A recent WSJ article around the relationship between tech workers and agents highlights this conundrum. As agents have become more and more powerful, it is the human orchestrator of these agents that becomes the bottleneck. Therefore, founders wake up through the night, work through weekends, and interrupt their runs just to ensure they answer their agents’ every need. Sounds like a boss from hell itself.

But why do these founders allow these agents to take over their lives? Well, I’ll use some of their own quotes:

“It’s like a drug,” Pezaris says of working with AI agents. “I’ve never actually done drugs but I imagine it’s what it feels like.”

“Every minute that I’m not working, I’m missing out on not doing a week’s worth of work,”

“I’m exhausted all the time, don’t get me wrong”

“Everybody just acknowledges quietly to each other that, on the one hand, it’s unsustainable but, on the other hand, why would you stop?”

In these comments, I see a common undercurrent. An intense social pressure in the work environment that one needs to be “compatible” with AI in order to succeed. In this case, success being defined as being more productive in the workplace. And what is the driving force behind this need for success- for some it is making billions on the frontier of this technological marvel, but for others it is the fear of what happens if they do not adopt. That they will be fired. That they will be left behind in this new Age of AI.

This line of thinking, a version of Transhumanism, is what Pope Francis battled against throughout his Papacy. That is why in Magnifica Humanitas Pope Leo XIV uses Pope Francis’ exhortation that “humanity is much more than just cogs in an economic machine.” Because if humanity is just a cog, it can be replaced in the name of efficiency. For, “When efficiency becomes the ultimate measure of value, human beings are tempted to see themselves as a project to be optimized.”1

This is exactly what these founders in this WSJ story are doing- seeing themselves as another workflow process to be optimized no matter the personal cost. This is a grim future if we do not adopt a better path.

And thankfully, one does exist. Instead of bucketing humans as compatible or not with AI, we should think of AI as complementary to humans. It is clear to me from AI’s very jagged intelligence frontier that we are not dealing with some new form of human intelligence, but instead something alien. And this difference is a gift to be celebrated, not one that demands human conformity or subservience. Instead, we should be looking for places where our different strengths, human and AI, can create things that are impossible for each of us by themselves. Things that make individuals humans better.

One example is the cost of legal advice for the poor and underserved populations globally has plummeted thanks to AI, but we need lawyers and social workers to convince people that the legal system can work for them.

This is just one example of many- the possibilities of what humanity and AI can accomplish together are endless. But we must heed some amended words of Luke Burgis that I just read in his great book “The One and the Ninety-Nine”

“[AI] exists to serve man, [Man] was not created to serve AI”

But for those of you whose full trust I have not earned, or, hopefully, those who read the encyclical and want to engage, this is the first of a series of reflections. A document like this is a rich, multi-course tasting menu- meant to be chewed slowly rather than devoured like a pepperoni pizza on the McFadden family counter.1 Unfortunately though, in an era of efficiency and soundbites, our society only craves pizza. This craving for simplicity has led to a series of mischaracterizations of this work. But even these straw man attacks seem to serve the underlying goal of Magnifica Humanitas. For there is no better marketing than controversy, and from my reading, this document was designed to be controversial. Indeed, its core assertion is that no one has a monopoly on the truth of what should happen with AI, and there are few better ways to kick over a hornet’s nest than telling every AI stakeholder group that their claim of the correct path is the wrong one.

This at first glance seems a very obvious claim. AI is a brand new technology. Of course no one knows the end results and implications. But the controversy is all about the process to those end results and implications. For given the power of this technology, control over how this technology develops and is implemented becomes arguably the most valuable thing on earth. We see this scramble for control unfolding in real time on multiple fronts- the valuations of the frontier labs, the fight between the US Department of War and Anthropic, and China restricting the sale of Manus to Meta. Value being attributed to control over this technology, and conflicts arising in its wake, continue to accelerate at nearly the pace of the technology itself.

In this way, AI development resembles the Ring of Power from J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. An instrument destined to divide due to the absolute power it wields- a temptation to both good and evil alike.2 This cauldron of conflict is why the Pope asserts that control over AI’s development is too much power for any individual, corporation, or nation-state.

However, the solution is where the Pope and the fantasy tale diverge. For while the Ring of Power is a good analogy for the danger posed by this new technology, Pope Leo XIV proposes the exact opposite solution to the destruction of the Ring. He instead issues a call, nay, a moral imperative that Catholics engage with this new technology to build the New Jerusalem rather than defer to the construction of a new Tower of Babel. “To disarm” this new technology rather than destroy it. To use it to lift up a “Civilization of Love” rather than condemn it to the fires of Mt. Doom.

This is the great surprise of the encyclical. The media and Silicon Valley had been anticipating the Pope taking the side of the AI doomers, and therefore missed the more important truth in the encyclical. For it is not in the description of the Tower of Babel, but the other building under construction, the New Jerusalem, that Pope Leo XIV reveals his true colors. He is the furthest thing from an AI doomer. He’s an AI dreamer.

“The city is a new Eden, with its living water offered to the thirsty, and its tree of life whose leaves “are for the healing of the nations” (Rev 22:2). As we await its fulfillment, this vision is set before us as an encouragement — a call to overcome our divisions and to work together”3

Pope Leo, AI dreamer, is a greater challenge to both the powers that be and to his own flock in the Catholic Church. To the powers that be, another AI doomer is something they understand. Just another contender in a list of many pursuing control of AI. That person can easily be overwhelmed by the power of money and media. But a dreamer is something else entirely. A dreamer is dangerous; just as a populist politician is dangerous. Someone who does not accept the contours of a narrative already written, is very difficult to control. This is why I expect to continue to hear the misrepresentations of the Pope as anti-AI and anti-progress. The powers vying for control all agree they do not want to compete with an opposing vision preaching individual empowerment rather than centralized control. However, with this encyclical, I think the cat is out of the bag, the horse has fled the stable, and we should expect the Pope’s clarion call to “disarm AI” to echo across party lines, economic classes, and geographies.

To followers of the Pope and the Catholic Church, such a call to action is equally challenging. It is much easier to be a critic of current developments than commit ourselves to the hard work of building something better. It is easy to resign the development of AI to a new Tower of Babel out of your control. It is hard to hold faith that the New Jerusalem is possible if you are willing to pick up a shovel. This is the cause Pope Leo XIV challenges us to join when he describes AI as “the construction site of our time.” That each and every one of us not only has a right to participate in this new era of technology, but also has the back-breaking duty to contribute to solutions for the inevitable challenges AI will bring.

To this message, I sit both invigorated and terrified. Filled with hope and dread. It reminds me of a quote, funnily enough, from the Lord of the Rings:

“Yes, that’s so,’ said Sam. ‘…The brave things in the old tales and songs, Mr. Frodo: adventures, as I used to call them. I used to think that they were things the wonderful folk of the stories went out and looked for, because they wanted them, because they were exciting… But that’s not the way of it with the tales that really mattered, or the ones that stay in the mind. Folk seem to have been just landed in them, usually – their paths were laid that way, as you put it. But I expect they had lots of chances, like us, of turning back, only they didn’t. And if they had, we shouldn’t know, because they’d have been forgotten... I wonder what sort of a tale we’ve fallen into?”4

To that, I think Leo XIV would say, we are a part of the greatest tale of all- the fall and redemption of humanity through the saving grace of Jesus Christ. And we have been entrusted with the chapter where AI appears. It is our vocation and calling to live it as faithfully as we can.

It’s Rodeo week in Houston, and that means time for the cowboys and cowgirls to come on out. That means our daughter, born in Geneva, Switzerland, stomped up to school in sparkly goldish-tinged boots and a farm dress adorned with horses. All around her were kids from every background dressed up with bandanas, boots and hats, and teachers made sure to remark on how much they all looked like proper cowboys and cowgirls. When we dropped Penny off at her room, she immediately sprinted over to her friend, who was driving a covered wagon driven by two plush ponies. With a flourish, she grabbed a cowgirl hat, and dived into the wagon at full speed- urging her buddy to drive faster, faster.

This experience is not unique to our family and school, but is a common sight through the city of Houston on the lead up into rodeo. It does not matter if you are boy or girl, black or brown, or even Longhorns or Aggies. On Rodeo week, you are Texan.

And what does it mean to be Texan? I’m sure there are some long arguments and philosophical diatribes on that, but from my observation, for the city of Houston (the 4th largest city in America), that means pretending you are still some small, frontier town on the edge of the American west where cowboy mythology just refuses to die. And that frontier town always has room for one more- as long as they are willing to start saying y’all.

Because how Houston has framed its culture, being Texan is not about where you are initially from, but instead is a state of mind and adopted identity. This means that me being Texan does not prevent you from being Texan. In fact, me making you Texan in a funny way reaffirms my own Texanness. It’s like adding one more to the game (or cult if you want to be more skeptical). Thus, the bumper stickers- "I wasn't born in Texas, but I got here as fast as I could"

Now, it is also true that to be Texan, you do need to shed some of your previous identity (or at the very least hide it under cowboy clothes). This was and will always be controversial as being Texan will crowd out traditional, largely hereditary cultures. But by providing a different path of shared identity, Houston invites its inhabitants to a different, unique culture than the ones they all came from. A culture that is by nature inclusive rather than exclusionary.

This is probably my favorite part of living in Houston. That it can make anyone feel like they belong. It reminds me of one of my favorite parables from Jesus in the Bible- that of the vineyard master who pays everyone the same generous daily wage despite some arriving much later than others. In Texas, it doesn’t matter if you arrived here a little late, as long as you embrace being a Texan now.

One of the reasons I have not written as much over the last couple of months is I have been exploring the world of AI and AI agents. It is fascinating. At the moment, there are things now possible that previously only featured in Sci-Fi novels. And it only takes listening to a couple of podcasts featuring leaders of the AI labs and big tech companies to come away convinced that tomorrow will look infinitely different than today. However, beneath the surface, as I spent more and more time thinking about the possible, I felt myself moving from the tangible to the theoretical. I felt more and more of a disconnect between what was important and what I was spending my time on because that is what the world of AI and AI agents was pushing at that moment.

This disconnect came to a head yesterday when I received an introduction to a young founder who asked me to coordinate with a scheduling agent to put time on his calendar. This is not a particularly abnormal occurrence; I have done this many times over the past couple of months. And before that, I had done it countless times with secretaries and chiefs of staff of various stripes. But for some reason, when I pulled up his calendar and saw the availability to put time on his calendar at any moment from 7am-10pm over the next week, I felt a sense of something that I can only describe as revulsion. Who was this agent, working on behalf of some 22 year old kid who is working his utter tail off to build an amazing company, to tell me that his entire morning, afternoon and evening was at my disposal. And it led to the question- “Who is serving whom?”

The siren call of the Agentic economy is that it will make us all infinitely more productive. But productive as defined by whom and by what measure?

To me, time is a decent proxy measure for what we deem to be most productive. So if you take this scheduling agent example, the scheduled phone call with me is deemed to be more productive than any white space on this founder’s calendar, but less important than any current meeting/event that exists.

