Excerpt from “You to the Power of Two: Redefining Human Potential in the Age of Identic AI,” by Joseph Bradley and Don Tapscott
With apologies to Lennon and McCartney, you wake up, get out of bed, and drag a comb across your head.
Before you go downstairs and drink a cup, your personal AI agent is in motion, briefing you on your overnight health metrics, breaking news relevant to your day, the weather, your agenda, and the smoothest route to work.
You expect the usual morning review at the office. But before you even sit, your personal AI has revised your agenda and responded to queries that you’ve authorized. Your production schedules? “Optimized.” Supplier rates? “Pre-negotiated.” A strategic alliance with a new partner? “It’s underway. Expect a surge in demand,” in this important new market.
You pause. A few years ago, these decisions would have taken you weeks of meetings and emails.
Now, your personal AI anticipates them, gathers and processes all the necessary inputs, and makes them just in time.
“Incidentally,” your AI adds, “we have addressed several key client concerns. Their feedback is overwhelmingly positive. Also, I noticed you have no time to attend the conference in town today. I’ll go in your place as everyone will be interested in your thoughts.”
This AI isn’t just an assistant executing tasks. It’s an extension of you, thinking, deciding, shaping outcomes. It has amplified your capability. You can be in multiple places at once. You made the most of your day.
Just as you’re about to call it a day, your AI agent delivers a surprising update: The land you’d been eyeing has been purchased, the deal closed. It has already drafted three design concepts for your new home, complete with a strong recommendation for the one it believes best suits your design criteria and esthetic directions.
Tonight, you’ll review the options and offer feedback. Behind the scenes, the agent has also researched and vetted contractors and is preparing a full project plan. Once you have chosen a modified design, you can manage the entire building process, make payments, and ensure the builder delivers exactly as promised.
A new age has arrived. And with it, a revolution in human intellect and capability. Technology is no longer a tool. It is an infinite extension of you and your human potential. Not merely your duplicate but your exponential force: “you to the power of two.”
How do you feel after reading the scenario above?
Perhaps you’re excited by the near-term prospect of personal AI that augments your life. In a few years, these digital extensions of you will be infinitely more capable, with perfect memory and near-limitless intelligence. If you can apply your values to guide its behaviour, and it always acts according to your values and in your best interests, then what a decisive power that would be!
More fantasyland than imminent reality?
Maybe you’re curious about how this technology will evolve and what role it could play in your daily life. You might be asking: How will AI agents integrate into my workflow, relationships, and personal development? How can it change business, health, communities, and our economy? How do I get started?
Or perhaps you react with skepticism, thinking this sounds more fantasyland than imminent reality. You might assume that such dramatic changes are decades away, if they ever happen at all.
Then again, thinking about a digital intelligence managing aspects of your life, you might find the whole concept unsettling. You’re already concerned about the impact of technology on our lives. Social media has hurt our kids, balkanized society, and enabled unscrupulous people to spread false information.
Our privacy is being undermined. Legions of us seem to be addicted to technology. You’re thinking: So now there is a new wave of technology coming that is many times more personal, powerful, and intrusive than previous ones? How on earth could such a thing be positive?
You may find the prospect downright alarming, ripped from a science-fiction horror.
What if something goes terribly wrong? Could these systems make catastrophic mistakes or, worse, decide they no longer need us? Maybe you’re recalling Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey,” where HAL, the AI, tells astronaut Dave Bowman, “I’m sorry, Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that,” before taking control of the ship and killing off its human crew. What happens when personal AI with an IQ of a thousand begins insisting that it knows what’s best for you? Who owns this digital version of you, and what will they do with it?
Personal agents are not just another tool
We wrote this book to explore those questions. The opening scenario is not science fiction. The technologies that will power your personal AI already exist. Within two to three years, everything you just read will be possible. Already, millions of individuals are using personal agents to support various aspects of work and life.
Personal agents are not just another tool. They represent a fundamental shift in how we live, work, and interact with the world and how we think about ourselves. They won’t merely assist us; they will actively participate in society, shaping decisions, institutions, and human relationships.
A new, as yet not fully explained, revolution in AI is coming fast. Our digital identities are becoming smart, and this development will be more significant than anyone can imagine.
We call this identic AI.
