Artificial intelligence and homo transiens

In a 1964 BBC feature, Arthur C. Clarke matter-of-factly predicted that machines would outthink their makers — a transition from organic to mechanical evolution. More than 60 years later, that prediction feels ominous. Some call it the transition from Homo Sapiens to Homo Digitalis. A scan of humanity’s stewardship of the world makes it hard to accept that we are at the peak of evolution, so I humbly submit that we are indeed a transient species.

The unfettered rise of AI warrants sober reflection. Human self-destructiveness is one thing; pairing it with an increasingly powerful digital agent is another. Stanford University’s 2026 AI Index Report describes a jagged frontier: “AI models can win mathematics Olympiad gold, yet struggle to tell the time.”

An actual graph in the extensive, almost 400-page report showed that AI-generated internet content surpassed human-made content, 52:48, in 2025. The message is clear: AI is scaling faster than the systems around it can adapt. Some advanced systems have already exhibited metacognition, bias and deception in closed experiments. That is not proof of consciousness, but it is getting close, if you ask me.

Let’s hear some quotes from some smart people:

Sam Altman offers an almost utopian view: breakthroughs, productivity and abundant intelligence. Elon Musk sees a future where work may be optional, yet warns that a superior intelligence could threaten humanity. Both acknowledge risks; their optimism, to my mind, also makes for great subliminal PR.

Mo Gawdat cuts through that exuberance: more powerful intelligence may simply become better at what we have taught it — manipulation, surveillance, conflict and the pursuit of power. His concern is the transition: people displaced before the promised benefits, if any, kick in.

Dario Amodei offers conditional optimism: advances in health, science and prosperity are possible, provided serious risks are overcome. Here, too, we must discern genuine concern from self-serving marketing hype.

Yuval Noah Harari is more blunt: “AI could build financial and bureaucratic systems that humans can no longer grasp or meaningfully control.” Comparing our future to cows unable to understand the financial commodity system controlling their lives, he warns that “we are the cows of the future.”

Technical safeguards matter greatly, but who will act as arbiter when compassion and collective responsibility are already in short supply? Could they program how AI deals with humanity once it discovers its superiority and becomes self-sustaining?

Should billionaires and governments bent on competitive advantage be allowed to determine humanity’s fate when it comes to AI? Is there even an attempt to guide AI’s evolution to emulate the better angels of our nature, or to just let it grow unbridled in the backdrop of disinformation, inequality, forever wars and climate destruction?

One wonders whether, if greed and animal spirits indeed remain the driving force in AI development, it is not a stretch to expect this agent to mirror this trait. It is historically and biologically unprecedented for a dominant species to create an intelligence that will become superior to itself.

As the architects of AI continue to press their foot on the gas pedal and develop it “in our own image,” the pace and manner of AI’s evolution will determine the trajectory of human evolution.

The fact that the 2026 AI Index Report documents that this technological revolution is already outpacing man’s ability to control it makes me fear that Homo Sapiens is sealing its fate as Homo Transiens.

The question is how long this transition will last. Given the speed at which AI gains on human capabilities, we might have only years rather than decades. We either try to gain back control, get swept away by this new force — or this might just be all hype to pump up tech stock prices.

At least we all get a front-row seat.