Between Early Human and Superhuman: Charting Our Place in the AI Era
AI is transforming industry, society, and work, and it has already surpassed a number of boundaries that were previously thought to be uniquely human. Systems are able to identify patterns, build software, create art, compose literature, and even make some types of decisions more quickly and, in some cases, more correctly than humans. AI is becoming a direct competition for many of the abilities that defined our success in the industrial and digital eras, rather than a far-off instrument in the background.
The outcome will be dramatic: nearly all professions will undergo changes, many jobs will disappear, and whole new types of employment and business ventures will appear. There will be significant employment displacement on the one hand, and incredible new opportunities on the other. Inertia is deadly in such a world. Refusing to take action is still a decision, and it exposes us in a world where intelligent robots are becoming more and more prevalent. A different stance is required at this time: one that is restless, creative, risk-tolerant, and prepared to challenge established norms. Ironically, looking far back, to early human instincts, might be the best way to go forward.
At first, that can seem counterintuitive. When discussing advanced AI, quantum computing, or gene editing, why bring up prehistoric hunter-gatherers? Because the motivations that enabled our predecessors to endure and thrive for millennia are not artefacts. They are the intricate wiring that initially enabled long-term human advancement. If anything, we are in greater need of those instincts now. The conveniences of industrialisation and later digitisation have protected us from many of the terrible stresses that moulded previous generations over the last few decades. Some of our more acute instincts have become blunted in the process. However, these luxuries will be disrupted by the AI era. We will have to relearn and intentionally cultivate what used to come naturally in order to manage it.
How Our Instincts Got Us Here
Humans have lived since the beginning of time by swiftly adapting to new situations rather than just escaping danger or fending off dangers. Extreme weather fluctuations, a lack of food, harsh surroundings, and competition from other hominin species were all hardships for our ancestors. Their advantage was their capacity for innovation, adaptation, and reorganisation. There were other species of humans on Earth besides Homo sapiens. However, Neanderthals, Denisovans, and other members of the human family tree were eventually surpassed by us. Why? Because we were exceptionally adept at transforming disruption into opportunity. We created closer communities, updated our tactics, changed our technologies, and never stopped learning from our mistakes.
An illustrative example is fire. Fire was mostly used by earlier human species for basic cooking and warmth. Our species discovered ways to push it further, utilising it to clear land, reshape ecosystems, guard against predators, and increase the variety of places we could live. Something vital was hidden behind that: an inclination to try new things and a readiness to perceive potential in an unadulterated element in addition to danger. So, the three reinforcing characteristics essential to our success: the capacity to create strong social ties, a strong drive for innovation, and flexibility in the face of change. As other human lineages vanished, those abilities enabled us to ascend from one stage of civilisation to the next, not just get by during times of crisis.
Architecture of Our Instincts
Three basic instincts—the need to survive, the desire to create and sustain life, and the need to fit in—repeatedly emerge as the forces behind human advancement when we remove the layers of culture and technology. The foundation is self-preservation. It inspired us to accurately assess our environment, move when necessary, preserve what was important, and take measured chances when the stakes were high enough. In the face of danger, it increased our vigilance and transformed us from passive to reactive.
The desire to have children transcended biology. It brought together two strong forces: care and purpose. The desire to leave something that outlived us including children, concepts, tales, artefacts, or institutions was the expression of purpose. Care made sure that what we created was safeguarded, nourished, and maintained. In order to share accountability for the future, it attracted partners, families, and communities.
We were able to transition from tiny groups of survivors to complex societies because to the third impulse, social interaction. Fairness served to control behaviour and lessen internal strife. Trust was made possible by accountability. We were able to accomplish things together that no one person or small family could do on their own.
Nitin Seth, the author of Human Edge in the AI Age, thinks these inclinations are ingrained in us. Our interconnectedness grew over ages as societies expanded and roles became increasingly specialised. We created complex institutions and complex economic systems. We became more adept at solving issues, but we also became more dependent on tools, processes, and technology that keep us from interacting directly with the world. There have been repercussions from that buffering. The instincts that used to be in the forefront are now mostly relegated to the background. Although they are not as often exercised, they are still present.
Silent Decline of Specialisation and Survival Skills
Authors such as Jared Diamond and Yuval Noah Harari have highlighted how early humans were able to survive by being extremely aware of their environment. They had to smell danger, identify food plants, monitor animals, read the weather, and decipher environmental cues. They had a strict yet thorough “curriculum.” We exchanged depth for breadth as civilisation developed. We created vast, intricate civilisations where people could specialise in one area—law, medicine, engineering, finance—and depend on others for everything else. This area of expertise has been a remarkable catalyst for advancement. However, it has also resulted in the loss of many fundamental skills. The benefits of progress have been enormous. However, it serves as a reminder that every advancement has costs, sometimes minor but substantial.