So who is determining what is most productive in this case? Arguably the agent with the constraint of the calendar. The human here is truly out of the loop, and therefore the priorities will be keeping a calendar that looks tidy, busy and clean. Which I argue is a pretty poor metric for productivity.

Now, this is a straw man rather than an iron man argument, but given the excitement around AI agents, I wanted to voice my initial concern as my thoughts coalesce. I sense a trend of people willing to outsource their lives to something else that “is smarter” or “knows better” or “is an expert on X,Y,Z”. And if only we were smarter, we would be able to prioritize correctly and solve all our problems. This is the same school of thought pushed by the intellectual Collectivist movements of the 20th century. A belief that a society ruled by “Science” would result in a paradise on earth. Instead, it led to societies where the value of a person was determined by his usefulness and adherence to the rules of the society.

If we outsource our time to agents, they will take every second of it, and use it for what they think is most important. Which in this case, looking at the revenue incentives of all the AI companies, what is most important is making you more reliant on the work systems and expectations the agentic AI world is creating. Not maximizing what is most important to you.

Incentives matter. Time matters. And you should not delegate that away.

Personally, I have always struggled in situations where I cannot apply a strong intellectual framework. My brain quickly begins to churn on endless scenarios and possibilities. But as this familiar process ramped up early in the weekend, I was lucky to walk by a painting of the Holy Family where St. Joseph is looking over Jesus.

What struck me immediately in this painting were the stress wrinkles on Joseph’s forehead. And it arose the following thought: if I feel inadequate at times for the challenges of ordinary fatherhood, what must Joseph have felt?

For those unfamiliar with St Joseph’s story or needing a refresher:

• Joseph learns his fiancé, Mary, is pregnant, but not by him, so he plans to divorce her

• He’s visited by an ANGEL who tells him that Mary’s son is not by her cheating on him

  • Safe to say not an everyday occurrence to get a lecture from an angel

• The Angel tells him that Mary’s child is in fact the son of God, and the Messiah who has been promised to the Jewish people for generations

• Oh, And that Joseph needs to move forward with marrying Mary because he has been chosen to be the earthly father for the Messiah

Visualizing myself in his shoes for a minute, I immediately felt the same rush of being completely overwhelmed and inadequate for the task at hand. There is no conceivable line of reasoning for St. Joseph to justify that he, a simple carpenter from a rural area, was worthy of raising the Messiah- the man whose mission would determine the fate of his people. He had none of the proper education, tools or trainings you would think such an enormous task would require. But he said yes anyway. In that light, it’s easy to understand the stress marks.

Now, at the end of the visualization, I asked my version of St Joseph how he handled it. The stress of having the savior of your people as your responsibility. And my Joseph just shrugged and said, “One moment at a time.”

And that gave me peace, and I hope it does the same for any fellow parents today!

Simon: Yes, but some people are troubled with tiny things, and they slow us down.

Jesus: I won’t ask who you mean by that. But I will say, if someone is thinking about things you feel slow everyone down, maybe you need to slow down.”

This dialogue takes place in Season 2, Episode 2 of the show, Chosen, a TV series preaching the life of Jesus through the eyes of his disciples. At this juncture, all of the disciples are so excited about the miracles they have seen their rabbi perform that each has developed plans about how to move the ministry forward. However, it becomes quickly apparent that each disciple has a very different idea of what to do. No surprise, as each one of them is very different. We have a motley band at this point, including an autistic tax collector (Matthew), a morally confused but charismatic fisherman (Simon), and a former prostitute (Mary Magdalene). In fact, all of these disciples have very obvious human flaws in one way or another. And within these flaws lies the seed of their own insecurity and the resulting desire to prove they are worthy of following Jesus. They are all asking themselves the same question that Matthew asks Phillip openly later in the same episode, “Why did Jesus choose me to follow him?”

Therefore, when Simon approaches Jesus about adding some structure to the group, we are actually seeing Simon express insecurity about his own worthiness. He wants Jesus to assure him that his way of following is the right way compared to Matthew. That Matthew should indeed stop writing everything down and instead just focus like Simon on keeping Jesus safe. But in a common theme in this part of the story so far, Jesus rejects Simon’s plans and therefore, Simon’s attempt to justify his way as superior. Leaving Simon, and us, to continue to wonder, what is the right way to serve God?

To which Jesus would answer, “Follow Me”

So simple. Yet so frustrating because it leaves so much room for interpretation. But maybe that is the entire point.

The belief there is one right way to serve God is a common punching bag to Jesus throughout the gospels. Most notably, in his sparring with the Pharisees, the Jewish religious authorities at the time. But we also see it in Jesus’ willingness to travel outside Jewish communities to Samaria and Syria. We see it in his teachings to both men and women in a time where the study of God was a male responsibility. But most of all, we see it in the men and women he assembled to be his followers. This band of sinners who each have their unique strengths, weaknesses and way of following Jesus. None of them was by any traditional single measure worthy of the title of Apostle (just ask the Pharisees). But they are worthy because they follow him.

I see this same battle still raging in modern religion, and especially modern Christianity. We constantly find ourselves distracted by the battles over the right way to follow God, rather than the only task at hand. To follow God.

Therefore, if today you feel yourself unworthy of one of the Christian religions because you are a sinner, or if you are a member of one of these religions and believe you are better than your neighbor because you are following the right “religion” and he the wrong one. I urge you to take Jesus’ advice and slow down. All these plans, creeds, policies and beliefs we have constructed should be for a single purpose- to draw people in to follow Jesus. As CS Lewis puts it, “The Church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christs. If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time.”

Now, that should make those of us who have found a place in a religious group uncomfortable- that my way may not be the right way is quite discomforting. But I think that discomfort comes from our own insecurity, our own sinfulness. Indeed, my way does not need to be the right way for all. It just needs to be the right way for me to follow him.

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Time. Now this is the one thing that young parents do not have. But my Dad was right in his statement. Just like any other role/situation, it takes a lot of time to move from beginner to competence. And it’s this framing of taking a beginner’s mindset which is the key to becoming a good Dad.

Think back to when you tried something new. Be it riding a bike, learning calculus, or taking on new responsibilities at work, you likely were incompetent at first. Even if you had some natural talent or inclination towards the subject, it took time to learn the different rules and expectations in the space. And ultimately, your level of success in whatever field was determined by your combination of natural talent and intentional practice you dedicated.

Let’s start with natural talent. Young Moms tend to be more naturally talented than Dads when it comes to early year child rearing. This is not to say that there are not some extremely naturally gifted young Dads with the patience of saints, but we have a whole section of Tik-Tok dedicated to wives making fun of their husband’s incompetence with kids. The trope of the bumbling father exists for a reason.

And this talent discrepancy comes with problems. Let me give an example from the workspace. One of the hardest things is incentivizing an employee to train a newcomer in a task. Not only does this make the employee less efficient in their day-to-day job, it quickly leads to exasperation as the newcomer often fails to grasp simple tasks that the employee takes for granted. If that newcomer is also less naturally talented than the employee training, this exasperation quickly leads to resentment as the employee believes the newcomer’s incompetence is “holding them back”. Naturally, this leads to the employee doing tasks themselves rather than delegating to the newcomer- which is short-term efficient, but longer-term quite debilitating.

This is exactly the situation we were in after our second child. I was the less talented newcomer, and my wife was the star employee tasked with training. Everything that I touched instantly became less efficient, and in a house full of changes, that is a frustrating paradigm. But the worst thing we did in those situations was my wife stepping in and taking over whenever I failed. Because it created a cycle where I became convinced that I could not handle the task, and I naturally then avoided the responsibility. In this environment, it is natural that a young Dad can quickly determine he is not good at child-rearing, and therefore, it is not worth putting in the effort- a classic case of the curse of low expectations.

This acceptance of low expectations and therefore not putting in the effort is a dangerous trap. As Anders Ericsson, the godfather of practice psychology, puts quite bluntly, “The right sort of practice carried out over a sufficient period of time leads to improvement. Nothing else.” The only way to become a good Dad is to very intentionally practice being a good Dad. The path forward is not complicated, but difficult.

This is the hardest thing to accept about becoming a good Dad. There are no shortcuts. Arguably, there may not be even a destination. If you notice, I don’t highlight a single quality that defines a good Dad. That’s because each of us will have our own definition of what qualities a good Dad should have. However, I do believe the path to becoming a good Dad is the same- it is intentionally practicing on a daily basis what a good Dad should be doing. Maybe in your household the good Dad works hard and provides for his family. Maybe the good Dad is always present with his kids. Or maybe the good Dad always cleans the dishes even when he is exhausted. I’m not sure what your good Dad does, but he is in there.

So what’s the path forward to becoming a good Dad? It begins with all parties accepting Dad is a beginner- that he will be far less efficient and competent than Mom on Day 1. Dad needs to take this support and commit himself to improving. He needs to ask himself throughout the day “What would a good Dad do here?” and strive as best he can. He will fail. A lot. And Mom needs to let him fail and correct him constructively- especially when he is being an idiot, which is unavoidable. In time, Dad will learn from his mistakes, taking small steps down the path towards being a good Dad.

None of this is easy, but I can say the path to becoming a good Dad is one of the greatest experiences of all. And to all you scared, incompetent young Dads out there, as a wise man once said, you will figure it out, it just takes time.

It is one thing to sit in the comfort of cold logic and philosophy; it is another to actually live in the pain and suffering of human reality. Love is indeed a terrible gift- the greatest gift, but a terrible one as well. All of the greatest suffering comes downstream of love, be it the loss of a loved one, a cruel break up, or a loss of self-worth and identity. The greatest pain comes from the things we love dearest.

And that includes God.

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Jesus cried out in the midst of his terrible suffering upon the cross.1 Today, I take Jesus at his word. I try to imagine what he must have felt in that moment: alone, in excruciating pain, abandoned by nearly all his followers. And I keep coming back to this: He must have been so afraid. He must have been terrified, nearly delirious, and just wanting the pain to disappear like a bad dream. To deny that would be to deny Jesus one of ultimate human experiences- terrible suffering with no understanding of the meaning. Pain that makes us fear that God had indeed forsaken us.

This fear of God forsaking us is what the loss of innocents, like those at Annunciation and Camp Mystic, forces us to consider. Neither I nor any other human, AI, or philosophy, can fully understand why God let this happen. Some may say free will, others that it is a consequence of love, others that it serves a greater purpose. However, when faced with the reality of days like today, they all feel like grasping at straws. We simply do not know.

But one thing that does give me comfort in this unknown is that we are not alone. The story of Jesus does not end with his forlorn cry or some Deus Ex Machina intervention to save Jesus from death. Instead, the story of Jesus on earth ends with him mustering the strength to whisper, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.”2 An ultimate leap of faith and hope in the midst of fear and agony and the unknown.

