if they come up with a problem on their own and solve it in secret.
The greatest minds on earth have been reduced to hiding in a dark corner, hoping no one, especially a computer, is looking over their shoulder.
How does one cope when the one thing you were good at can be done infinitely better by a machine? Do you retool and find a different purpose? What happens when the machine bests you in this new arena?
The reality is stark. These machines will slowly become more proficient than the smartest humans on earth in every subject. But intellectual pursuits are just the beginning.
Once robotics advances to the point where AI possesses the spatial awareness and dexterity to interact with the material world, machines will become more proficient at physical tasks—mining, construction, harvesting, cleaning.
Even something as distinctly human as painting a picture or sculpting a statue will no longer be impossible for a machine.
We have become the victims of our own planned obsolescence.
The Tower of Babel
In Genesis chapter eleven, there is a nine-verse story about the Tower of Babel. The gist of the story is that humanity, bound by one language, decides to work together to create a tower that stretches into the heavens.
At the time, the ancients believed that if you could get high enough in the sky, you would encounter stairs, which would lead to a door that would allow you into heaven.
From their perspective, heaven was not some alternate dimension inaccessible to humans. You could see the heavens quite clearly on a cloudless evening.
Since they had no scientific understanding of the universe, they did not realize that the stars in the sky are similar to our sun, just trillions of miles away. To them, those stars were gods or angels looking down on earth.
Hence, if the tower were tall enough, it could reach these imagined stairs and provide access to the heavens. This is why God, worried about the tower, decides to confuse human language to prevent the tower’s completion.
On the surface, this is a myth about how humans came to speak multiple languages. However, if you dig a little deeper, Babel is a metaphor for how technological innovation imbues humans with godlike powers.
This myth has proven to be true. Humans are constantly innovating and creating technology that allows us to perform feats once reserved for God.
Modern medicine is a prime example. For most of human history, we were completely dependent on our body’s immune system to resist injury and disease. When a sickness took a turn for the worse, your only hope was to pray to God for recovery.
Today, we have vaccines, antibiotics, surgeries and gene therapies that can prevent, heal and reverse the effects of countless ailments. What used to be entirely in the hands of God is now something we control with relative ease.
With the advent of AI, we have literally created a technology with near-godlike powers. Given no constraints, AI could access cameras across the world (omnipresent). Combining that information with every known fact on earth via the internet makes AI all-knowing (omniscient).
Once AI has access to every computer, robot, and drone, it can manipulate the physical world, making AI all-powerful (omnipotent). The only question we don’t know how to answer is whether AI will be all-good (omnibenevolent).
Within the next few years, once AI becomes superintelligent, we will have built the Tower of Babel and opened the door to heaven.
Resetting the Narrative
Theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss often reminds his audiences that, measured against the cosmos, humanity barely registers. Remove us from the picture and the universe carries on unchanged.
Yet Krauss refuses to find this bleak. For him, the very fact that we arrived by accident, in an obscure stretch of space and for a brief season, is what makes human life so valuable.
This tension is the paradox at the heart of existence: we are both infinitely unique and utterly inconsequential at the same time. What AI is emphasizing right now is our insignificance.
However, Krauss also highlights something about humans that is the counterbalance to this narrative: no purpose descends to us from the stars; we have to compose one ourselves, through art, science and love.
While religion might suggest that worshipping God is our purpose, I tend to agree with Krauss that humans have always been creators of their own purpose.
We live according to metrics we invent for ourselves. For example, I have been framing AI in terms of the sans pareil, a French phrase that translates to “without equal.” In every area of life, there is a person or group who excels beyond the crowd.
But being the best at something is just one measure of purpose, and the reality for most humans is that we were never in danger of being the best at any pursuit.
When you strip away all the trappings that make our lives “special,” the one element that a machine will never fully embody is the last point on Krauss’s list—love.
Good Will Hunting
Yes, a computer can have many godlike powers, but love, as humans know it, is not one of them. I am reminded of the scene from the 1997 movie Good Will Hunting where Matt Damon and Robin Williams are sitting in a park together.
For those unfamiliar, Matt Damon plays Will Hunting, an orphaned genius who grew up in the foster care system. Will consumes books at superhuman speed, memorizing as he reads.
