AI is changing how we value ourselves

Something interesting is happening, you may or may not be aware of it.  It isn't just interesting, it's profoundly significant for the human race.  Up until now, many of us, if not all of us to some degree, have built some of our self-esteem and value in the knowledge we have acquired, retained, and can share with others both in our personal and professional lives. 

Think of doctors.  They spend 8+ years memorizing every component of the human body, all possible diseases and ailments, so many things.  People may die if they don't correctly learn, recall and apply this collected information.  Now, AI can not only store, recall, and apply it - it can do it in a split second with near flawless accuracy - which a human will never match. 

Think of lawyers.  They spend 8+ years studying and memorizing components of the federal and some state laws.  They intake countless landmark cases and outcomes.  They bring this extensive body of knowledge with them into practicing law in the courtroom.  If they cannot properly recall what they've learned and connect dots to pertinent cases, their client may lose their case and perhaps their life, when they shouldn't have.

Think of librarians, historians, financial advisors, I could go on and on and on.  Basically, any white collar profession where part of your value is coming from what you've learned - is going away at least partially.

For doctors, people are always going to want human to human care and a person examining them, delivering difficult information, discussing a plan.  That said, the doctor is no longer going to be the one coming up with a diagnosis or the best ideas.  The AI engine they input your symptom into, that already has a full medical history for you and all living relatives, potentially down to a level of DNA - will spit out immediate possibilities along with several treatment options.  One treatment option may even be a genetic modification to literally just eliminate a mutation causing cancer or something else terrible - due to advances in Crisper. 

Humans are animals.  Part of what sets us apart is our brains and how we are able to use them.  AI is going to obliterate that reality.  There's a brilliantly funny campy film called Galaxy Quest.  If you haven't seen it, run don't walk.  Sigourney Weaver plays a character that is a famous actress from a Star Trek-esque TV show and THAT character is a vacuous pretty blond whose only job on the spaceship is to ask the computer questions and repeat the answers the computer gives (which everyone in the spaceship control room can also hear just as well as she can).  This is kind of what's happening to us, and it isn't funny in this case.

So how do we come together, or just keep it together for ourselves, as we reinvent the value humans bring to each other, the world, existence?  We are going to need to figure it out a lot sooner than you think.