Food for Thought: AI à la Carte
The AI Reckoning
The moment AI collides with our identity, our work, and what we value most. When denial is no longer possible.
Victor del Rosal 29 September 2026 National College of Ireland
The question
When the machines are smarter than all of us, who do we get to be?
The arc of the hour
Nine beats, in the order the room saw them.
Tap a beat for more.Hover or focus a beat for more.
-
In 1903, the New York Times predicted flying machines would be built in one to ten million years. The Wright brothers achieved the first powered flight 69 days later.
-
Six measurements, one direction. On puzzles it has never seen: 95%, from 6.5%, in 17 months. Every new test we build falls faster than the last.
-
AI as tool, as advisor, as digital colleague, as partner. Now we set the goal; it runs the chain. The steam engine did not design better steam engines.
-
Lake Michigan, one doubling at a time. By the time it looks dramatic, most of the journey has already happened.
-
Homo sapiens. The wise ones. We named ourselves for the one thing we assumed could never be exceeded.
-
“AI is not here to take your job; it’s to take away what you don’t want to do.”
-
Identity, purpose, meaning, agency. Meaning has never required being the best at something. Sometimes it comes entirely from choosing to do it.
-
A durable job is not one AI cannot do. It is one people keep choosing a human for, even when AI could: preference, institutional, accountability, capability.
-
A business is a chain of tasks, and the chain moves at the speed of its slowest link. Some weak links are chosen by society, not set by physics.
The reckoning was never about AI. It was about us.
Who do we get to be?
The ultimate question?
How do we make superintelligence truly care about us while preserving our agency?
From the room
The room built this.
Built live, from your picks, while we talked. The build starts when the room has chosen, so until then the page is waiting for the room.
See what the room built