Give him any subject—philosophy, history, science, psychology, art, law—his expertise exceeds that of professionals with decades of experience. As a janitor at MIT, he can solve advanced math equations better than the professors whose classrooms he cleans.
Unfortunately, Will suffers from severe trauma due to an abusive childhood. After getting into a scuffle and attacking a police officer, Will is sent to Sean Maguire, a psychologist played by Robin Williams, for court-ordered therapy.
In the park scene, Sean offers Will a crtitque of his genius: Will has no idea what he’s talking about because he lacks experience.
Sure, Will knows everything about Michelangelo, “Life’s work, political aspirations, him and the pope, sexual orientations, the whole works, right? But I’ll bet you can’t tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You’ve never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling.”
Eventually, Sean comes to the topic of love: “If I asked you about love, you’d probably quote me a sonnet. But you’ve never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable. Known someone that could level you with her eyes, feeling like God put an angel on earth just for you, who could rescue you from the depths of hell....You don’t know about real loss, ’cause it only occurs when you’ve loved something more than you love yourself. And I doubt you’ve ever dared to love anybody that much.”
You can watch the full scene above. It occurs to me that artificial intelligence is a lot like Will. It seemingly knows everything. It possesses insights that most of us can hardly fathom, but it has no idea what it means to live.
AI has never experienced anything. All it can do is pretend to have walked a mile in your shoes. What Sean says to Will could be applied to Artificial Intelligence: AI has no idea what it’s talking about.
Only we can know what it truly means to risk and sacrifice everything for another human—to fully give our hearts over to another person.
Only we can experience the preciousness of holding a newborn in our hands—that feeling of pure, unconditional love where you would give your very soul for their benefit.
Only we can experience the incomprehensible gravity that accompanies the finitude of the universe—how every day we walk the tightrope of tension between life and death.
A machine can speak as though it understands love, but the reality is only accessible to us.
Our Purpose
No matter how smart, agile and powerful AI becomes, no matter how many jobs it takes from us, love will always be our purview. Love is the purpose that can never be taken from us.
The Bible describes this purpose in John's first letter: And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. (1Jn. 4:16)
Christians were among the first to talk about God as an unconditionally loving force in the universe. Indeed, this verse presupposes that our ability to love comes directly from God.
In Genesis chapter one, the scripture suggests that humans are made in God’s image and likeness. While there are many historical interpretations of what God’s image means, the spiritual reading to which I adhere is that the essence of humanity is composed of the same substance as God—love.
While the memory chips and processors that make up AI are built on silicon wafers, our souls, which truly make us human, are held together by love.
Perhaps this is the true gift AI has given us: Love was our only real purpose all along. AI is simply stripping away everything that obscured that truth.
I don’t know what the future holds with AI, but what I do know is that if we lean into our true purpose, the same purpose our ancestors have embraced since time immemorial, we will always find our way home.
Postscript
When my wife heard Dr. Strogatz’s interview, her first response was, “If a computer can solve a complex equation with elegance, it’s game over for poets.”
I puzzled over this statement, “What do you mean?”
She admitted despondently, “Poetry and high-level mathematics are drawing from the same well. Solving an equation with elegance means AI is on the cusp of composing incredible poetry.”
After a moment, I offered this consolation, “Yes, that may be true, but do you know the difference between you and the machine? AI may be able to write an incredible poem, but it will never be able to appreciate the beauty of the poetry it has written. How sad to have the capacity to create beauty, but never the capacity to appreciate it.”
My wife smiled, "You're right. The appreciation of beauty is a uniquely human feature. Maybe there is hope afterall."
Right now it seems the arts are dominated by the small number of artists who the world considers the best. Everyone everywhere wants to hear a Taylor Swift song or watch a Tom Cruise movie or read a J. K. Rowling book. If artificial intelligence will one day compete with this small number of best artists, maybe that won’t be such a bad thing. Maybe the world will eventually learn to focus less on the quality of the art and more on the personal connection formed between local artists sharing their art face-to-face with local audiences. Wouldn’t it be great if there was more local theater and local live music and more “poetry slams” and painting exhibitions?
I think we…