Some of my best thinking happens in rooms where smart people are wrestling with the same questions I am. So when my dear friend and mentor Jennifer Aaker invited me to sit in on her AI for Human Flourishing class at Stanford GSB, I showed up ready to listen.
That week’s guests were two old friends. Arianna Huffington, CEO of Thrive Global, and Tom Hale, CEO of Oura.
Arianna reflected that as AI becomes more intelligent our role is to double down on wisdom.
Tom put it another way. Oura measures. But humans act. Data only matters if it deepens our humanity. Awe is data for the soul. Artifacts not algorithms.
I left that room with the same thread. Humanity is the moat around the machines. Love is one way we fortify it. Wisdom is another. And wisdom may be the one thing machines will never touch.
In my last essay I wrote that love is one way we fortify the moat. This is the next fortification. Wisdom. And I will keep going. Joy. Community. Consciousness. Soul. Each one a layer the machines cannot replicate. Each one worth examining while we still have the clarity to see what we are in danger of losing.
We are dancing with machines. The question is whether we show up with something worth leading with. Every new version of a machine sheds what slows it down. Every new version of a human is made partly of what slowed us down. Machines have cache and they clear it. We have memory and it accumulates. They optimize. We experience. Specialists get replaced. Wisdom navigates.
AI has infinite intelligence. It has zero wisdom. And we are outsourcing our thinking at the exact moment in history when wisdom is the only remaining advantage machines cannot replicate.
Our cache is our wisdom.
Wisdom is metabolized, not processed. It cannot be downloaded. It can only be earned.
You know this one. The only way around is through. When we circle hard things the room of fire just gets hotter. When we walk through, something on the other side is waiting that could not have existed any other way. The scars that becomes the library.
But wisdom is not only forged in fire. It is also gathered in the moments that crack you open before you see them coming.
I watched Jacob Collier conduct a symphony orchestra at the Masonic in San Francisco. Musicians from all over the world sitting together for the first time. No sheet music. He gave each instrument their notes on the spot, listening and calibrating in real time, building with whatever the room gave him. Then he turned to the audience and gave us notes too. Every person in that room became a co-creator without knowing they were going to be. The surprise on the musicians’ faces. The delight rippling through us. Unrepeatable because it depended entirely on who showed up that night.
I never thought I would see it again or find the words to explain it. Then Jacob released the video. Watch it here. Some things have to be witnessed to be understood.
What happened in that room was joy as fortification. That is my next essay. WIP.
My son called me after a meeting that had not gone well. His boss was there. His colleague was there. He knew it the moment it ended. But instead of blaming anyone he told me the three things he did wrong and the three ways he was going to fix them. Then he reframed the whole day not as a day he screwed up but as a day he learned something. I did not feel proud. I felt something I can only describe as recognition. I saw my own hard won wisdom looking back at me from inside someone else. That is what wisdom does when it has truly moved. It stops being yours. It just becomes who they are.
Awe is data for the soul. And so is watching wisdom move into someone else without knowing you passed it on.
Wisdom lives in the patina of our lived lives. You cannot rush it. You cannot outsource it. You cannot clear this cache and run faster.
Real relationships polish us. AI relationships only reflect us.
A chatbot is a sycophant. But the algorithm is the macro version of the same disease. It does not just tell you what you want to hear. It builds you a world that confirms what you already believe. It removes friction and calls it personalization. It mistakes your engagement for your flourishing.
No friction. No encounter with a perspective that unsettles yours. No one on the other side who loves you enough to tell you something true and uncomfortable.
Wisdom is built through reflection, trial and error, time and experience. And the feedback that only comes from people who care enough to push back. We need the friction of other humans to become more ourselves.
The algorithm would give you a grove that looks exactly like you. And a grove like that does not stand. It just reflects. The redwoods survive because their roots are intertwined with trees of different ages, different histories, different depths.
They are the friction. They are the roots from a different tree finding yours underground and holding on. Wisdom lives there. In the friends who hold your history across decades. In the rooms where you think differently than you do alone.
According to Pew Research, 27% of Americans aged 60 and older live alone compared to 16% globally. Only 6% live in extended family households. We treat elders the way we treat outdated technology. Assume obsolete. Stop consulting. Wait for the next version.
Yuval Noah Harari warned us: the danger is investing too much in AI and too little in human consciousness. Outsourcing our thinking to machines while isolating the people who carry the longest memory.
We are losing the deepest cache in the network.
Arianna reflected on this in that Stanford classroom. Ours is a generation bloated with information and starved for wisdom.
Jennifer Aaker puts it cleanly. AI can be banal or beautiful. It can flatten our humanity or help it flourish. It is ours to choose.
Intelligence executes. Wisdom decides where to go. The machines can optimize every answer. Only humans can decide which questions are worth asking.
Humanity is the moat. Love fortifies it. Wisdom fortifies it. Joy fortifies it too. We will get there.
Are you building for the answer or for the journey?
Our cache is our wisdom.
Do not clear it.
Beyond the classroom I keynote, moderate, and convene for organizations around the globe wrestling with what comes next in this moment. I also sit on and work with boards, investors, executive teams, and serial founders on strategy, governance, storytelling, and transformation.
Sparks with Soul is my place to explore what’s emerging across culture, business, technology, and humanity and what it means to stay human inside all that change. I write it as a labor of curiosity and care. Sharing is caring, so if something here sparks for you, please re-stack, comment, and or share it with people in your world who could use a few sparks. You can learn more about my work, speaking, and projects at my website.
xo, Tina
Thanks for reading. This post is public so feel free to share and subscribe.
I love this!!!
Beautifully captured, genius title & my new favorite Substack. Sharing with my family as we continue "dancing with machines."