On a new episode of ID the Future, philosopher Jay Richards continues his conversation with host and historian of science Mike Keas about Henry Kissinger’s recent Atlantic article on “The End of the Enlightenment.” Listen to the podcast or download it here.

In the piece, Kissinger sounds an alarm over artificial intelligence, and raises questions about machine ethics and the possibility that humans may learn we’re not so special after all. Richards, author of the forthcoming book The Human Advantage: The Future of American Work In an Age of Smart Machines, pushes back, explaining how we can continue to use artificial intelligence to our advantage, prudently but without fear of the robot apocalypse or of computers becoming conscious and free.

As Richards argues, those qualities cannot be programmed. They are, and will remain, the human advantage.

Photo credit: Maximilian Schönherr [CC BY-SA 3.0], from Wikimedia Commons.