As artificial intelligence develops at an unprecedented pace, will intelligence become as cheap and ubiquitous as tap water? This provocative question, posed by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang during his acceptance of the "Hawking Fellowship" at the Cambridge Union, has sparked profound reflections about human value in the age of AI. Huang predicts that as AI technology becomes widespread, traditional intellectual advantages will gradually lose their scarcity, while uniquely human soul qualities will emerge as the true hard currency.
The Democratization of Intelligence: The Collapse of Professional Barriers
Huang's perspective is not without merit. In the internet era, the cost of knowledge acquisition has already decreased dramatically. Now, with the advent of AI, high-quality cognitive services have become readily accessible. This means the professional barriers once built upon "mental labor" are rapidly crumbling. Tasks like report writing, meeting minutes compilation, and basic coding—which previously required significant time and expertise—can now be mass-produced by AI at minimal cost. The more precise the prompt, the more sophisticated the AI's output becomes, rendering human-built professional thresholds defenseless against algorithms.
The Homogenization of Thought: A Crisis of Independent Judgment
Yet more concerning than job displacement is the potential erosion of independent judgment and unique perspectives as humans increasingly rely on AI. If expression becomes devoid of personality, thinking lacks edge, and anxieties grow identical, individual differences may gradually disappear. The risks of this intellectual homogenization are profound—it could lead to the loss of human innovation and critical thinking capacities.
The Value of Soul: Domains Beyond AI's Reach
In an era where intelligence can be mass-produced, humanity's only irreplaceable value exists in areas algorithms cannot compute:
- Aesthetic Sensibility: While AI can mimic Van Gogh's style, it cannot perceive the colors and emotions that truly move contemporary hearts. It produces "mediocre correctness" but fails to recognize "unconventional beauty." In an age of zero-cost production, aesthetic judgment and intuition become the most scarce luxuries. Humans must cultivate refined sensibilities to discern genuine value amidst information overload.
- Navigating Gray Areas: The real world thrives on contradictions, competing interests, and human complexities. While AI can defeat humans on chessboards, it struggles to detect the fear or ambition behind a glance across negotiation tables, social gatherings, or collaborative settings. This capacity to manage intricate human relationships and subtle emotional cues remains uniquely human.
- The Courage to Bear Consequences: AI may assist decisions but never assumes responsibility. That stubborn determination to "persist when success seems impossible"—those illogical yet profoundly human choices that shine with moral brilliance—represent miracles algorithms can never replicate. At critical moments, humans must have the courage to make ethically grounded decisions and accept their outcomes.
The Democratization of Intelligence: Humanity's Coming-of-Age
Huang's prediction isn't alarmist but heralds the end of an era: the collapse of human value systems centered on mental labor. Our millennia-old "worship of intelligence" is giving way to the rediscovery of soul qualities. The democratization of intelligence actually represents humanity's collective "coming-of-age"—liberating us from repetitive thinking, delegating calculations to algorithms, and reclaiming time for aesthetics, intuition, and emotion. We must fundamentally reassess our worth and potential to find our place in the AI era.
Redefining Value: The Power to Define Beauty
When "brainpower" becomes purchasable, "soul" emerges as the true currency. In this age of intellectual abundance, what's most valuable isn't cleverness but rather—amidst all the algorithms—the enduring human capacity to define "what constitutes beauty." We must cultivate independent thinking, innovation, and critical analysis to remain competitive while simultaneously nurturing our spiritual dimensions: aesthetic appreciation, moral sensibility, and social responsibility. Only by becoming complete humans can we thrive in this transformative era.
Jensen Huang's warning sounds a crucial alarm. In the AI age, we cannot rely solely on intelligence but must consciously develop our soul's distinctive qualities. Only then can we stand firm amidst radical change and create a more meaningful future.