Oxytocin is one of the oldest molecules in the world — it created sexual reproduction, a very long time ago. "Our capacity to relate and to care for one another" looks a lot like oxytocin, which therefore belongs to all of us who reproduce sexually. There is nothing stopping artificial intelligence from making us humans return to "relate and to care for one another." Hugging, talking, laughing, dancing. Trusting, being trustworthy. Sex, relationships.

You know, I think Yuval Harari hit the nail on the head when defining humans as those mammals capable of gathering in groups of more than just a few dozen, by being able to believe in abstractions — like "a country," "being a fan of a soccer team," a religion, etc. Harari mentions how difficult it would be to keep forty thousand chimpanzees well-behaved in a stadium, and yet we humans do that every single weekend.

Which abstractions will we believe in, with or without AI? I think this part isn't really under attack. Nor is our capacity to relate to one another under attack.

So both our relating-animal side (oxytocin) and our human side (believing in shared abstractions) remain untouched. They aren't being replaced by anything.

What are AIs — much like what ChatGPT did with mathematics — actually replacing?

Something else. But neither our capacity to connect with one another nor our ability to gather in the thousands, millions, or billions around abstractions. Just my two cents.

Great article!

(My thoughts on similar topics: https://blog.vladi.dev/en/articles/mudando-o-ponto-de-equili...)