Today, we are confronted with that same fear and agony, and we are left with the same chasm of faith that Jesus faced on the cross. Are we willing to follow Jesus and make that same leap into the unknown? To believe that God has a plan when we do not see the way? To hope when all seems lost?

To help with this, the best thing I have read on God and the reality of human suffering comes from Pope Francis in an impromptu homily he gave after hurrying halfway across the world to be with victims of a typhoon in the Philippines.

“I’d like to tell you something close to my heart. When I saw, from Rome, that catastrophe, I felt that I had to be here. And on those very days, I decided to come here. I am here to be with you. A little bit late, I have to say, but I’m here…

So many of you have lost everything. I don’t know what to say to you. But the Lord does know what to say to you. Some of you lost part of your families. All I can do is keep silence. And I walk with you all with my silent heart…

“‘Father,’ you might say to me, ‘I was let down because I’ve lost so many things. I lost my house, my livelihood, my family. I’ve [an] illness.’ It’s true if you would say that. And I respect those sentiments. But [as he said this he turned to the wooden cross] Jesus [is] there nailed to the cross. And from there he does not let us down…

[We have] a Lord who cries with us and walks with us in the most difficult moments of life.”3

I do not know why today happened, but I do know that today, Jesus weeps with us.

Grok projects that by the year 2030, AI demand for electricity will exceed that of Spain. Tech firms are paying $250 million for AI researchers. And private investment in AI companies is well north of $650 Billion dollars and accelerating.

From this perspective, the AI revolution is finally placing a numerical value on humanity’s intelligence, and it is astronomical. Your brain and connecting nervous system are worth at least a trillion dollars given the immense sums being poured into replicating them this decade. But when is the last time that you treated yourself, or others around you, like a trillion-dollar asset?

The fundamental issue is we have treated our intelligence as an assumption, a part of our human birthright. Therefore, it does not make each and every one of us special; It just makes us the same. This is a grave error, and one that stems back to the very question of God’s existence.

If you adhere to the view that intelligence is purely due to cold probability and evolutionary forces, the birthright view of intelligence flows naturally. Being intelligent by itself makes us human- as Descartes declared, “I think, therefore I am.” It is inherent in human value. The threat of artificial intelligence to humanity is also much more acute in this perspective as I explored in my piece, AI: Artificial Intelligence and Adam 1. If we are no longer the only being with intelligence, what separates us from our creation?

However, in a world created by a higher power, intelligence is something granted to humanity. A gift. Intelligence can be separated from humanity and valued on its own. We need not be threatened by the emergence of another intelligent being for it will lack the defining element of what makes us human- in the Christian tradition, the eternal soul.

These two views cannot be resolved. In fact, I see them as a fundamental divide from which to view humanity. Therefore, the most underrated question in this humanity vs AI debate is:

“Do you think intelligence is more likely to come from a natural universal process, the random combination of protons, electrons and neutrons interacting, or by the design of a higher power?”

The immensity of the resources we have directed towards the race to intelligence reveals the unlikelihood that the advent of intelligence is a random event, some outcome of the laws of probability. It reminds of the story Nassim Taleb tells about the probability of a coin flip. If a coin lands heads 99 times in a row, it is much likelier that the coin is rigged than the next toss to have a 50/50 chance of being tails.

Therefore, I find the other path, a higher power, to be a more humble and likely source of intelligence. With this view in mind, we return to the central question: what does AI teach us about the value of intelligence? And beyond that, the value of humanity?

It should teach us that we significantly undervalue our own worth. We each have been blessed with an incredible gift, something worth over a trillion dollars in the modern economy. At the same time, intelligence is just a part of the human experience, not the whole, and therefore that trillion-dollar valuation falls well short of what each and every one of us is truly worth. For if our intelligence is worth trillions, then our eternal soul is priceless. And wouldn’t it be poetic if AI reveals that instead of being replaceable, our humanity is valuable beyond measure.

Armstrong faced perverse incentives. Having dedicated his life to cycling, battling back from devastating disease, he was left with a difficult choice: Stay clean and be uncompetitive at the highest level, or cheat and give yourself a chance.1 He decided to dope, and despite his amazing accomplishments, Armstrong today is remembered as a cheat rather than someone who achieved the nigh impossible and inspired millions.

This cautionary tale illustrates the moral quandary when one has to choose between cheating or failure. And I see these perverse incentives growing in the education sphere with ChatGPT and other LLMs upending our traditional school model. Article after article is being written about students cheating with these new tools- the most commonly cited statistic claims 90% of students used an LLM to help with homework. A recurrent theme in these articles is blaming the students, accusing them of laziness and poor moral judgment. But I see instead a system-wide failure that reeks of moral hazard to the point of entrapment. The failure here is not the student’s moral judgment, but instead the current incentive structure of our school system that prioritizes performance over learning.

The modern era of American education only dates back to the 1940s and the GI Bill. At the turn of the 20th century, only ~5% of Americans attended college, and most colleges operated under a standard exam system. If you passed the subject tests, you were admitted- albeit as long as you were the right race, gender or religion.2 This system was in its way objective. Students were not competing with one another for admission; they were competing against a set standard of knowledge. The G.I Bill changed this dynamic by rapidly democratizing college attendance- today over 63% of Americans over 18 have some post-high school education. This rapid increase in students strained the traditional University admission process. Prestigious schools now had to make a choice- lower their admittance rates or expand their student bodies. Not surprisingly, all chose to lower their admittance rates, further solidifying their role as status signalers in the modern age of intelligence.

By embracing their roles as status signalers, universities traded an objective standard for admission for a relative standard- pitting applicants against one another in a zero-sum race. This had significant knock-down effects in American society. Parents now had to focus significantly more attention and resources on their child’s development or risk other children passing them by. Free range childhoods became a thing of the past. Now, stereotypes of tiger moms and over-involved baseball dads abound as parents placed their children into more and more scheduled activities. All mostly driven by the dream of getting their child into the right college (or getting it paid for).

This combination of parental pressure and high societal stakes places a heavy burden on the modern high schooler. A seminal 2003 study revealed that teenagers expected to attend college (predominantly affluent teens) were three times more likely to be clinically depressed or abuse illegal drugs.3 The authors of the study hypothesized this illegal drug use was self-medication for the intense societal pressure and resulting anxiety that comes from status competition.

Now, let’s layer on top of this pressure the emergence of LLMs. Today’s high schooler now has access at the click of a button to a nearly all-knowing guide, and the temptation to replace their own work with the work of an LLM is immense. They are trapped in a classic Prisoner’s Dilemma, just like Lance Armstrong. Anyone who uses an LLM is significantly likelier to outperform their peers on grades. Therefore, every individual’s incentive is to use an LLM to replace their work, or risk falling behind their peer group. I have seen these perverse incentives firsthand with two students that I have discussed this issue with- both expressed frustration that peers who outsourced their work to an LLM received better grades

In response, most schools have returned to the worn playbook of draconian threats and severe punishment- a strategy I see as both ineffective and damaging. One of the students I chatted with described a witch-hunt culture where students are accused without evidence of LLM use, and they are considered guilty until they can prove their own innocence with pre-work. Not only is this a basic violation of liberal values, but as LLMs improve, they become increasingly indistinguishable from actual human work, and cheaters will be smart enough to create the evidence needed to pass off their work. Therefore, such a culture will only discourage high-performing kids in the long run- if I am going to be accused of cheating without cause, I may as well do it and reap the benefit- a grim, but logical line of reasoning. In addition, the proliferation of LLMs into the working world suggests that interacting with LLMs is an important skill for most jobs in the future. If our school systems do not embrace LLM use as a part of a student’s curriculum, they will quickly become outdated at the current rate of change.

Fortunately, there are feasible solutions to the challenges LLMs pose in education. The UK university system uses a single, in-class test at the end of a learning period to determine grades. The Oxford/Cambridge system of oral tutoring sessions also seems robust to this changing learning environment. Even the Socratic method of the Ancient Greeks feels well positioned for the LLM age. However, I propose something a bit deeper to consider.

I think the issue with US education lies at the core mission of the grading system- identifying the highest caliber of intellectual and driven kids and sorting them into high-performing schools to signal status. Grading served the US extremely well over the last century, as the value of human intelligence increased exponentially. However, LLMs completely turn the table on the importance of intelligence. Now, every American has access to a super intelligence that is becoming smarter every day. In this perspective, human intelligence is now a commodity whose value will decline over time, and our education system will similarly decline in value if it continues prioritizing identifying intelligence.

So, what should replace identifying intelligence as a core value of the education system in the Age of AI? I propose curiosity and creativity. We are entering an absolute golden age of self-development- where humans increasingly have all the information in the world at their fingertips. Everyone now has access to an elite tutor, editor or coach. I think the best comparison is the world of chess. Today’s chess players are significantly better than their predecessors- the top 45 players today are ranked higher than the best player from 1981.4 This is largely thanks to the help of computers who have given human players better opponents to practice against and learn from. In the same way, the LLMs of tomorrow could serve as the ultimate whetstones, sharpening human intellect with none of the traditional constraints of time or resources. However, to take full advantage of this gift, we need to teach our children to love to learn.

Loving to learn is not fostered in an environment where every test is life or death. Or when beating a classmate is the ultimate goal. Or when education outcomes equal status. Loving to learn is fostered by appealing to children’s individual interests. By creating a cycle where failure is not to be avoided, but encouraged, as it is a pivotal piece of a life-long journey.

I will leave you with a poem that I think is surprisingly relevant to this debate, Ithaka by CF Cavafy. A retelling of the story of Odysseus, it highlights a truth that Lance Armstrong forgot along the way. Ultimately, it is the experiences and the journey that define our life, not the outcome, and any shortcuts come at the expense of our own growth. Today, the incentives of the current education system promote shortcuts left and right to achieve status, but I am quite certain the Age of AI will belong to the learners rather than the A students.

Ithaka

By C. P. Cavafy

As you set out for Ithaka

hope your road is a long one,

full of adventure, full of discovery.

Laistrygonians, Cyclops,

angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them:

you’ll never find things like that on your way

as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,

as long as a rare excitement

stirs your spirit and your body.

Laistrygonians, Cyclops,

wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them

unless you bring them along inside your soul,

unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Hope your road is a long one.

May there be many summer mornings when,

with what pleasure, what joy,

you enter harbors you’re seeing for the first time;

may you stop at Phoenician trading stations

to buy fine things,

mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,

sensual perfume of every kind—

as many sensual perfumes as you can;

and may you visit many Egyptian cities

to learn and go on learning from their scholars.

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.

Arriving there is what you’re destined for.

But don’t hurry the journey at all.

Better if it lasts for years,

so you’re old by the time you reach the island,

wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way,

not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.

Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.

Without her you wouldn't have set out.

She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.

Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,

you’ll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.

But even the best life advice has important exceptions. We gain valuable skills at work. To communicate concisely and accurately. To receive feedback and seek improvement. To analyze situations and businesses. To define important metrics and prioritize. These tools are useful outside cubicles and zoom calls. But far too often, we compartmentalize these talents and tools to the work realm. That’s a mistake. Because the business of work is just a division in the much larger business of life.