Knowledge in an Age of Distraction
Wisdom emerges through time and sustained introspection. It is cultivated by reflecting on past experiences, engaging in deliberate thought, and maintaining a long-term perspective. However, this process is increasingly undermined by the structure of today’s information environment. Constant connectivity fragments attention, disperses focus, and replaces gradual, coherent narratives with soundbites and endlessly scrolling streams. In contemporary media consumption, many individuals skim headlines, tweets, or brief updates rather than engaging deeply with a complete newspaper or extended text. While the volume of information has expanded exponentially, the depth of engagement has diminished. Convenience has displaced contemplation, and when reflection is bypassed, the very process through which knowledge transforms into wisdom is disrupted. If left unchecked, artificial intelligence may further intensify this condition by accelerating both the production and circulation of information. Without consciously safeguarding time for introspection, there is a real risk of eroding one of humanity’s most vital capacities i.e., the ability to think deeply and meaningfully.
AI as a Catalyst for the Next Phase of Human Evolution
All of this brings us to a pivotal question: what happens when an intelligence we created begins to rival and, in some domains, surpass us?
The world that took two to three millennia of civilization to build is likely to mutate in a few decades. Projections that up to half of existing jobs could be automated in the coming years may or may not land exactly as predicted, but the underlying direction is not in doubt. Many people will find that the paths they assumed were secure are no longer available. At the same time, AI will open entirely new fields of endeavour for those prepared to seize them.
We have been here before, in a sense. Human history is marked by inflection points that fundamentally altered our trajectory like harnessing fire hundreds of thousands of years ago, developing language, inventing agriculture. Each shift changed not just how we lived, but what kind of beings we could become.
Today, we are in the midst of another cluster of transformative technologies. Space exploration is no longer a purely scientific venture; it is the precursor to potential space settlement. Private players are imagining colonies on Mars within a generation, while state agencies plan sustained human presence on the moon. In addition, gene editing tools such as CRISPR are opening the door to interventions that could reconfigure how we understand illness, longevity and even what counts as “normal” human capability. Quantum computing, advancing in parallel, promises computational leaps that will transform drug discovery, materials science and optimization problems across industries. And at the centre of this swirl sits AI, accelerating progress in every adjoining field by processing data at scales and speeds we cannot match.
These developments are not independent. They reinforce one another in a powerful feedback loop. AI accelerates genomics. Breakthroughs in materials science enable better chips. Space exploration benefits from both. Taken together, they form a discontinuity, a break in the smooth curve of history. In that sense, the AI age is not just another chapter in the story of technology. It may well mark the beginning of a new phase in human evolution. The question is whether we will approach it passively, or whether we will consciously use it to expand what it means to be human.
Expanding Intelligence and Consciousness
Over a century ago, Sri Aurobindo argued that the human being is not the endpoint of evolution, but a transition, a stage on the way to higher forms of consciousness. He saw the human mind as capable of ascending through multiple layers, from ordinary, sense-bound thinking to levels of awareness that integrate intuition, insight and a direct perception of truth.
At the base is the ordinary mind, which processes information through the senses, reasons about immediate problems and is effective in everyday tasks. Above it, he described successive gradations- the higher mind, which begins to think in broader, more abstract terms; the illumined and intuitive mind, which perceive patterns and truths without laborious analysis; and eventually the overmind and supermind, where consciousness aligns with universal principles and transcends the usual dualities and conflicts.
Most of us, in his view and in mine, operate largely in the lower band of this spectrum. We react to stimuli, solve local issues, and rarely step into sustained, higher modes of awareness. Yet, the potential to rise exists in everyone, if we are willing to do the inner work.
In an AI-dominated era, this framework becomes especially relevant. If machines can replicate or exceed many cognitive functions like memory, pattern recognition, logical processing, then our distinction cannot rest there alone. It will increasingly lie in our capacity to expand consciousness: to exercise judgment, to perceive meaning, to integrate reason with empathy, to connect with deeper layers of reality and value. This is not a quick or easy journey. But it is precisely the kind of journey that preserves the human edge in a world where raw intelligence, narrowly defined, is no longer uniquely ours.
Early Human and “Superhuman”: A Necessary Dual Movement
We are therefore confronted with a dual task. On one side is the “early human” within us: the instinctive, grounded, resilient being who knows how to adapt, to take risks, to read the environment and to cooperate under pressure. On the other side is the “superhuman” that thinkers like Sri Aurobindo envisioned: the person who has expanded awareness, deepened consciousness and aligned action with a more comprehensive understanding of reality.
To thrive in the AI age, we cannot choose one and ignore the other. We need both. We must rekindle the basic instincts that sustained us through previous upheavals, and at the same time cultivate higher levels of intelligence and consciousness that allow us to steer this unprecedented moment wisely.
The constant in all of this is our human essence—the resilient, exploratory, meaning-seeking core that has carried us from caves to cities to code. If we anchor ourselves to that essence, we can treat AI not as a rival that diminishes us, but as a catalyst that pushes us to grow.
