AI has been with us for more than sixty years but is only in the post-ChatGPT years that we have started hearing a lot of talk about the ‘age of AI.’ The emerging narrative is that the age of AI is dawning upon us, and we humans need to figure out how to survive and thrive in this age where AI dominates. I have been as guilty of this refrain, arguing that as AI becomes more powerful, we humans will have to rediscover our human traits of curiosity, passion, and connection, rather than becoming a more AI like automaton. While I still stand by this assertion, I want to question this narrative of the ‘age of AI’ - the idea that the machines are rising, and our struggle is to preserve our relevance as humans.

What if we have got it the wrong way around?

This may be the age of powerful large language models and advanced ‘thinking’ and ‘reasoning’ algorithms, but it is still, fundamentally, the age of humans. We create the AI models and derive meaning, write the guardrails and regulations, and face the consequences, if we do not do it right. AI does none of these things independently. To imagine a future where AI ‘replaces’ us is to misunderstand both the role of technology and the adaptability of human beings.

Instead, we might be better served to ask a more provocative, but more relevant, question: How should AI behave in the age of humans?

By flipping the frame, we recognize a deeper truth. It is AI, which is the new kid on the block; we humans have been inhabiting it for millions of years. Just as a new entrant into a community or club needs to learn the rules of coexistence, so too must AI systems learn to live within the bounds of a human world. Thus, the real question is not about how we adapt to AI—but how AI must adapt to us.

In that spirit, I have attempted a Manifesto on how an incoming AI can be relevant in the Age of Humans

• Be Trustworthy: If AI is to be truly become a citizen of the world of humans, it must be trustworthy, law-abiding, and a contributing citizen, aligning with human values and norms. Humans are building these models, and we must ensure that they should be truthful, not prone to fabrication or misinformation. Much like humans, they might pretend some of the time but should learn to say “I don’t know” when appropriate and provide transparency in how they arrive at their answers. We cannot afford black boxes all the time.
• Be Fair: Moreover, AI must strive to be fair and unbiased. In a human world, fairness is not optional—it is essential. AI must be designed to recognize its limitations and adjust for historical, societal and cultural contexts that affect biological humans. No AI can be completely unbiased, like no human can. However, as the best of us try to listen to all sides and arrive at a view, so should AI.
• Be Kind to the Environment: We now know that the carbon footprint of training the world’s AI is not trivial - requiring gallons of clean water and gigawatts of electricity, while spewing out country-level CO2. As AI becomes more ubiquitous, sustainability must be built into its architecture with smaller models, greener energy, cleverer algorithms, and on-device compute. If AI are to cohabit with humans, it must have a planet to do so.
• Be Dignified: This is a subtler principle - AI must preserve human dignity. It should not manipulate emotions, nudge behaviours covertly, or remove choice under the guise of convenience, everything where social media failed at. Even as AI Agents come in and live with us in our teams at work or with our families at home, their role be to augment human agency and dignity, and not to erode it.
• Be Humble: Finally, AI must learn to live with humility. AI must be able to adapt to the changing without overconfidence, and have the humility to be updated, corrected, and overruled by human judgment. This becomes more important if Artificial Super Intelligence (ASI) emerges; it is only its built-in humility which could make us co-exist and thrive.

In this coming age of humans with AI, both of us do not compete for supremacy, but collaborate in partnership. Humans should recognise that AI can be an extraordinary assistant and a second brain for us, a gift of superintelligence if harnessed right. AI, on the other hand, must accept that human judgment, with all its flaws and wisdom, remains at the centre of the system. This is not a romantic view of human exceptionalism, but a clear-eyed recognition that technology, even if highly intelligent, does not replace the complexity of human life.

So, the real question may not be how we humans survive the rise of AI. It is how AI learns to thrive among us humans on our terms. The other question, more troubling, is that it is us humans that will or will not shape this future coexistence, and therefore what is of more concern is not artificial intelligence, but human stupidity.