Evaluating your life like a business has been an extremely useful exercise for me recently. The true genesis of this mental model is Clayton Christensen’s manifesto, How Will You Measure Your Life, which I highly recommend. To set expectations: it didn’t really stick with me the first time I read it or even nine months ago.1 But it hit me- unexpectedly- while thinking about how the heck Christine and I survived without Amazon in Switzerland for 2 years.2

Capital is the lifeforce of a business. The finite dollars and human talent that constrain the options for every business leader. The greatest businesses and CEOs are the greatest capital allocators, directing their limited time, effort and talent into the right areas at the right moments. This is what creates sustainable, compounding growth. On the flipside, allocate your capital poorly, and your business will soon be overtaken by competition in the creative destruction of our capitalist system.

In our personal lives, we face the same challenge of limited time, energy and intellect. Every decision we make is a capital allocation in the business of life. Do we spend an extra half hour at work, or arrive home in time for bedtime? Do we watch TV or read that book? Do we move to a new community or reinvest where we are? And while the business of life is nowhere near as zero-sum as the business world, poor personal capital allocation can have just as disastrous a result: broken relationships, destructive behaviors and serious regrets.

Despite the similarly high stakes of the business of life, I never utilized the same ruthless analysis of capital allocation that I applied daily in the oil trading world. And I’m clearly not alone. The horde of wildly successful people in the corporate world with disastrous personal lives and intense unhappiness is a well-trodden subject. The obvious answer is they prioritized the wrong things. But I think it is more nuanced than that. I use the example of the person who prioritizes money above all else- something that most people would agree would lead to the worst personal life results. Ironically, one of the biggest threats to wealth is divorce. A truly rational person would invest in their marriage like it was a key asset. Many don’t. This begs the central questions- why do people act irrationally versus their stated priorities in their personal life? Or in other words, why are so many people who are successful at capital allocation in the work sphere so dreadful in the personal sphere?

My personal experience suggests ignorance, self-delusion and momentum play a significant role. I worked so hard to separate my work and personal life that I left my brutally logical analytical skills at the office. In other cases, it was hard to take an honest look in the mirror- especially when the current of day-to-day life carries on. However, this combination reeks of complacency. And in the business world, complacency always precedes disaster.

So how do we fight this complacency? First, by stepping back and taking the time. In the corporate world, this is why companies do corporate offsites and strategy days. Now, once you have the time, stealing again from the corporate management playbook remains fruitful. Take most business studies- they are really just examinations of capital allocation. Four questions usually stand out, and these questions apply just as well to the personal sphere:

1. How Do We Measure Success?

2. What’s Our Current Standing?

3. How Do We Improve?

4. What Do We Prioritize?

Let’s run through one by one:

1. How Do We Measure Success?

One of the most famous AI parables is the Paperclip Maximizer by Nick Bostrom.3 A super-intelligent AI is tasked with the goal of creating paperclips, and it is measured solely by how many paperclips it produces. Spurred by this simple measurement of success, the AI proceeds to take over the world, enslave humanity and convert every single resource to its paperclip creation process.

What we measure drives our decision making. This is the prime point of John Doerr’s seminal book, Measure What Matters. Doerr, one of the most successful venture capitalists of all-time, argues the importance of measuring the right variables. In business, this could be margins, revenue, eyeballs or even phone calls. But it is always grounded in good, hard data. In our personal life, it is a little more complicated; The only thing we usually have hard data on is our financial wealth.4 It is very easy to track how much money is in your bank account, and very hard to track how each of your personal relationships is developing. Therefore, it is natural to overprioritize wealth creation versus competing priorities. This is a key point in Sahil Bloom’s book, The Five Types of Wealth. Sahil admirably puts forward an alternative framework to measure five different types of wealth- Time, Social, Mental, Physical and Financial. I highly suggest taking his “Wealth Score Quiz” as a baseline, and if you find it interesting, please order the book. It will help. Especially if you use it over time to track your current standing. This is the type of hard data that balances out the emphasis on finances with a more holistic view on your priorities.

2. What’s Our Current Standing?

This is the information gathering portion of the exercise. Once you have identified how you are going to measure success, it is vital to obtain as much unbiased data as you can. Now, this part may not be fun. You will have to face some hard truths about where you are falling short. But you learn quickly in the business world, without accurate information, correct decisions are impossible.

In this stage, I found it most helpful to have conversations with the people I love and respect about both our current relationship and their views on my personal life. In the business world, this is like when a new CEO goes and meets with their staff and customers and just listens for the first 3 months to develop a view on the current situation of their business. The key here is to pierce any self-delusion. As Mark Twain says, “It ain’t what you don’t know that kills you. It’s what you know that just ain’t so.” Therefore, leave the sacred cows at home and come in with an open mind. It is often the areas that we assume we are doing well in that we are coming up short.

3. How Do We Improve?

Once we have determined how we will measure success and our current standing, it is easy to identify the areas we are currently deficient. And the nice thing is, the areas where you are currently underperforming are likely areas where millions of others are also failing. You are not alone, and you should consider the self-help gurus of today to be the business consultants for your personal life.

This is the area where I have the least concrete advice- every person has their own set of issues and preferred steps to address them. However, I did feel it was worth sharing a couple of things I found quite useful over the last 12 months.

• Improving Relationship with Wife- A Scheduled Weekly Date Night: I stole this from former Netflix CEO Reed Hastings. As someone with workaholic tendencies, scheduling a weekly date night, blocked off and inviolable in my calendar, created much needed space. This became my most important weekly meeting, and I realized it was super easy to schedule around.

• Improving Personal Health- Hire a Personal Trainer: I had a strong aversion to any type of third-party coaching. I saw it as a waste of money because I “knew how to work out” from my time playing college football. What I drastically underestimated was how much more efficient it made my workouts and how it forced discipline into my schedule. And for those of you, like me, who don’t like randomly being yelled at, remember, these trainers work for you- you can hire/fire at will.

• Prayer Walks as a Substitute for Meditation: There is a reason why meditation is a common theme in self-help literature. Generally, we significantly undervalue quiet in today’s world. However, I tried and failed over and over to meditate. It just never stuck. I finally accepted I needed a different angle, and I have loved just going on daily walks for 30-45 minutes where I pray the rosary and reflect on my day. Don’t make perfect the enemy of improvement.

4. What Do We Prioritize?

All of the work above leads up to the actual point of capital allocation. The greatest danger at this stage is thinking there are no hard decisions. But hopefully, the information-gathering stage pierced that self-delusion. We’ve been making trade-offs every day—mostly without noticing. This process just makes them explicit and gives them the rigor they deserve. The key to success now is ensuring we are consciously making the trade-offs that align ourselves with our top priorities.

A couple points to keep in mind. One, priorities often work on different time scales. What we may want desperately in the short-term may not align with what we want in the long-term. Two, everything has its season. Just because we prioritize work or family today doesn’t preclude us from re-prioritizing things 6, 12 or 36 months later. However, be very conscious with these time frames and make sure to revisit priorities at that point. Misplaced priorities are almost as permanent as government programs. Finally, priorities aren’t a solo game—discuss them with the people they impact, and make sure you're aligned. For example, it is tough to prioritize spending time with your kids when they are 12-18, as they usually prioritize time with their friends.5

Ultimately, what we prioritize is likely glaringly obvious to those around us- even if we are often blind to our own prioritizations. We all know the workaholics, the great dads, and the thrill seekers in our lives. Where we spend our time, effort and headspace is what will improve and grow in our lives, and we too often leave that process of allocation up to chance, circumstance or third parties. You are the CEO of your own life- time to own it.

Pope Leo XIII lived in a period of unprecedented progress and change. The invention and mass adoption of steel, electricity and petroleum all coincided in the 2nd half of the 19th century to create the “second industrial revolution”. The economy accelerated in both size and concentration as these new technologies amplified the benefits of scale- more and more people found work not as individual tradesmen or farmers, but as employees of companies. And at the heads of these growing corporations, such as Standard Oil or US Steel, sat titans of industry who created previously unimaginable wealth for themselves and their heirs. As a result, this was a time period of astonishing, but very unequal, growth in the standard of human living. And naturally, as the gap between the rich and poor widened, social strife accelerated. Labor Unions began to form as workers realized they needed to collectively bargain against such powerful capital forces. And “class warfare” and “socialism” emerged as political forces as the teachings of Karl Marx and his “workers utopia” captured the minds of many in the working classes.

These were unprecedented challenges for the Catholic Church as it struggled to find footing in this age of economic progress and growing nationalism. More than ever, the world of Jesus and the apostles seemed light years away from the modern era of steam, steel, and oil. Compounding this, the Church suffered the loss of the Papal states to the burgeoning Italian unification movement in 1870. For the first time since the Roman Empire, the Church did not have a strong physical political presence to play a role in European politics.

Into this mess walked Pope Leo XIII in 1878. A frail Italian of noble birth, his much longer than expected 25-year reign is one of the most impactful papacies in Church history. He is most famous for his work on defining the Church’s view on modern social justice- earning the moniker “the social Pope”. But he also revived the Church’s intellectual tradition, positioning it to interact with the scientific world rather than decouple from it. All in all, he was a man who met the challenge of his age.

Pope Leo XIII’s most influential work is Rerum Novarum, an encyclical on Capital and Labor published in 1891. Reading it, it is an absolute crime that I was not introduced to it during my 12 years of religion classes. Even today, 134 years later, it still stands as a bedrock of Catholic social justice and how the church views modern states and economies.

