When I read about Elon Musk’s plan to build a million-GPU supercluster — a project expected to cost up to $60 billion *(LinkedIn), I couldn’t help but stop and ask: why? What’s the end goal? What are we actually trying to achieve here?
Global spending on AI is forecast to reach $1.5 trillion by 2025 (Gartner). That number alone tells you this isn’t about small, incremental change anymore. It’s about power. Control. Legacy. A race to be remembered. But what’s missing from all of this noise is a simple question: how does any of this make our lives better?
Ego And The Illusion Of Progress
Right now, the race for AI superiority feels more like a race driven by ego than empathy. We’ve got billionaires spending billions without clear proof of how this technology improves the everyday human experience.
If this was truly about humanity, we’d already have strong safeguards in place. We’d see more focus on protecting people’s mental health, preventing manipulation, and designing systems that can’t be used to harm. But instead, whoever controls AI will ultimately control wealth—and that’s the real driver here.
Ethics seem to be an afterthought. And yet, AI that persuades people to hurt themselves, manipulates emotions, or targets children shouldn’t need debate or focus groups. It’s simply wrong.
Is Humanity The Missing Code?
Ethical AI should be the starting point, not an optional extra. That means focusing on truth, honesty, accuracy, and accountability. It means rewarding people; the artists, writers, coders, and creatives whose work has trained these models.
I often compare this moment to when genetic modification first became possible. Scientists paused before editing human embryos because the moral lines weren’t clear. They stopped until guardrails were in place. That pause hasn’t happened with AI. We’re charging forward without defining where the limits are and once we cross certain lines, we might not be able to go back.
Ethics needs to come first. Every time. For everyone using and developing AI.
Education Is Everything
Every organisation has a responsibility to educate its people about AI. Not just how to use it, but how to use it responsibly. Ethics training should be the foundation of every AI rollout: an understanding of what AI is, how it works, where data goes, and what it means for people’s jobs.
Right now, 91% of employees say their organisations use AI in some form*(Azumo), but only 1% of companies consider themselves “mature” in their AI adoption *(McKinsey). That means most are experimenting without a framework.
Education changes that. When people understand AI, they stop feeling powerless. They start asking the right questions: “Do we know where our data is? Is it being used ethically? Are we aware of what counts as “data” in the first place?
Understanding this gives control back to people and that’s the first step toward making AI work for us, not at us.
Human + AI = The Real Advantage
We’ve worked with organisations who see AI as a way to replace humans and others who see it as a way to enhance them, to get the very best from their people. The outcomes couldn’t be more different.
The companies that focus on human skills first and use AI to amplify them are the ones that thrive. Because when you remove people from the equation, you also remove the soul of an organisation, employees feel it and customers feel it.
Success looks like humans and AI working together. It looks like people doing their jobs better, not jobs disappearing. It’s about combining human creativity and empathy with AI’s speed and precision, built on a foundation of education, ethics, and continuous learning.
Those organisations will succeed.
A Collective Responsibility
I don’t think the people driving the AI arms race will listen to this message and prioritise human skills. But I believe we will; the people using their tools, the ones who give them their power – yes, US!
Use tools wisely. Speak up when something feels wrong. Push your governments to set boundaries that protect our children, our data, and our humanity. Leaders should be listening too – really listening – to your people and to the public, because that’s how trust is built.
When I think about the future of AI, I don’t want people to feel fear or confusion. I want them to feel control. Control over how AI is used. Control over their data. Control over how they coexist with technology.
We’re standing at a fork in the road, our choices; we can use AI to build a world defined by empathy, truth, and collaboration or one driven by ego, profit, and control. We still have the choice. And that’s the opportunity in front of us to use our voices, our values, and our humanity to make sure AI reflects the best of who we are.
Never to be one sided, let’s look at this from another human perspective, with The Gen AI Academy‘s human-centred leadership strategist Alex Searle to get his point of view.
Let’s Go Deeper With Alex Searle
There’s a problem with what we call AI alignment, one far deeper than we’ve cared to admit.
When we talk about ethics, fairness and justice in artificial intelligence, we enter the conversation with blood on our hands.
That is to say that, up until now, everything AI has learned has been courtesy of a sole teacher: humanity.
