The AI Question Nobody Is Asking
I’ve spent many hours listening to the conversations about artificial intelligence on Diary of a CEO. Thoughtful guests raise concerns about the impact of AI on the job market, authenticity and the basic fabric of human activity. However, these same guests often arrive at essentially the same conclusion:
“The problem isn’t AI itself. The problem is how human beings will use it.”
I agree.
But every time I hear that sentence, I find myself asking another question.
What kind of human beings will be using it?
To me, that is the question almost nobody is asking.
Every generation has feared the power of its newest technology. Fire, atomic energy, the internet
and social media each transformed civilisation. Each also became capable of immense harm.
Looking back, one lesson stands out.
Technology has never determined humanity’s future.
Human character has.
Technology simply gives character greater power to express itself.
That is why AI is different.
Not because it is the first powerful technology, but because it may become the greatest amplifier
of human intention ever created.
Much of today’s discussion centres on AI alignment—how do we ensure increasingly intelligent
systems reflect human values?
It is an essential question.
But I believe it is actually the second question.
The first is far more fundamental.
What values are we asking AI to reflect?
If we cannot universally agree on what constitutes truth, justice, responsibility or genuine human
flourishing, how can we expect machines to embody those ideals?
Every AI system inevitably inherits the assumptions of those who create it.
It cannot rise above the moral vision of its creators.
If we become wiser, more compassionate and more responsible, AI may become one of
humanity’s greatest servants.
If we become more self-centred, manipulative or driven by self-interest, AI will amplify those
qualities with unprecedented speed and reach.
This is why I question whether legislation, regulation and technical safeguards, necessary though
they are, can ever be enough. History teaches us that laws can restrain behaviour, but they
cannot create virtue.
Character determines what we do with power.
Knowledge without character becomes manipulation.
Wealth without character becomes exploitation.
Political power without character becomes tyranny.
Artificial intelligence without character becomes amplified self-interest.
Perhaps the real AI alignment problem is not technological at all.
Perhaps it is human.
I have come to believe that the future of AI depends less on how much intelligence we can create than on whether humanity has cultivated the character to use knowledge, power and technology for the benefit of others before itself.
That conviction became the concluding argument of my recent book, Cultivating Character. Although the book explores character formation more broadly, it argues that the future of every powerful technology—including AI—will ultimately be determined by something far older than technology itself: the moral character of the people who create, govern and use it.
Unfortunately, many people in our societies do not even realize that this is a relevant concern, much less agree on the nature of good character or how to achieve it. I explore all these issues in my book. Perhaps, then, the defining question of the AI age is not,
“How intelligent can our machines become?”
but, “What kind of people are we becoming?”
Everything else depends upon the answer to this question…
About the Author: James Baughman has a Ph.D. in Religion and Society from Drew University in New Jersey, along with advanced degrees in Physics, Political Science and Religious Education. He is an author and educator and has worked in the field of moral philosophy and character education for more than 50 years.
In addition to other contributions, he has written Cultivating Character: A prescription for happiness and success and produced the video series, The Human Condition. Dr. Baughman can be contacted through his website: Baughman Education.