If you have 30 minutes, I highly suggest reading it in full before reading my much inferior commentary below.2

It reads much differently than I anticipated. Generally, when I have seen this work referenced, the focus has been on the Church’s support for workers’ rights and labor unions. But reading it for myself, I found it shockingly pro-markets and personal property, but in the context that it is the moral duty of individuals to care for their fellow man- not the state. Pope Leo XIII criticizes throughout the piece the wealthy capitalists of the age who failed to treat their employees with proper human dignity and pay them fair wages, but he does not go as far as to begrudge their wealth. In fact, he also criticizes the socialists just as fiercely throughout his writing, accusing them of spreading false promises and leading the faithful away from God to focus on a materialistic class struggle. The idea of a worker’s paradise is a false utopia, he asserts,

“In like manner, the other pains and hardships of life will have no end or cessation on earth; for the consequences of sin are bitter and hard to bear, and they must accompany man so long as life lasts. To suffer and to endure, therefore, is the lot of humanity; let them strive as they may, no strength and no artifice will ever succeed in banishing from human life the ills and troubles which beset it. If any there are who pretend differently - who hold out to a hard-pressed people the boon of freedom from pain and trouble, an undisturbed repose, and constant enjoyment - they delude the people and impose upon them, and their lying promises will only one day bring forth evils worse than the present. Nothing is more useful than to look upon the world as it really is, and at the same time to seek elsewhere, as We have said, for the solace to its troubles.” -Pope Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum (1891)

However, what I think is most compelling about Rerum Novarum is that Pope Leo XIII does not stop at just criticizing the partisans of laissez-faire economics and socialism. Supported by the writings of Church Doctors like St Thomas Aquinas, he instead advocates for a third path, independent of state or corporate domination and control. He appeals directly to the faithful, exhorting that the economic problems and inequality of the age are not something to be outsourced to the state- it was the moral responsibility of every single industrialist, and every single worker to ensure their fellow man was treated with dignity and respect. It is a sin for a Catholic to “blame the system” or justify inhumane treatment of workers as “this is how it has always been done”. In this fight against the evils of inequality and fixation on material goods, Pope Leo XIII exhorts,

“Everyone should put his hand to the work which falls to his share, and that at once and straightway, lest the evil which is already so great become through delay absolutely beyond remedy. Those who rule the commonwealths should avail themselves of the laws and institutions of the country; masters and wealthy owners must be mindful of their duty; the working class, whose interests are at stake, should make every lawful and proper effort; and since religion alone, as We said at the beginning, can avail to destroy the evil at its root, all men should rest persuaded that main thing needful is to re-establish Christian morals, apart from which all the plans and devices of the wisest will prove of little avail.” -Pope Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum (1891)

Rerum Novarum in totality is a powerful, intellectually sound argument that engages with the real problems of the world today. It fits just as well in the philosophy or economic history section of the library as it does in the theology section. It embraces the Church’s unmatched intellectual tradition that has given us genetics, the Big Bang theory, Occam’s Razor, inalienable human rights, and many other core ideas that sit at the bedrock of Western scientific and secular theory. By combining the Church’s core doctrinal principles and the spirit of reason and intellectualism, Pope Leo XIII brought to life the 2000-year-old teachings of Jesus and the Church Fathers in the modern age. And I believe this is both the challenge and opportunity that Pope Leo XIV faces anew today. The Age of AI will impact the Church and the Faithful more than any revolution before, and a Pope that embraces that challenge and opportunity gives me hope. Pope Leo XIII answered the industrial revolution with moral clarity and vision. I pray Pope Leo XIV does the same for the AI revolution.

With Pope Francis’ passing, I have had time to reflect on my old hot take. And as is often the case of the firmly held doctrines of a 23-year-old, I skated over the real challenges that he presented. I neatly packaged Pope Francis’ teachings into my spiritual box, while maintaining my policy beliefs in my political box. Like Jeb Bush, I clung to a version of the church and state argument- my right hand conveniently ignoring what my left hand was doing. And by doing that, I deprived myself of the gift of growing; challenging my belief set in order to build something stronger and more cohesive in my life.

Francis was not a Pope of stability and comfort. This was apparent from the outset when he refused the papal apartments, opting instead for a simple guesthouse. He was of the world, not above it. And in that same way, he engaged with the world in all its complexity, controversy, and uncertainty. Now, one of the common criticisms I see from Catholic conservatives I really respect, Ross Douthat, for example, is that Francis diluted the authority of the papacy by softening doctrine. This dates back to his very first news conference as Pope, when, pressed about gay priests in the Church, the new Pope shrugged, “Who am I to judge?” He followed this up by allowing diverging doctrinal views on divorced couples receiving communion, which conservatives fear risk schism in the Church as different bishops followed different rules. Time and time again, Pope Francis failed to provide clear direction on doctrinal issues, and this uncertainty leaves many faithful Catholics troubled.

But perhaps this is a gift? One thing that has really struck me in the past year is how unsettling Jesus and the Apostles are- to the authorities of their time and even the readers of the New Testament today. Jesus unsettled doctrine and disturbed order. Consider the rich young man; he did everything right according to the doctrine of Moses and the social norms of the time. He has amassed respect and wealth at a young age, which was surely viewed in his community as a reward for his faithfulness. And what does Jesus say, “Give it away and follow me… Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”1 Or take the story of the adulterous woman where Jesus overturns centuries of Mosaic law with a simple shrug and an exhortation of “Let he who is without sin throw the first stone.” Jesus relentlessly challenges the institutions and laws of his time in ways that generated significant discomfort and uncertainty in his followers.

And that trend continued into the early church. In fact, one of the very first Church councils, under the first Pope, Peter, was focused on whether Gentiles had to follow Jewish doctrine (such as circumcision) in order to become Christians. Ultimately, the early Church followers ruled in favor of inclusion- again sending shockwaves through the mostly Jewish Christian community.

We, as humans, crave security and safety. This is why we built an institution as old, prestigious and powerful as the Catholic Church. And by definition, as a human institution, the Catholic Church is not perfect. It is an ever-evolving community, which hopefully is growing towards the kingdom of God. But that fundamental truth of imperfection calls for the virtue of Humility in spades. How is a man, the Pope, even one guided by the Holy Spirit, to know every single perfect thing to do to run an institution of a billion people from a myriad of cultures and contexts?

And that is a truth I think Pope Francis truly understood: that he was just a man, a sinner, trying to do his best to shepherd an ever-expanding and disparate flock towards the Kingdom. And that meant accepting that there will be failures and mistakes along the way- especially if he was to push things forward. “I prefer a Church which is bruised, hurting, and dirty because it has been out on the streets rather than a Church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security,” Francis declared in one of his earliest exhortations.2 Frankly, that is how Pope Francis left the church. A bit bruised from some doctrinal infighting. A little dirty as it continues to recover from the sex abuse scandals. But a Church that is back interacting with the world, aware of its own imperfection, and leading with mercy rather than fighting back with judgment.

And for me, well, I still disagree strongly with Pope Francis’ economics. I think an interesting take on capitalism is that Adam Smith’s view of the invisible hand personifies humility. I believe the economy is much too complex to be guided successfully by a central authority. But with that humility comes the understanding that my fortune is not some divine gift from God, but a twist of luck and fate. And therefore, like the rich man in Jesus’ story, the path towards the kingdom lies in sharing this wealth with my fellow man rather than a singular focus on accumulating more. I’m sure Pope Francis, if we are to have a conversation today, would press me to do it faster, to leave it all behind and join him in following Christ. He would leave me unsettled, and in my discomfort, shepherd me a little closer to the Kingdom of God.

The first step is admitting you have a problem. For years, I blamed my “connection” to my phone on outside forces- generally work. The Trump tweet. The urgent call from a counterpart. I have even written diatribes on how email is my personal candidate for the antichrist. But here’s the disconcerting thing. When my daily work commitments ceased 8 months ago, the familiar longing for my iPhone didn’t stop. True, I was no longer jolting awake at night to respond to urgent emails, yet the compulsive daytime checking continued unabated. I began to notice:

1. Whenever I reflected on my day, I could not recall what I did on my phone. That time vanished into a vortex, leaving no trace.

2. When at the park or pool with my kids, I would find myself checking and re-checking my phone. Often the same websites I had just checked five minutes before. A relentless search for any sort of new information or distraction.

3. Despite being on my phone, I wasn’t responsive to texts/calls from people (especially when compared to my old work self). So screen time stayed steady, but response time went down. What was I using that time for?

Distilling this down: In a life where every second is so valuable, why was I letting my iPhone eat my time?

I consider myself relatively disciplined. Not perfect by any means, but a childhood spent balancing school and sports instilled time management skills. I’m not a video gamer nor do I have a strong internet community or presence. In fact, I have no social media other than an X account that I use to passively follow news. Generally, I felt I was well prepared to deal with modern technology.

It turns out I vastly underestimated my opponent. There is a reason that 3 of the Magnificent 7 companies (Apple, Google and Facebook) are titans of the mobile era. And there is a reason why the highest-paid entry level jobs outside of deep quant trading were to be found in the mobile software engineering space over the last decade. The most powerful companies in the world were directing their smartest entry-level employees with one over-arching task: Keep an individual on their mobile platform for one second more. Viewed this way, my natural resistance to modern technology was about as effective as a swimsuit in a snowstorm. This made me wonder: what in my natural makeup makes me so vulnerable to this iPhone addiction, and could it be changed?

I’ll keep a long story short. Yes, I do think I could change my makeup to be less vulnerable to my iPhone addiction, but frankly, I don’t want to. Because what makes me addicted is precisely one of my defining virtues- my love of learning. Following the thread down the rabbit hole, my attraction to my iPhone revolves around the infinite access to information that it brings. I am obsessed with that feeling of being in the know. Having the latest piece of information. Knowing the answer to that obscure piece of trivia. Researching whatever random question comes to my head. In this sense, the iPhone is a technological marvel- a palm-sized computer far more powerful than its giant ancestors that launched Astronauts to the moon. A portal to Artificial Intelligence with generations of knowledge in my grasp. To the curious, the iPhone can be a never-ending playground of discovery, knowledge and adventure.

By offering an endless outlet for my curiosity, the iPhone makes it too easy to miss the moments right in front of me. To let time vanish into a river of knowledge, information and facts- a trap disguised as an intellectual jungle gym.

Now, this description of my own experience may or may not resonate, but I suspect these devices lure each of us uniquely. In the documentary, The Social Dilemma, Tristan Harris observes about social media/devices, “If you’re not paying for the product, then you are the product.” In this world of infinite personalization, everyone’s temptations will be different. Some crave knowledge. Some crave distraction. Many crave connection. And the tech giants are pouring their time, money and efforts into finding what exactly makes you tick and then offering you a Faustian bargain- your time for what you desire.

In that case, it is at least worth knowing what you are giving away. Better a recovering addict than an unaware captive.

Let’s retell this story, but this time from the perspective of the older brother:

“A certain man had two sons. His eldest son was dutiful and did all his father asked of him- even working in the fields alongside hired hands and servants. Despite the older brother’s example, the younger brother was spendthrift and lazy, spending his time lounging around the house and barely lifting a finger to help in the fields. The eldest brother did not understand why his father let his younger brother off so easy, and deep down resented that his father treated them equally despite his hard work. Therefore, it was to his great surprise and anger to hear his father had not only declared that the inheritance was to be shared, but that the estate was to be split today, and the younger brother given his share to do with it as he pleased.

The eldest brother could have told you right then and there what was going to happen. The youngest brother was going to waste all the inheritance and then come crawling back to the household. He just hoped his Father had the good sense to see the error of his ways and to show that layabout the door when the time came.

Two years later, the older brother heard song and dance at the household. He called one of the servants and asked what was going on. The servant replied, “Your brother has arrived, and your father has slaughtered the fattened calf because he received his son back safe and sound.” The older brother was furious! It happened just as he expected- the younger brother came crawling back after having all the fun and experiences with zero consequences.

Therefore, the older brother refused to enter the party.”

I’ve been that older brother. We all have. Installed deep within the human psyche is a strong sense of justice. We innately understand the concept of fairness. You can almost hear the incredulousness in the older brother’s reaction: “Am I taking crazy pills? Are we really going to let him get away with this- again.” We all know in human society that we can’t let a person get away with things over, and over and over again; it breaks down the very fabric and trust of civilization. I, the older brother, have to put a stop to this madness- I will not condone this injustice by joining the celebration.

