AI will change everything and it’s up to us to ensure it is a change for the better

Imagine for a moment an acid so powerful, so corrosive, that no matter what it comes into contact with, it transforms the other object. Whether it’s glass, plastic, steel, lead, or titanium, it’s transformed from what it was to something entirely different and will make a way through the material. If you had such an acid, what could you do to contain it? No matter what container it’s placed into, the container itself could be transformed. How could you stop such an acid from spreading? How could the universal acid be stopped?

The short answer is it can’t be stopped. And while thankfully no physical universal acid exists (that we know of), there are concepts that are universal acids. I encountered the concept of universal acids in the book Intrition Pumps by Daniel C. Dennett, which he uses to describe Darwin’s theory of evolution. Taken to the extreme, Darwin’s concept of natural selection has huge ramifications to science, art, history, and philosophy.

In 2025. Artificial Intelligence, and especially the subset of Generative AI has become a universal acid. It is transforming the way we work, the way we write software, and even the way we drive cars. There is no containing AI. It is here and it is transforming everything. But that doesn’t mean we are doomed to a dystopian future. It is up to us to determine how we will leverage AI, what tasks and agency we choose to give it, and how we partner with it. This 21st century universal acid doesn’t have to be corrosive, but it is up to each of us to learn it and use it responsibly. If we use AI to become a better version of ourselves, we will have gained far more than we lost.