When he wrote this he was notoriously restless intellectual expected ambivalent feelings about German culture (including a falling out with his friend, the composer Richard Wagner), a series of illnesses, and an opium addiction that very likely represented a drug addiction. But he also grappled with what historians call it Second industrial revolutionthat is, the revolution of mass production.

Many of Nietzsche’s writings, unknown in his lifetime, heralded a 20th century marked by what he called “nihilism,” particularly his famous proclamation “God is dead.” In its place came the superman, or “superman,” who directs his own life, eschewing traditional Christian mores and creating his own value system that enables him to overcome all human challenges. Now artificial intelligence is here and modern technologists announce a “Fourth industrial revolution“which will bring forth a new one”superhuman“, which begs the question: Is humanity still the proverbial rope over the abyss?

It’s worth looking back at how we got here.

Faster than a speeding bullet

In times of technological upheaval, Nietzsche’s prophecy about the birth of the superman seems to come up again and again. There are two famous examples – you already know them.

First, about half a century after Nietzsche conceived his version, Action Comics has published its first issue in 1939 with a character called “Superman” who became the very first comic book superhero just as the world was entering the nuclear age, recently portrayed in the blockbuster hit “Oppenheimer.” As society processed the breakthroughs of the Second Industrial Revolution and created modern cities filled with elevators, skyscrapers, and automobiles, Superman represented a character who could easily conquer modern technology. It was all in the slogan: “Faster than a speeding bullet!” Stronger than a locomotive! Can jump tall buildings in a single jump!” (Even that sentence itself was industrial in nature, The origin lies in a radio broadcast from the year 1940an entirely new technology.)

While Nietzsche’s Superman was an embodiment of religious rejection, a being transcending the mores of the Christian church, the character of Superman referred to generations of human advancement, with abilities like bulletproof skin and laser-beaming eyes.

Additionally, Nietzsche’s Superman was an ambitious concept whose name literally evokes a higher plane, and DC’s Superman hails from the alien world of Krypton, a planet more complex than Earth. Not only is Superman physically superior to normal humans, he also retains aspects of the original Superman as a pillar of moral uprightness. Even in his alter ego as Clark Kent, as an idealistic journalist (the most morally correct profession, of course) he is morally infallible.

The Superman goes hand in hand with the concept of transhumanism embraced by capitalists and technologists – the idea that advanced technology will enable people to transformatively improve themselves and their environment. It is reminiscent of Nietzsche’s vision of man as a “rope” and “something to be overcome” or, in the transhumanist perspective, as a basis for mechanization. In transhumanism lies the concept of “new man“, a utopian ideal of the perfect human being, a concept adopted by non-democratic movements decades after Nietzsche’s death communism To fascism to its subset, Nazism, each imagining the perfect citizen created by science and technology. Even the most superficial observer of 20th-century history knows that this went tragically and terribly wrong.

While these concepts may seem bizarre to a 21st-century digital native, they are actually still firmly entrenched in mainstream politics and pop culture. The richest man in the world himself, Elon Musk, is a well-known transhumanist who is actively working on projects for this colonize space And insert computer chips into our brain. Science fiction thrived exploring variations on the superhuman and transhuman, often in dystopian ways, such as with blade runner in the 1980s and The Matrix more recently. Even the hit of this summer Barbie However, the film dabbles in transhumanism as a plastic doll blessed with the stereotypical ideal of femininity and beauty ventures into the real world several readings of this film end up realizing that in modern life, there’s just no way you can be a superwoman.

What happened to 21st Century Superman?

We view the Superman concept, particularly as it intersects with technology, as a commonly used political tool due to the inherent layering of an “ideal” person. And although socialists and capitalists alike toy with transhumanism, sociologists have theorized that political transhumanism may emerge Capitalism 2.0an era fixated on technology-driven leaps in productivity.

Now that we’re going around the corner Fourth industrial revolution– the revolution of intelligent automation, interconnectivity and artificial intelligence – philosophy lovers may be wondering what will emerge as the superman of our time. While it’s early days, history suggests people will be looking for an ambitious icon that can transcend the power structures of our time.

One person has already theorized that our superman will be an AI: Masayoshi Son, one of the richest men in the world, has already called the invention an AI “Birth of the Superman.” Son, who has been a major venture capitalist for decades and is the CEO of Japan’s SoftBank, told investors this year that the emergence of ChatGPT pushed him into a tearful existential crisis about AI and the meaning of life before deciding to to get involved companies and careers to “Design[ing] the future of humanity.” Sounds slightly tangential to Nietzsche’s crisis of nihilism.

That certainly doesn’t mean that Son is the next Nietzsche – but the resemblance to the superman is unmistakable. Son told SoftBank shareholders that he has been imagining and refining ideas with AI every day and has used the tool to create over 600 new inventions in less than a year. From a transhumanist perspective, he uses new technologies to greatly increase his intelligence and ideation abilities. As the world undergoes another technological upheaval and people search for an ambitious entity that can transcend the power framework of our time, it is important to ask what that framework is. It is probably information.

Just as Nietzche’s Superman controlled his own infallible morals, or Superman in the comics controlled his invulnerable body, a parallel may perhaps be drawn with the AI ​​controlling its vast 10,000-chip store of knowledge. The difference is that Superman and Superman existed as fictional characters without people actually having a chance to interact with them. They were ambitious while AI is a real tool driving rapid changes in the world.

It’s too early to say how AI will change the world of work, but we should probably take any notion of a superhuman with a pinch of salt. Perhaps humanity is a rope over an abyss, but the surest way to fall into that abyss is the pursuit of superpowers through technology.