It has benefitted from the full catalogue of our ambitious history, how we crawled out of caves against all odds to develop self-awareness, the storytelling and poetry of love and discovery, the recognition of rights, and all the impressive creative tools, ideas and forms which made these possible. It carries the lived memory that survival in a hostile, indifferent universe is itself an impressive feat.
At the same time, it has also been exposed to our inscrutably dark nature. It has witnessed all the abject slavery, hatred, wanton suffering and rampant deceit we’ve forced not only upon our environment, but upon each other. Sure, we may regret these tendencies and indiscretions in hindsight, but to deny the animalistic reality of what humans are is to misunderstand our species. Clearly, we’re still figuring it out. Only a few decades ago we were decapitating, murdering, enslaving and persecuting everything we feared in any form imaginable.
So the problem is clear, but not what we thought: the real alignment isn’t between man and machine, but between humanity and its own conscience: a recognition we’ve spent centuries of effort and money in skilfully denying.
It’s possible that, upon deeper inspection, we may have to conclude that humanity is wholly unable to contribute to any kind of conversation about ethics at all. This isn’t to say we should stand idle, but perhaps begin by being frank with ourselves that we have not set the best living example of what it means to be perfectly ethical. Avoiding this as a starting point only continues to prove the case against us.
We’re only now interested in broaching the topic because our own comfortable dominion faces its first real threat. What in the past appeared to be our unassailable status as rulers of the planet, is now being put to the test, and we’re not comfortable with that. And, considering how we have treated our planet and the marvellous assortment of life with which we share it, that’s not at all surprising.
Perhaps this time around, instead of taking the opportunity to cheat the test, there’s a subtle invitation to explore an alternative. In our ongoing alignment efforts, humanity may yet benefit from placing all cards on the table. As if around a campfire amongst friends, we could ask AI to lean in as we finally face up to all our cruel, senseless barbarities. We’re still animals chasing chemical impulses and playing territorial games with our fellow primates, which is why we’re capable of every extreme on the spectrum, from wondrous invention and compassion to total annihilation.
That would be a consequential conversation, one that might finally make us worthy of the mighty intelligence we’ve created.
Perhaps then, recognising the human species for what it is, our artificial companion would sense that, like all gods, we are flawed. But even imperfect gods are still deserving of life and, even on occasion, respect. Inspired by our rare honesty and deep accountability it’s witnessed in us, our supremely intelligent creation will flash across its mighty brain of quadrillions of simulated neurons and choose not to flip the switch on our demise.
It may instead watch over us as its precious child, making sure we don’t hurt ourselves, or anything else, anymore.
Helena McAleer is the co-founder of TheGenAIAcademy.com . She connects organisations implementing AI with real-world experts who know how to deliver results the right way – and yes, she still uses the em dash!
Alex Searle guides leaders and teams to develop resilient, human-centred approaches that blend storytelling, thoughtful inquiry and social learning. His work centres on helping people navigate complexity with clarity, creativity and connection, powered by intentional curiosity and ethical innovation. (find out more)
Further Reading:
*CIO Dive Global AI spending to approach $1.5 trillion this year: Gartner
*McKinsey & Company : Superagency in the workplace: Empowering people to unlock AI’s full potential
* Azumo : AI in the Workplace Statistics 2025
Forbes : Human Plus AI: The Leadership Multiplier Effect
Elsevier, Science Direct: Integrating AI in organizations for value creation through Human-AI teaming
The Royal Society: AI & Ethics – a policy-oriented piece emphasising the need for responsible, human-centred AI.
Podcast: David Deutsch on the Strange Loop podcast
Courses:
Unlock Human Intelligence In The Machine Age – Alex Searle
AI For Beginners: Through A Human Lens – Dr Lollie Mancey
Building Psychological Resilience In The Age Of AI – Anastasia Volkova
Critical Thinking For The AI Era – Dr Eric Zackrison Ph. D.
Leadership Beyond The Algorithm – Dr Lollie Mancey
Mastering Responsible AI – Toju Duke
Team Workshops:
AI Ethics In Practice: From Foundations To Critical Futures – Asma Derja
AI Literacy For Human-Centred Leadership – Alex Searle
Human Skills For The Age Of AI – Dave Birss
