A few days ago, a client asked me what was, on the surface, a very simple question:
“The future of artificial intelligence versus humans: how is that going to play out?”
That question stayed with me.
I've worked in technology for a long time and I use artificial intelligence regularly in my work. I can clearly see everything it makes possible today, but above all how fast it's evolving.
I think we need to stop asking whether artificial intelligence is good or bad. What I think is that we're building an incredibly powerful tool, faster than we can collectively decide how we want to use it.
And that's where my concern begins.
The first upheaval will be work
People talk about AI as if it were still a distant technology. Yet we're already living its impact on work, and we don't quite know what to do about it yet.
- Programming
- Graphic design
- Translation
- Writing
- Data analysis
- Customer service
- Research
- Marketing
All of these tasks used to take hours of work. Today, AI can speed them up or partially automate them.
That doesn't mean all these jobs will disappear. It's an important distinction.
The International Labour Organization estimates that about one in four workers worldwide holds a job exposed to generative AI. But it adds that, in most cases, jobs are more likely to be transformed than to disappear entirely.
Physical jobs aren't as safe as they seem
I used to think there was a clear divide: AI threatens digital jobs, while manual trades are relatively sheltered.
But I'm not so sure anymore.
The difference is probably speed.
AI can generate text or code instantly because it works in the digital world. But replacing a physical task takes sensors, motors, energy and mechanical systems, and it means dealing with a real-world environment that's far less predictable.
But robotics is moving forward too.
Cleaning a floor, moving goods or doing certain repetitive tasks can gradually be automated.
But when a plumber shows up to a 40-year-old installation that matches no drawing, or a surgeon runs into a rare complication, it's a whole different story.
Human experience, adaptability, judgment and knowledge built up over the years remain very important.
So we need to stop asking “which jobs will AI replace?” and ask instead “which tasks within this job can be automated?”
The paradox: we can't really choose not to use it
Then there's a much deeper problem.
Picture two employees whose boss asks them the same question.
The first looks for the information in books, goes through various documents, compares them, then comes back with an answer a few hours later.
The second uses AI, checks the relevant sources, then comes back with a summary in a few minutes.
Even if the first refuses AI on principle, how long can they hold out if their colleagues are moving much faster?
It's a bit like what happened with the Internet.
We never collectively decided that paper encyclopedias were bad. We simply found a much faster way to get to information.
AI pushes that logic even further. It no longer just gives us access to information: it helps us analyze it, summarize it, transform it and use it.
Going without AI could end up becoming a professional disadvantage.
What really worries me: the race
My biggest concern isn't ChatGPT, Claude or any other tool like them.
It's the rivalry.
The companies building the large models are competing. So are the ones using them. And countries themselves are competing.
So everyone has a good reason to keep going.
If one company decides to slow down, another can keep charging ahead. If one country imposes significant restrictions, another can choose a different approach.
That's what makes real global coordination almost impossible.
And the concerns no longer come only from science-fiction scenarios. In September 2026, the resignation of Jacob Coxon, a researcher at Anthropic, reignited the debate about the risks of highly advanced AI systems and how fast they're being developed. The catastrophic scenarios he describes are still debated and are obviously not established predictions.
Still, it raises an interesting question:
If even some of the people working directly on these technologies are asking for more thought about their limits, shouldn't we at least be having that discussion together?
AI is like a knife
That's probably the image that best sums up how I see artificial intelligence.
A knife can be used to prepare a meal and feed a family. The same knife can hurt someone.
The knife has no intention.
It's a tool.
Artificial intelligence is obviously far more complex, but the principle holds: the same technology can create enormous value and new risks at the same time.
- It can help a doctor.
- It can help a programmer.
- It can speed up a scientific discovery.
- It can give knowledge to someone who never had access to it before.
But it can also be used to manipulate, deceive, automate malicious activities or make bad decisions at a scale that was never possible before.
So the problem isn't just the tool. The problem can be whoever is using it.
And history shows that humans don't always use common sense with powerful tools.
Humans still have something AI doesn't
There is, however, one dimension I find important in this discussion.
AI learns from information produced by humanity. It can combine knowledge, recognize patterns and produce something new from what it has learned.
But it hasn't lived my life.
It never had my first job, made my mistakes, met my clients or spent twenty years building up my experience.
This is especially clear with experts.
A specialized surgeon may have faced highly unusual situations that were never documented on the Internet. Their expertise isn't just information: it's also made of thousands of hours of experience.
The same goes for creative work.
A person tells a story differently because they've lived through something. They have memories, a culture, relationships and a personal context.
AI can reproduce a great deal.
But reproducing information and having lived an experience aren't the same thing.
So, is AI a danger to humans?
I think the wrong question would simply be: “Is AI dangerous?”
The question that interests me far more: what will humans do with a technology that's moving this fast?
I find it hard to believe we'll ever stop AI.
The economic competition is too strong. So is the rivalry between countries. And the productivity gains are too tempting.
And I don't want us to stop it either. The benefits we can get from it are incredible.
But between stopping everything and letting anything go, there are plenty of paths to explore.
We should be talking more about safety, responsibility, education, transparency and the limits we want to set for ourselves, together.
Because in the end, the question may not be how far artificial intelligence can go.
The real question is how far we, as humans, are willing to let it go.