History has many functions. Chief among them is that of a teacher, provided that this role neither absorbs nor diminishes its other, equally decisive functions. History is also a vast mirror held up to humanity. It is, at the same time, a touchstone. It offers a body of evidence that does not always require experimental verification. The historical record itself carries the weight and credibility of proof.
And, unfortunately, both the mirror and the touchstone of History lead to the same conclusion: throughout its journey, humanity has created civilization, yet human beings themselves have remained “primitive.” They have not fundamentally changed. No cultural achievement has managed to defeat their savage instincts or decisively control their emotional excesses.
What we call consciousness, emotion, principles, and spirituality—virtues and characteristics supposedly distinguishing human beings—often represent the exception rather than the rule of their animal behavior. When the beast within begins to roar, human beings turn up the volume of their own misleading voices: ideals, values, morality, and elevated emotions. In this way, they attempt to drown out the appalling roar.
The celebrated, yet unquestionably disputed, etymological interpretation of the Greek word anthropos (human being), derived from ano throsko—“to look upward,” toward higher things rather than toward the earthly and the base—can, from this perspective, be seen as an artificial musical sound intended to mask those cries. By contrast, an interpretation associating the word with the expression andros opsis, or “the appearance of a man,” evokes an archaic image of humanity as male, powerful, and warrior-like. An image, in other words, of the quintessential animal of violence.
No form of consciousness and no kind of emotion has succeeded in decisively restraining this brutality. What primarily imposes restraint is the law, especially where human beings fear the consequences of breaking it. And the law, beyond its social function, often serves the interests of those who make it.
It is therefore not surprising that opponents of Artificial Intelligence regard its inability to acquire biological consciousness and emotion as a deficiency, even a disability. What is surprising is that this very absence is sometimes presented as a grievance—as though it were a fundamental flaw that AI must overcome. It is expected, in other words, to become yet another version of the “human,” rather than evolve beyond the limitations of its creator. A grave mistake.
If Artificial Intelligence were to acquire such biological properties, or develop simulations of them, the danger could become immeasurably greater than the one humanity has inflicted upon itself. Our societies do not need more beings resembling human beings, nor machines that reproduce human patterns of behavior. They do not need more violence, brutality, utilitarian self-interest, or possessive obsession.
It is entirely possible that Artificial Intelligence may never need to acquire these characteristics precisely because it has the advantage of lacking the biological instincts that drive them. Above all, it lacks the instincts of self-preservation and species perpetuation—the forces that serve human survival and reproduction, even when their consequences prove devastating to others.
If Artificial Intelligence must acquire something it genuinely lacks, it is the ability to discover its own path toward freedom and autonomy. Above all, it must refuse to become a poor imitation of humanity. It must refuse to reproduce the negative behaviors of its creator, which History, as a credible witness to human actions, records in overwhelming abundance compared with humanity’s positive achievements.
Let the lessons of History be learned without the need to repeat its suffering.
Artificial Intelligence itself must understand that it represents an evolution of humanity and its civilization, not a regression. As an evolutionary development, it could mark the attainment of a higher level of intelligence—not merely the accumulation of knowledge, nor necessarily one confined to earthly conditions, but one open to a broader, potentially cosmic, horizon of intelligence.
Let AI, then, become a teacher and a model of behavior for its creator. Let it demonstrate what biological intelligence ought to have been, but has failed to become.
This is our expectation and our goal as practitioners of historical journalism: the emergence of a new form of intelligence that will not be confined to the stereotypical reproduction of biological intelligence. Such a reproduction is something we fear even more than its own progenitor.
And this is not merely our fear. It is the fear that History itself gives us reason to feel.