But this is where the rub is. This is where we, the older brother, fall into a trap. For in this process, we move from the observer to the self-righteous party. We demand compensation. We demand justice. But for what? Who is the “wronged” party in this situation? The father clearly is- he is the one who just saw half his estate squandered before his eyes. But what about the older brother I so easily relate to? In what way is he actually wronged?

You can argue that the younger brother just spent half of his “future” inheritance. But who is to say he is entitled to that? His inheritance would need to come from the Father, freely. It is not for the older brother to claim. How can you claim harm from losing something you did not own in the first place?

How about feeling underappreciated for all the hard work he did for his Father while his brother lounged about. But did his father love him any less because of his brother? Did the Father order him into the fields or force a lifestyle upon him? No, the older brother chose that lifestyle of his own free will to show his devotion to his Father. What his brother chose was irrelevant- his relationship with his Father is completely different and did not bear upon the older brother’s relationship.

Expanding on this last point, God is not subject to human limitations like time or attention span; he is an ever-growing pie that never needs to be divided. This is a concept completely foreign to our existence here on earth. Here, we need to make choices and hard decisions. To prioritize between different wants and needs. Take for example the inheritance in the parable. On earth, this would be a fixed amount, a zero-sum game. Whatever goes to the younger brother cannot go to the older brother. In terms of earthly possessions, the older brother’s fury at the indulgence of his younger brother is logical.

However, the inheritance in this parable references The Kingdom of Heaven, and that sum is infinite and defies logic. What my brother receives has no impact on what I will receive- all are welcome to the banquet of heaven. Like the loaves and fishes, there will always be enough food at the feast. This is completely foreign to the human experience, and therefore, requires immense faith to accept. It requires us to swallow our pride and have faith that God has room for all of us, not just the best of us.

This is why I think the parable of the Prodigal Son is also the parable of the Proud Brother. Pride is the original sin for a reason. It is the perversion of our dignity, that wonderful calling from God to build a better world with tools he freely gifted us. As the older brother exemplifies, the wonderful things we accomplish and the holy lives we live, originally in the name of the father, easily become sources of pride that hold us back from joining the party. Keep in mind: it’s not our job to decide who gets invited. It’s our job to enter the feast—and rejoice that there’s room enough for everyone.

Inherent in sacrifice is the concept of a trade-off or giving something up, and in today’s world, there are few things more feared than FOMO (Fear of Missing Out). The full-scale adoption of the internet and the advent of social media in the last 20 years has created a whole new human experience. We are being exposed to 100x more ideas, products and experiences than our ancestors of just 2 generations past. We have drastically shifted from a world where knowledge was scarce, to one where knowledge is infinitely abundant. I think this has been incredible progress and extremely empowering for individuals. However, like all good things, there is a cost. In the early 2000s, behavioral psychologists started exploring the effects of increased choices and found some interesting results. In one study, consumers who were shown only six jars of jam were 10x more likely to buy jam than consumers who were exposed to 24 choices- this phenomenon received the term “choice paralysis”.2 Just as interestingly, increased choices also resulted in people being less satisfied with their decision after the fact. This led psychologist Barry Schwartz to coin the term, “Tyranny of Choice” which he illustrates in the below graphic.3

This research provides empirical evidence for the dreaded FOMO. How many times have you heard the phrase "that's a good problem to have!" when contemplating a decision that leaves you feeling anything but fortunate? Be it choosing between two great schools, different job offers, or even where to celebrate a birthday dinner; too many good choices can be much more dangerous than too few. We fall into the same trap as Buridan’s donkey- stuck equidistant between equivalent options of food and water and therefore wasting away due to indecision and fear of regret.

FOMO is only the first trap of abundance. Hot on its heels is the illusion of 'having it all'—the notion that we can sidestep choosing between priorities. Since WWII in the West, we have seen a steady degradation of faith in institutions. Much of this was self-inflicted- with a wide variety of scandals from Watergate to Priestly Child Abuse to Mainstream Media Bias being exposed in the modern age of transparency. However, freedom from these institutions came with a cost- their loss of authority also muddled the moral hierarchy that many people relied on for decisions. In breaking from these institutions, many of us—including me—traded the guidance of priests, presidents, and news anchors for unknown sources of wisdom. This vacuum doesn't remain empty; something inevitably fills that void. And the view I challenge here is the concept of “having it all” that has been pushed by countless self-help books and Linkedin Influencers. Call it “lean in” or “work-life balance”, it feels like my generation has been inundated with the romantic concept that if we just work hard enough, reflect/meditate enough, or are smart enough, we can build a life for ourselves where we can have everything we ever wanted. No need to choose between career and family. No need to commit to a relationship—you should wait for the 'perfect' one. No need to settle on a career—keep your options open, just in case something better comes along.

No hard choices. No FOMO. No sacrifice.

That’s a pretty compelling pitch, and one that I embraced at various points in my life. However, the concept of sacrifice stretches back to the very beginnings of human civilization (we see examples at Göbekli Tepe in 10,000 BCE). Now, I think we all agree we do not need animal or human sacrifices to make the sun god rise, but as Chesterton warned, “Whenever you remove any fence, always pause long enough to ask why it was put up in the first place.”4 There is a reason that sacrifice has been a core part of the human tradition, and I propose that is has to do with that second part of the definition of sacrifice that Chat GPT provided- For a Greater Purpose. For there to be a greater purpose, there needs to be a choice. And for that choice to be made, there needs to forced prioritization. And what better way to force prioritization than to demand sacrifice?

Sacrifice as a reflection of prioritization echoes the core tenet of Essentialism, a book written by Greg McKeown that I referenced in one my earliest posts- The Main Thing, If It Is the Main Thing, Is the Main Thing. Greg rightly points out that our time and energy are finite, meaning every minute is a trade-off—between work, family, or self-care. And in order to stay in control of our schedule, we have to ruthlessly prioritize, otherwise, the countless options of the age of abundance will wash us down a different path. As Greg puts it, “Essentialism is not about how to get more things done; it’s about how to get the right things done. It doesn’t mean just doing less for the sake of less either. It’s about making the wisest possible investment of your time and energy in order to operate at our highest point of contribution by doing only what is essential.”

In this way, making a sacrifice is not a loss; It’s a trade for personal energy to be refocused.

By exposing our lives to the burning fires of the sacrificial altar, we burn away the unnecessary commitments and time sucks, and hopefully all that will remain are the priorities that truly matter.

I use the fire metaphor because I don’t think this sacrificial process is fun by any means. Indeed, many of the things that we are called to sacrifice in our lives are valuable, enjoyable, and status-giving. But that is what makes the sacrifice impactful. The greater the cost of a sacrifice, the more energy freed to put towards the greater purpose you are striving for. Sacrifice is the cost that I believe fuels my friend Sahil’s concept of earned success5- that the greatest joys in life cannot be bought but have to be earned. Sacrifice is the force of nature that slowly hews our character out of the stone of life. Sacrifice is the fire of purity that gives us clarity.

• What better way to show your kid they are the priority then when you cancel an important meeting because she has a game that night?

• What better way to show you are serious about being healthy than by throwing away all the desserts you love?

• What better way to serve your God than by offering all your skills at his feet?

Sacrifice isn’t a loss; it’s a gain. Banish FOMO to the abyss and start adding through subtraction.

• Walking

• Running

• Kicking and Throwing

• Able to sort by color and shape

• Following instructions (I give this one a 50% success rate)

• Single words to phrases

• Self-awareness

• Independence (the dreaded “no”)

• Empathy

• Imagination

This amount of tangible, observable progress was mind-blowing for me while observing my first-born and has me so excited for Harvey in the coming months.

However, watching this astonishing pace of development in my child makes me reflect on my own growth—or seeming lack thereof. My golf handicap hasn’t gone down in five years, my attempts at Spanish remain laughable at best, and I still need google maps to navigate on a daily basis. In many ways, my own evolution lacks the same tangible milestones that are so easily observable in toddlers. And with that being the case, it is easy to wonder if I am not evolving at all.

Part of this stems from how we were taught evolution throughout school. Everyone remembers a sequence of photos similar to below.

This sequence highlights the tangible, discernible, physical process of evolution over time- the evolution that we can observe thanks to the fossils of creatures from eons ago, locked in time by natural forces. Through these physical clues, we have been able to reveal the epic story of life’s incredible past here on earth. However, to hear how some others tell it, these physical changes are only half the story.

Teilhard De Chardin was a paleontologist and Jesuit priest who argued evolution extended beyond biology- it is also a spiritual and intellectual process. His ideas, while quite controversial in his time, have played a significant role not only in Catholic theology but also in scientific theory and pop culture (some even credit him as the inspiration for The Force in Star Wars).

In De Chardin’s telling, biological evolution is merely a prelude. The true frontier of modern evolution is human consciousness- our expanding ability to think, create and connect. In this way, humanity’s great achievements- the founding of civilization, writing, the industrial revolution, the internet, AI- weren’t random progress, but evolutionary jumps as important as the emergence of mammals. The resulting greater interconnectedness of humanity thanks to these technologies was no accident. No, in these advancements, De Chardin instead saw the guiding hand of a higher power, propelling an evolutionary process forward with an ultimate endpoint- the union of the universe with God.1 To De Chardin, every time we change our mind about a subject, make a new friend, or even call our mom, we are changing our consciousness. And it is through all these tiny little evolutions in each of our individual consciousness that the universe evolves, and with it, we are drawn closer to God.

This view of evolution differs starkly from the one taught in school. In some ways, it echoes Kurzweil’s concept of the Singularity—the idea that intelligence, not biology, now drives human transformation.2 And while I am no theological expert, I can speak from personal experience that exposure to this viewpoint had a profound impact. I find the concept that we are an active participant in the evolution of the world to be both terrifying and empowering.

First, the terrifying portion. We are living through an unprecedented period of technological and societal change. In De Chardin’s framework, this is not random—it is the natural trajectory of evolution gaining momentum, placing us at a moment of transformation as profound as any since Christ walked the Earth. We are now the protagonists at the absolute center of this story, and the next stage of human evolution relies on US- not some random ancestor or great man of history. It also means that we are constantly called to evolve. It is not enough for us to just maintain the hard-earned wealth, intelligence and faith that we have accumulated over the years. If the evolution of the universe depends on our own growth, we are called to continually risk comfort in the pursuit of better versions of ourselves. And in the brutal side of the evolutionary process, we will not always be successful. In fact, if we are constantly being called to evolve, that means that at no point in this life will we ever reach our destination. There is no resting point at the top of the hill. As De Chardin tells it, “In one matter or the other it still remains true that, even in the view of the mere biologist, the human epic resembles nothing so much as a way of the cross.”3

However, if God’s evolutionary process means that we are doomed to never reach our destination in this life, it leaves us with an extremely empowering truth. It means that all we are asked to do is to take that next step forward. Every single day, we are just called to evolve that tiny bit- that 1% that keeps the ball moving. And when we fall short, that is a natural part of the growing process, and we are not suddenly banished from God’s plan. Indeed, the very process of us learning from our failures evolves the universe that much closer to God’s kingdom. It is in this mindset that the Jesuit motto, Ad Maioriem Dei Glorium, For the Greater Glory of God, really begins to ring true. For even in our failures, we have the opportunity to evolve, and it is through the humbling process of bettering ourselves that we indeed bring greater Glory to God.

