I > AI & The Competition that Never Was

Growing up, there was always a boy.

Maybe it wasn't a boy in your house. Maybe it was a girl, a cousin, a neighbor three doors down. But if you grew up in an Indian household, you know exactly who I mean. He got the best marks. He got into the good college. And every auntie, every uncle, every well-meaning relative at every family gathering would eventually turn to you and ask some version of: why can't you be more like them?

I hadn't thought about that kid in years. But, in a conversation with my dear friend Sandeep Krishnamurthy, Dean of the College of Business Administration at Cal Poly Pomona, a person who has spent his whole career thinking about intelligence, technology, and what makes us human — he said "Today, AI is that boy."

I was really struck when he said it because he's right, isn't he? AI writes faster. Better. AI never gets tired, never forgets a fact, never has a bad day. Somewhere underneath all our talk about productivity and career disruption, a niggling voice has started asking the same question our aunties used to ask: why can't you be more like AI?

Unfair Comparison

Here's the thing about the neighbor's boy: he was only one kind of smart. He could ace an exam. He probably could not have told you why you were crying, or noticed when you needed someone to simply sit with you and say nothing at all. He was, in Sandeep's words, singularly intelligent — narrow and specific. And so is AI.

Artificial intelligence is, by its nature, built to produce whatever answer is most likely to satisfy you in the moment. But human intelligence was never singular. It's plural. It's the friend who can perform two hours of Shakespeare from memory. It’s the leader who walks into a room and somehow makes everyone in it feel more at ease. It’s the person who notices, before you've even said a word, that something in you feels off.

You cannot hold the same ruler up to that kind of variety and call the measurement meaningful. It wasn't fair to compare you to the neighbor’s boy, and it isn't a fair comparison now.

Intelligence, Not Consciousness

Because here’s the thing. Intelligence and consciousness are not the same thing. Sandeep put it simply — AI acts as though it's intelligent. It performs understanding. It does not hold what he called, in Sanskrit, the jivatma — the living presence, the animating spark that enlivens us all.

No AI has ever made you feel instantly at ease the moment it walked into a room. No AI has ever made you feel truly seen and loved in an unconditional way. That is not insignificant. In fact, it might be the whole shebang.

This is Not a Competition

You don't have to compete with the neighbor's boy. You never did. That burden wasn’t yours to bear then, and it’s not yours to carry now.

Notice the areas where your humanness — not necessarily your productive output — is the thing that actually matters.

Lean into your humanity. Be the one who sits with their struggling friend instead of trying to fix their problems. Savor the moments when you were simply, fully present with another person in a way no algorithm could ever possibly be.

If the idea of I > AI resonates with you, Sandeep and I go much deeper in our full discussion, including AI-related career disruption and the growing impact of artificial intimacy. Check it out!

As originally published on my Substack at mindfulleaders.info.