We are facing a cognitive revolution, enabled by Artificial Intelligence. This epochal shift requires an evolutionary leap in human intelligence, which must extend its faculties to adapt to and take control of a new ecosystem.
In this difficult challenge, we can draw useful lessons from the past: Artificial Intelligence is not the first nor the only technology concerning intelligence and knowledge. There have been a number of fundamental inventions in the history of humankind that have given rise to the great intellectual transformations of Homo Sapiens.
The first and most prominent of these technologies is undoubtedly the introduction of language, which gradually distinguished our species from others, creating the basis for all subsequent innovations, up to today’s Artificial Intelligence.
However, it should be noted that only a few historical technologies have had a direct influence on human intelligence: the vast majority involve the production of goods, transportation, weapons and other aspects of life. Inventions with relevant cognitive impact are relatively few, but it is useful to analyze their historical history in order to find keys to understanding and managing the coming advent of Artificial Intelligence. In particular, we want to discover how the human mind has interacted with the alphabet, scientific observation tools, photography, printing, and analog and digital media. In some specific civilizational transitions, humans have been able to use or exploit their cognitive inventions to make important evolutionary leaps. This can happen again in the age of AI, but it is not taken for granted or automatic: the genius of humans must come into play: for this to happen and for humans not to be victims, but once again creators of change, they must bring their genius into play.
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