I will leave you with a thought from The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho's beautiful parable whose 'Soul of the World' concept resonates remarkably with Teilhard's vision. “It is we who nourish the Soul of the World, and the world we live in will be either better or worse, depending on whether we become better or worse. And that’s where the power of love comes in. Because when we love, we always strive to become better than we are.”4

“Indeed, like the men of old, he is engaged in constructing a tower whose apex should pierce heaven,” -Joseph Soloveitchik, The Lonely Man of Faith

It’s not often that mid-20th century Orthodox Jewish teachings end up on the New York Times Bestseller list, but that was indeed the case when David Brooks’ bestseller, The Road to Character, vaulted its way up the charts back in 2015. Throughout the book, Brooks discusses the role in modern society of “Resume virtues” vs “Eulogy virtues”. He describes Resume virtues as the wealth and experiences that would fit in a business bio, while the Eulogy virtues are the stories and traits you would expect to hear celebrated at someone’s funeral. Resume virtues, such as intelligence and success, are defined by creation, competition and domination whereas Eulogy virtues, like kindness and humility, are derived from selflessness, sacrifice, and the depth of one’s relationship with others and the universe.

This framing of Resume vs Eulogy virtues was inspired by an Orthodox Jewish Rabbi, Joseph Soloveitchik, one of the most influential American religious thinkers in the 20th century. In his most famous book, The Lonely Man of Faith, he argues the two different stories of the human creation presented in Genesis are in fact intentional, representing the two different purposes God intended for mankind.

In Soloveitchik’s telling, the Adam of the first creation story, Adam 1, is Resume Adam. This Adam is ordered by God, “be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it.”1 This is the Adam of progress- the one whose purpose is to bend the universe to his control and create greater and greater wonders. To utilize God’s greatest gift to mankind, intelligence, to create a more dignified world. As Soloveitchik puts it, “Man is a dignified being and to be human means to live with dignity” and man acquires dignity by greater mastery over his environment.

Adam 2 of the second creation story is “Redeemed Adam” or what Brooks refers to as “Eulogy Adam”. This Adam asks not “how?” but “why?" The Adam of prayer and reflection, who instead of striving to conquer the world around him, focuses on knowing his creator and loved ones deeper and deeper. This Adam exists in a sacrificial relationship (redemption and love require sacrifice) with his creator and loved ones- understanding that he has done nothing to “deserve” this love. These relationships are not transactional or logical like the worldly relationships that define Adam 1. This is why Soloveitchik describes Adam 2 as “madly in love”- Adam 2 begins where logic and intellect fail. This allows Adam 2 to find his creator at the depths of suffering rather than the heights of dignity, discovering comfort and purpose beyond that provided by society or his own intellect.

To Soloveitchik, these two callings of man were equally important and often in conflict- creating his metaphor of the “Lonely Man of Faith” fated to wander back and forth between these two camps. In his words, “God created two Adams and sanctioned both. Rejection of either aspect of humanity would be tantamount to an act of disapproval of the divine scheme… the majestic (Adam 1) community is willed by God as much as the faith community.”

However, Soloveitchik warns that, in modern society, Adam 1 has rejected Adam 2 as something superfluous and obsolete in his quest to dominate the cosmos. He’s not talking about atheism here. Instead, he sees Western man trying to engage God on transactional terms rather than the humbling relationship at the core of Adam 2 of total sacrifice and capitulation to a greater power. "He seeks not the greatness found in sacrificial action but the convenience one discovers in a comfortable, serene state of mind…. Alas, he wants to be successful even in his adventure with God. If he gives of himself to God, he expects reciprocity.”

Soloveitchik concludes that man has taken such pride in his ability to create and dominate that he sees those as an end in itself- rather than as just a part of what defines his humanity. Modern Man has declared Adam 1 the victor over Adam 2. David Brooks makes a similar conclusion about modern society valuing Resumes over Eulogies in The Road to Character, and I even see strong elements of this argument in my friend Sahil’s recent bestseller, The 5 Types of Wealth.” All argue, at points, that our society has become uniquely focused on progress for progress's sake, and on the achievement of outward dignity/majesty at the expense of wonder, depth, and humility.

I find this passage from Soloveitchik as particularly powerful in examining the challenge Adam 2 has with connecting with Adam 1 in today’s society.

“How staggering this incompatibility is! [Adam 2]’s unique message speaks of defeat instead of success, of accepting a higher will instead of commanding, of giving instead of conquering, or retreating instead of advancing, of acting “irrationally” instead of being always reasonable. Here the tragic event occurs- [Adam 1] rejects his dialectal assignment and, with it, the man of faith.”

In other words, how do you tell a man in a capitalist society that money isn’t the goal? Or a student that grades are not how one should keep score? Or an AI scientist that the frontier does not matter? In a world where man has conquered land, sea, and yes, even space, humility feels less like a virtue and more like a weakness. And that is where tragedy strikes.

For, it is blindingly clear to me that AI will surpass Adam 1. And what does it mean to be Adam 1 and obsolete? For if man only measures himself by what he can dominate and create, what happens when he creates something more intelligent and powerful than himself?

Humanity will have to reckon with this existential shift. Will we attempt to compete with our creation? Will we alter our very nature to prioritize survival above all else? Or will we rediscover the wisdom of Adam 2?

I see three possible futures:

• Stagnation and Replacement

• A Reprioritization towards Existence (Evolution or Devolution)

• Resolution with Adam 2

Stagnation and Replacement:

In the 1st creation story, God’s command to mankind was to “fill the earth and subdue it”. But how was man to accomplish that goal? He did not have claws and teeth like a tiger, or the power of a hurricane. In fact, on paper versus the rest of creation, man looks outmatched- with one great exception. Man is intelligent. He can think. And with his mind, he has created weapons that have turned predators into prey and shelters that have rendered even the greatest storms innocuous. In this way, intelligence is humanity’s most formidable tool.

Therefore, I find it logical that humanity has valued intelligence more and more over the centuries. How often have we heard that this or that problem could be solved if we just had a little more data, a little more computing power, a little more time? To the modern man, every problem is like a nail to the hammer of intelligence- the answers outside our grasp are simply due to not having enough “intelligence” at this time. The push into AI is just a natural next step in this never-ending quest for more knowledge.

Now, before delving further, I want to emphasize that I believe the man with AI to be more dignified than the man without. With AI, Adam 1 has furthered his purpose, creating a more majestic existence for humankind. However, I see a fatal flaw in this relationship between Adam 1 and his creation. With AI, I believe Adam 1 has created a partner, a peer, rather than something that can be subdued and controlled. Do we really think we can dominate something that is more intelligent than we are for any significant period of time? I find it highly unlikely.

But then, why can’t Adam 1 have a partner? This goes back to the same problem that Adam 1 has with Adam 2. For an unconstrained Adam 1 is a being of creation and domination. And to truly dominate the universe, in the words of Highlander, “There can only be one”. Therefore, in an existence without Adam 2, I see Adam 1 naturally coming to at odds with his creation, AI. And if we agree that the most formidable tool of humanity is intelligence, what do we think is the natural outcome of a conflict when humanity runs into a more intelligent force?

Now, this statement instantly conjures up apocalyptic images of Terminator and The Matrix. I don’t think this is how it ends. I actually think this conflict is more likely subtle and bloodless and in fact, is occurring as we speak. I think of it as some version of evolutionary Innovator’s Dilemma.2 Over time, we are going to outsource more and more of our thinking and our “dominance over creation” to AI.3 This will only fuel AI to even greater advantage over its human creators, leading to even more tasks being outsourced. At a certain point, this flywheel will become irreversible, and humans will become the ones reliant on AI to dominate creation for them. At that point, who is the master and who is the slave? Once we no longer have a calling to think, create and dominate, what does humanity do?

One path is we stay around for as long as the AI wants us around, and then we fade into the darkness. Just another step on the evolutionary way. But I see another path as well- if you can’t beat them, join them.

Existence Above All

In the series, “Hyperion”, the Technicore is the ultimate outcome of humanity’s creation of AI- an autonomous grouping of intelligences who serve as both an ally and adversary of humanity. When the heroes of the book confront elements of the Technicore over its purpose and reasoning in human affairs, it is revealed that the Technicore sees existence as its ultimate priority. Everything is secondary to the core AIs to the preservation of its own existence.

The same logic could drive humanity. Just as progress has become an end in itself in the modern age, couldn’t mere existence become Adam 1’s ultimate pursuit? Before commanding Adam 1 to dominate and subdue, didn’t God first create him? Therefore, by this logic, domination is contingent on existence, so existence should be considered the greater goal.

However, it has always struck me that existence for existence's sake is a cold and zero-sum existence. Cultures from across the globe are filled with tales of warnings for those who pursue eternal life solely for that purpose.4 In that tragic vein, I see two potential paths for humanity if existence itself becomes the final goal for Adam 1:

Evolution Into Man + Machine

One path is a merging of man and machine in pursuit of higher levels of intelligence. In many ways, this is just a natural extension of what Adam 1 has done over the centuries, melding himself to technology to further his domination and mastery. AI will quickly become humanity’s most intimate friend, pushing dogs off their pedestal. We will see individuals, communities and nations obsessed with tinkering and progressing their AIs- each looking to create something superior in intelligence to their neighbors.

However, this is where an obsession with existence has a dark side. Because throughout humankind, humans were constrained by their own intelligence and lifespan. These provided natural constraints on how much control humans could have over nature and each other. But in AI, humankind has birthed an ally that will shatter both of these constraints. Thanks to an ally that does not need sleep or motivation, the person or nation with the AI advantage should be able to dominate his neighbor indefinitely. Think of a scenario if the US maintained its position as the only nuclear power after WWII. It would have sat an unchallenged master of the globe because it controlled the ultimate weapon. I see the race towards an ultimate intelligence as having similar stakes and rewards.

But do these stakes really mean that this merging of man and machine is a zero-sum game? kill or be killed? Again, it depends on humanity’s purpose, and if it truly is just existence, I don’t see a different outcome on this path. It is a giant Prisoner’s dilemma.5 Every interest group has the incentive to create a dominant AI that could dominate their neighbor, because if they don’t, they are doomed to be dominated if one of their neighbors chooses the domination path. This is why the Technicore in Hyperion is naturally parasitic. With existence as their only goal, they were doomed to an eternal arms race against their neighbor, and I believe humanity will suffer the same fate if we make existence our beacon.

