When the World Becomes Smarter, Will We Become Wiser?

As artificial intelligence transforms our world, are we becoming wiser—or simply more technological? A personal reflection on AI, children, happiness and what it means to remain human.

And we are changing with it.

Artificial intelligence is developing at a speed that would have been difficult to imagine only a few years ago. Almost every day, we hear about something new it can do.

And naturally, people are asking questions.

Where are we heading?

Will artificial intelligence make the world a better place?

Will it take our jobs?

Will it eventually become more intelligent than us?

Are we creating something that will help humanity—or something we will one day regret?

I don't know the answers.

I don't think anyone really does.

But when I look at my own life, I realise just how much the world has already changed.

Growing Up in a Different World

I didn't grow up surrounded by technology.

Television was limited. There were no smartphones in our hands from morning until night. There were no social media platforms constantly telling us what everyone else was doing.

If we wanted to see our friends, we went outside.

If we wanted to know something, we asked someone, opened a book, or simply remained without the answer for a while.

My children are growing up in a completely different world.

I remember my youngest daughter being only about a year and a half old and already wanting my phone to play games.

I watched those tiny fingers moving across the screen almost instinctively.

What seemed extraordinary to my generation was completely natural to hers.

And as my daughters grow older, I see it even more.

Children today understand technology incredibly quickly. They navigate applications without reading instructions. They understand social media almost intuitively. Sometimes they solve in seconds something that would take us half an evening and several YouTube tutorials to figure out.

It makes me wonder what their world will look like when they become adults.

What Will Our Children Do?

Perhaps many professions they enter haven't even been created yet.

Maybe they will work alongside artificial intelligence every day.

Maybe they will develop applications we cannot imagine today.

Maybe they will improve AI systems and make them faster, safer and more accurate.

Perhaps one day technologies that still sound almost impossible will become ordinary.

AI may help doctors interpret medical images with extraordinary accuracy.

Perhaps artificial organs and advanced transplantation technologies will save lives that cannot be saved today.

Perhaps diseases we currently fear will become treatable.

Perhaps technology will give people possibilities that previous generations could only dream about.

When I think about that side of the future, I see enormous hope.

I see light at the end of the tunnel.

But there is another question that interests me even more.

Will Better Technology Make Us Happier?

This is where I am not so sure.

Technology can make our lives easier.

It can make information available instantly.

It can connect people living thousands of kilometres apart.

It can calculate, analyse, translate, create, diagnose and perhaps eventually solve problems that seem impossible today.

But can it give us peace?

Can an application remove jealousy from our hearts?

Can artificial intelligence stop us from being angry with someone we love?

Can technology teach us how to forgive?

Can it remove fear?

Can it silence the endless thoughts running through our minds?

I don't think so.

Those are still our lessons.

The Search for Higher Consciousness

Today, there is also a growing fascination with frequencies, vibrations, meditation programs and technologies promising to help us reach different states of consciousness.

Perhaps some of these tools can help people relax, concentrate or turn their attention inward.

But I don't believe technology itself can take us to a higher state of consciousness.

Because perhaps higher consciousness is much simpler than we make it.

Maybe we don't need another device.

Maybe we don't need another application.

Maybe we don't need to escape into another dimension.

Maybe we simply need to become quiet enough to see clearly what is already happening inside us.

To notice anger before we act from it.

To recognise fear before it controls us.

To observe jealousy without feeding it.

To recognise the ego when it desperately wants to be right.

To sit quietly without constantly needing to be entertained.

No technology can do that work for us.

Perhaps the Future Needs Both

I don't fear technology.

I am actually fascinated by what humanity may create.

I hope artificial intelligence helps doctors save lives.

I hope scientists develop treatments we cannot imagine today.

I hope technology removes unnecessary suffering and gives our children opportunities our generation never had.

But while we teach our children how to live in an increasingly technological world, perhaps we should also teach them something much older.

How to sit quietly.

How to walk through nature without looking at a screen.

How to have a conversation without checking a phone.

How to be bored.

How to listen.

How to observe their thoughts.

How to find peace without needing to buy, watch, download or achieve something.

Because however intelligent our machines become, they cannot live our lives for us.

They cannot love for us.

They cannot forgive for us.

They cannot experience the sea, the wind or the warmth of someone's hand for us.

And they cannot find peace inside us.

Perhaps the future will be filled with extraordinary technology.

I hope it is.

But I also hope that somewhere between artificial intelligence, algorithms, virtual worlds and machines that can do things we once thought only humans could do, we don't forget something very simple:

Life itself was never complicated.

We made it complicated.

Sometimes peace is still a quiet mind.

Sometimes happiness is still dinner with the people we love.

Sometimes healing is still sitting beside someone who needs us.

Sometimes the most meaningful moment of the day is still watching the sun disappear behind the sea.

And perhaps our greatest challenge in the age of artificial intelligence will not be learning how to make machines more human.

It will be remembering how to remain human.

Lara Kay