Retirement of Human Intelligence
Human intelligence built the modern economy. Now it's being retired.
The signs are everywhere if you know where to look. Goldman Sachs analysts replaced by machine learning models. Radiologists outperformed by computer vision. Legal discovery automated end-to-end. Creative agencies pitching AI-generated campaigns to clients who can't tell the difference.
This isn't the familiar automation story. Previous waves eliminated muscle power while amplifying brain power. Steam engines didn't think. Assembly lines couldn't reason. Even computers needed programmers.
AGI is different. It targets the cognitive premium that's driven economic value for centuries. When machines can think, plan, and create at human levels – and beyond – what's left for biological intelligence?
The transition mechanics are already visible. First, augmentation: AI assists human experts, making them faster and more accurate. Then substitution: AI replaces humans in bounded domains where performance can be measured. Finally, transcendence: AI operates beyond human cognitive reach entirely.
We're deep into phase one across most knowledge work. Phase two has begun in pattern recognition, content generation, and routine analysis. Phase three starts when AGI systems begin improving themselves faster than humans can understand their improvements.
The economic implications cascade in predictable directions. Value concentrates toward those who own the systems rather than those who operate them. Human intelligence becomes a luxury good – artisanal, expensive, inefficient. Like handwoven textiles after mechanization.
But luxury goods create their own markets. Human-to-human interaction, embodied presence, authentic relationship – these become premium categories. Not because machines can't simulate them, but because we'll choose the original over the copy in contexts that matter to us.
The deeper question isn't replacement, it's reorganization. When thinking machines handle optimization, what do thinking humans handle? When artificial intelligence manages efficiency, what does biological intelligence manage?
History suggests humans adapt by moving up the abstraction ladder. From farming to manufacturing to services to knowledge work. But AGI collapses that ladder. There's nowhere higher to climb when machines can out-abstract us.
Instead, we move sideways. From optimizing systems to experiencing life. From solving problems to choosing which problems matter. From generating answers to asking better questions.
The economy will split along new fault lines. Machine-optimized efficiency on one side. Human-centered meaning on the other. The bridge between them becomes the new scarce resource.
Those who understand both worlds – who can translate between artificial and biological intelligence – become the new merchant class. Not because they're smarter than the machines, but because they're still human enough to know what other humans want machines to do.
The retirement of human intelligence from its economic throne doesn't mean the retirement of humans. It means discovering what we were meant to do when we didn't have to spend all our time thinking for a living.
The transition will be messy, uneven, and longer than optimists predict. But it's already begun. The question isn't whether to prepare, but how quickly you can adapt to a world where being smart isn't enough.
In that world, being human becomes the competitive advantage.