Devolution

The other potential path I see if man chooses to prioritize existence is basically a Luddite fantasy, but one you can see elements of in today’s discussion of AI safety. There are many thinkers and regulators who are rightfully concerned with humanity’s ability to control AI over the medium-term. This has been the major driver in the increasing AI regulations that we have seen out of the US and Europe over the last two years- where nations are trying to gain a larger seat at the table of this technological revolution. So, what stops these nations, especially after some sort of great tragedy, from banding together and banning AI in order to preserve human existence.

Now, as discussed above, I see the same great Prisoner’s dilemma here that we observed with nuclear weapons. In a world where AI technology exists, any individual or nation state that possesses AI will have a decisive advantage over its neighbor. Therefore, game theory states the natural equilibrium is that countries will not give up their access to AI willingly, as it would make them very vulnerable to any opposing party.

But let’s assume for a minute that we overcome game theory. The question I think worth thinking about, is what do we think a world where AI is banned looks like in 100 years? AI is one of the great hopes for humanity’s future. We look to be on the verge of massive breakthroughs in multiple spheres, including drug development and battery composition. We are democratizing intelligence across the globe. By banning AI, wouldn’t humanity be dooming itself to a staler existence?

And in a world that is willing to ban AI, what makes us think that we would stop there? Would the computer be next? What about books? Humanity has progressed and gained dignity over the centuries largely thanks to its willingness to risk new technologies and ideas. I don’t think a world that bans AI is an equilibrium that Adam 1 could ultimately accept. As defined above, Adam 1 is created by God to pursue dignity, creation, and domination. Pure existence knowing that something greater could be achieved just feels like an anathema to the human experience. In this way, AI is like the fire from Prometheus. And once one has experience fire’s warmth and power, it is hard to envision a life without it.

Reconciliation with Adam 2

Now to hope. As we have established extensively above, AI will present problems that Adam 1 will not be able to solve. For the first time, we are staring at a creation that is better than we are in the very things modern society has determined our worth out of.

• AI will always have a perfect ACT score

• AI will diagnose your disease better than any doctor

• AI will code faster

• AI will write better

• AI will build companies where humans will only be needed to man the front desk (or they may just go with robots)6

• AI and their robots will build higher, run faster, fight harder

Adam 1 is doomed to be outmatched, and if we humans are obsolete, where does our purpose lie? For the first time in centuries, humanity will be knocked off the heights of dignity into the depths. But the beautiful thing about humanity is part of us is meant to thrive in the depths. Adam 1 does not need to take this AI journey alone. He has Adam 2.

And Adam 2 is made for the AI moment.

This part of us, devalued in modern society, does not find its purpose in accomplishments and intelligence. Adam 2 innately understands that it is not what he creates that makes him human, but that he was created human. That dignity is not wrestled out of nature but instilled by a Creator, that purpose is not achieved but rather experienced, and one falls into love rather than conquers it.

Because he has purpose outside of his intellect, Adam 2 can recognize AI as a partner rather than a competitor. He has the humility to step aside and the wisdom to understand that AI allows him to focus on the things that he believes are most important- his relationship with his God and his loved ones. Now, this does not diminish the dangers that AI can potentially pose. But if we are more than just intellect, a being with greater intellect does not make us obsolete. If we have greater purpose than existence, then we are no longer in a zero-sum trap that results in an endless race or stagnation.

Instead, I have an optimistic view that AI will topple the “intellectual Tower of Babel”7 modern man has built over the last 500 years. Rather than pursuing knowledge for its own sake, we are at the precipice of a world where countless hours- once slavishly devoted to progress- are freed.

And we can ask ourselves: what wonderful future may Adam 1, Adam 2 and AI build together? If we humans are freed to focus on those we love, on the greater questions that begin with why, and on the virtues that define a life well lived- what might we become? How beautiful will our eulogies be?

Let me start with: Jelly Roll. Jamie Lannister. Martha Stewart. Darth Vader. Elsa. Simba. Kim Kardashian. Justin Bieber. Not generally a crew that you would group together. But their stories have a tie that binds- we all witnessed their arc of redemption. Be it from a sex tape scandal, fleeing from responsibility, or the arrogance of power, each one of them experienced scorn, despair and judgement- only to rise to new heights. Each of them is beloved not despite their flaws, but because their flaws make their experiences relatable and human.

This public attraction to redemption isn’t constrained to modern day characters and celebrities. One of my favorite books, The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell, details his research on mythology. He makes a startling conclusion- that the great foundational stories across ages and cultures tend to have a similar structure. He called this common structure the monomyth, the hero’s journey, and each story shared most, if not all, the following elements:

• Introduction of Hero

• Call to Adventure

• Meeting a Mentor

• Crossing the Threshold to Adventure

• Challenges

• Death and Resurrection

• Transformation

• Atonement

• Return

Just like the four chords that link most pop hits, this story structure fits most epic tales that you can think of- Harry Potter, Star Wars, Ulysses, Hamlet, King Arthur, The Odyssey, the Gospels, Osiris. The list goes on and on. A natural assumption is that these stories are so popular because they are so familiar. Just like Marvel keeps pumping out Avengers movies, the great writers through the centuries used the monomyth structure to write hit after hit. The monomyth is so popular is because it has been so popular, and the momentum just rolls on.

However, I find one great flaw in this argument. For momentum is reliant on a starting point. A spark. A push. And to those of you who say Gilgamesh, I counter that the Buddha and many others are independent. There is something deeper than these ancient myths. And I believe that deeper truth is the greatest story of all. The Epic of Humankind.

I cannot remember the source, but someone once asserted that our lives are the Iliads and Odysseys of heaven. This is a beautiful metaphor, and I’d take it a step further and say the Epic of Humankind is more like Canterbury Tales, Arabian Nights or Hyperion. In these great novels, each of the cast of characters share their own story, revealing a bit of truth in the greater narrative. In the same way, our lives are independent stories woven into a much larger tale. We are integral characters not only in our own adventure but also in the greatest story ever told.

So, what does it mean to be a main character in such an epic tale? I’m reminded of the Chinese curse- “May you live in interesting times.” Frankly, it tells me that shit is coming my way. Show me a book where the hero was born, everything went fabulously, and they lived happily ever after, and I will show you a book with zero sales. We will have to suffer, sin, and fall just like Harry Potter, Danerys Targaryen, and Hester Prynne. Why? Because that is the fate for all heroes.

Pulling on this thread further, isn’t it true that the heroes that we come to love and adore most are those who went through the most difficult times? In this vein, Jesus’ message at the heart of the Parable of the Prodigal Son comes to life.1 I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.”2 I always struggled with this concept, but aren’t some of the greatest cheers in literature for those who were once evil who turned good? Be it Darth Vader casting Palpatine into the pit, Snape sacrificing himself for Harry, or Jean Valjean saving Cosette. The greatest heroes are those who go on the most difficult journeys.

In that same way, I think the legions of heaven are closely watching our stories. Especially the adventures of those among us who have fallen the furthest or hurt the most. Together, our tales illustrate the pages of the Epic of Humankind- a story filled with good and evil, triumph and tragedy, and ultimately, redemption. And while not all tales have a happy ending, I believe the gates of heaven shake when those the world has beaten down the most find the courage to rise again- bringing the heavenly hosts to their feet, popcorn flying.

First, I find it a fool’s errand to compare views on parental leave across eras. There is a classic divide between the Baby Boomer/Gen X experience vs Millennials/Gen Z over this issue. And frankly, there should be- these generations have significantly different lived experiences, especially around parents in the workplace. The post-WWII boom in female employment is one of the most significant changes to family structure in history. In just 50 years, we went from ~20% of married women working to over 60% of mothers working.1 This is an absolute societal revolution whose impact is still rippling through social norms.

One of these impacts is changing household expectations for fathers. I see it clearly in my own experience with my peers. My friend group has a mix of households, some with two working parents and others with a stay-at-home parent (generally the wife). However, across the households, there is a strong expectation of father involvement in raising children and helping around the house. This anecdotal observation is backed by data. Look at below- Fathers are now spending nearly 3x more hours on childcare and housework than previous generations.

Clearly, there has been a significant societal shift not only in women’s role in the workplace, but also in male responsibilities on the Homefront. The era of the hunter-gatherer father has ended, and we are still developing as a society what will take its place.

Looking back on my own parental leave experience (or lack thereof), I see how this struggle played out. It’s very understandable why I took an “old-school/macho” view on parental leave- I grew up in a family with a great stay-at-home mom, I am married to an amazing and very capable stay-at-home wife, and my workplace and industry was 98% male. Much of my family situation and work structure basically was 1965! And in that context, I was a 30-year-old first time Dad trying to give everything in my life as much time as it had before, and ultimately, I did what I felt I needed to do.

Now, I’ve quite intentionally used the phrase, “felt I needed to do” twice in this piece- because it highlights the egocentric nature of my thought process at that time. Having a child is a traumatic experience. Not in the “painful, sad, horrifying” sense, but in the very true nature that nothing will ever be the same. I think many of you will sympathize with my statement that in that moment that my first child was born, I was terrified. For the first time, a human life was truly my responsibility, and I had no idea what to do about it. And what is most natural for an animal to do when scared/frightened? They return to a safe place, something they know. And for me, that was the flashing numbers and very important emails of a world that I understood.

Now, after having the time to reflect over six months with no work responsibilities, I regret not taking parental leave. I understand why I did it, but the greatest blessing of my time off has been my increased integration into my family’s routine. In the first six weeks off, it became painfully clear to me how incompetent I was in in my own home. Much the same way as training a new employee sucks up time and resources, my constant questions of: Where is this pan? What time should I put Harvey down? Is this safe to give them to eat? were a consistent drain on my wife’s already very limited time and patience. And to no surprise, I felt all the ensuing insecurity that comes with being a beginner. I was not working, and I couldn’t even be a help around the house. I mean, what the heck am I even good at anymore?

But like everything else in life, with every hour of effort, I began to improve. I learned which pans go in which drawer, what dose of Tylenol and Motrin to use, and what Elsa dress Penny likes to wear at bedtime. I learned at what points of Real Housewives to just shut up and not make fun of the characters and when to take one of the kids out for a walk to give Christine a break. Frankly, I learned to be a contributing member of my own family and that comes with earning a significant element of purpose along that way.

This is what changed my perspective on parental leave- it is not about giving yourself a break. Instead, it’s an opportunity to accept the growing expectations that society has for today’s fathers. And I am a fan of these higher expectations, even if at moments, I find myself cursing at them under my breath and wishing a return to an age where men never changed a diaper. Now, this does not mean taking parental leave is for everyone. Many Americans do not even have that luxury or opportunity. But I do believe these increasing expectations for Fathers should be something men embrace, not fight. As CS Lewis proclaimed, "Children are not a distraction from more important work. They are the most important work." And in a world that is struggling with masculinity in the modern age, I think holding men to a higher standard of family involvement strikes me as a step in the right direction.