“Man is something that shall be overcome,” the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche wrote in his 1883 classic Thus Spoke Zarathustra. “Man is a rope, tied between beast and superman—a rope over an abyss. What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end.”
It’s worth a look back at how we got here.
During times of technological upheaval, it seems that Nietzsche’s prophecy of the birth of the Übermensch always reemerges. There are two famous examples—you already know them.
While Nietzsche’s Übermensch was an embodiment of religious rejection, a being who transcended the mores of the Christian church, the character of Superman nodded to generations of human advancement, with abilities including bulletproof skin and laser-beaming eyes.
Moreover, Nietzsche’s Übermensch was an aspirational concept whose name literally evokes a higher plane, and DC’s Superman is from the alien world of Krypton, a planet more sophisticated than Earth. Not only is Superman physically superior to the normal man, but he retains aspects of the original Übermensch as a pillar of moral uprightness. Even in his alter ego as Clark Kent, he is morally infallible as an idealistic journalist (the most morally correct profession, of course).
This surely isn’t to say that Son is the next Nietzsche—but the resemblance to the Übermensch is unmistakable. Son told SoftBank shareholders that he pitches and refines ideas with A.I. every day, and had used the tool to develop over 600 new inventions in less than a year. Through a transhumanist lens, he’s using emerging technology to hugely augment his intelligence and ideation abilities. As the world goes through another technological upheaval, and people look for an aspirational entity that can transcend the power framework of our time, it’s important to ask what that framework is. Arguably, it’s information.
In the way that Nietzche’s Übermensch controlled his own infallible set of morals, or comic books’ Superman controlled his invulnerable body, perhaps the parallel can be drawn of A.I. controlling its vast, 10,000-chip cache of knowledge. The difference is that the Übermensch and Superman existed as fictional characters, without any real way for people to interact with them. They were aspirational, while A.I. is a real tool that’s driving rapid change in the world.
It’s too early to say how A.I. will transform the workforce, but we should probably take any notion of a superhuman with a grain of salt. Maybe humanity is a rope over an abyss, but the surest way to fall into it is through the pursuit of superpowers through technology.
