Goldman Sachs Global Institute co-head: remaking our world for machine intelligence

The emergence of new technology has long inspired humans to shape our environments.

The invention of steel permitted the rise of skyscrapers, the automobile inspired highway systems and the internet gave rise to a whole new set of digital spaces.

Now, a new force for change is upon us.

The pace of improvement in AI models has led many observers to predict that human intelligence may soon be overtaken by the cognitive capacity of machines.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei imagines a world with “a country of geniuses in a data center.” Elon Musk posited this summer that “AI may exceed the sum of human intelligence in around five years.

There really won’t be anything that AI can’t do better than humans, apart from being human, perhaps.” In such a world, it seems likely that the digital and physical affordances we have constructed for the benefit of humans will be superseded by or at least complemented by infrastructure that is specifically designed for ready and effective use by “bots,” both digital and physical.

Today, our world is designed for human cognition, cadence and trust.

Now imagine a world built for machine intelligence, wire speeds and code-based contracts.

Humans may no longer be the primary actors in this new theater of our own making.

Bending and Breaking Physical Spaces AI agents may transform the physical world.

It seems superfluous to say that our homes, offices, stores, and public spaces are designed for humans.

Think of the centuries of architectural design dedicated to making those spaces useful, accommodating, safe, and efficient.

Never mind the time and creativity devoted to making them aesthetically pleasing.

But as robots begin to populate our society and workplaces, these locations will need to be accessible and effective for humans and robots alike.