AI: “We are as gods and might as well get good at it.”
We are as gods and might as well get good at it.
–Stewart Brand
When Stewart Brand birthed the Whole Earth Catalog in 1968, a version of this motto appeared in the introduction to that first issue: “We are as gods and might as well get good at it.”
WEC was an exercise in what we might call Human General Intelligence. It covered literally everything and everyone on earth and in the universe. It was aimed at getting readers—all of us—aware of everything and everyone, so that we could get on an enriched and enlightening learning and acting path of knowledge and ability about anything and anyone.
In a nutshell, that is what AI offers. AI is not “as a god”, though from a certain perspective it may look to some that way. We are “as gods” with it at our command, and not since putting world-destroying weapons in human control has that been clearer.
Think about the last time, or all the times, you used AI. Would you consider that a godlike experience, or was it a matter—not illegitimate, no judgment—of taking an easier and more convenient way to pass a school assignment or complete a work task? Not that there is necessarily anything wrong with that, maybe. But if with AI at your side you might be “as a god”, is that all you plan to do with it?
Note: That first issue begins and ends with two of my greatest inspirations, Buckminster Fuller and the I Ching. It may not be enough to know their Biggest Picture view of life and the universe and our place in it, but it is a start. What would they/do they think of AI?
© 2026 Bob Schwartz
