Gerd Leonhard

I coined the term “Androrithms” – a blend of “Andro” (human) and “algorithms” – in my 2016 book Technology vs Humanity. It has since become one of the central themes in almost all of my keynotes, and a strong meme across the Internet.

Androrithms are the human-only traits that we all possess: empathy, compassion, intuition, imagination, and of course agency and consciousness. They also include the increasingly endangered hallmarks of being human: emotions, mystery, serendipity, suffering and making mistakes. The androrithmic view rests on a definition of intelligence that goes beyond logic and data; humans have at least eight distinct kinds of intelligence (emotional, social, kinesthetic…see Gardner), while algorithms have exactly one -logical, binary, fact-based ‘intellectual’ intelligence.

Androrithms are the messy, organic, conscious essence of being human. While machines and AI are brilliant at answers, humans are the masters of imagination, context, common sense, intuition and questions.

My argument for nurturing our Androrithms is simple: for every spectacular algorithmic breakthrough, we must equally strengthen and protect our androrithms. AI is rapidly reshaping how we relate to one another; it is the first technology (and science) that changes who we are, and who we might become. AI is no longer just a tool – it is an Agent, a new, digital entity. This is why we have to recognise, nurture and boost our human-only capabilities, and avoid reductionism and dehumanisation.  so they are not flattened or even erased by ‘too much technology‘ as it becomes the permanent middleman for everything we do.

Computers are for answers, humans are for questions (Kevin Kelly)        Computers are useless. They can only give you answers                     (Pablo Picasso)

The roots of Androrithms lie in a conviction I hold deeply: the core of our humanity cannot be predicted, copied optimised by any algorithm. Organisms are not algorithms. Yes, we are living through the Intelligence Revolution, and we now inhabit a digital world ruled by analytics, automation and data – but the real engines of progress remain stubbornly organic: intuition, imagination, values, ethics, consciousness, spirituality – and the courage to embrace mystery.

Androrithms are the counterweight to machine logic – a rebuttal with the traits only humans can have, the very things that come alive where efficiency and probability runs out.

Humanity already possesses much of the knowledge, the science, and the technology needed to tackle humanity’s greatest challenges – from clean energy and smarter healthcare to future-ready education, regenerative industry, and carbon-neutral mobility. The real question is not whether we can do it, but whether we will. We have the capital. We have the tools. What we lack is the collective will – the TELOS – to invest in the future we actually want.

The missing ingredient is not innovation, but intention. We need purpose, collaboration, and telos – a shared sense of direction and practical wisdom about where we are going. Science and technology will shape tomorrow, but they must never define it. Our future will ultimately be determined by our values, our ethics, our courage, and our willingness to put the 5Ps – People, Planet, Purpose, Peace, and Prosperity – ahead of short-term profit, endless growth, and the pursuit of power.

Every generation faces a defining moment. This is ours.

We can build a future where technology amplifies our humanity instead of replacing it; where progress is measured by human and planetary flourishing, not just efficiency and optimization. A future where humanity remains the operating system behind everything we invent. The Good Future is not going to manifest by itself: We must choose it, design it, and fight for it – every single day.

The future is not something that just happens to us – it is something we create every single day, by action or by inaction. Whether the future is good or bad is entirely up to us. And most importantly: As we see the future, so we act, as we act so we become!

I started speaking about digital ethics and the power of exponential technologies such as AI more than a decade ago. It also became a central theme of my 2016 book, Technology vs Humanity: The Coming Clash Between Humans and Machines, at that moment, a rather scary subtitle that now seems very prescient.

Back then, I often said that “technology is morally neutral until we use it,” riffing on William Gibson. Today, given the hyper-exponential progress of AI and what I call the Intelligence Revolution, I would amend that statement:

Technology will become morally corrosive, dehumanising our society, if we deploy it without questioning its design, purpose, consequences, and safeguards.

And this is not just about AI: it is about every game-changing technology that is already here, or arriving soon: quantum computing, synthetic biology, humanoid robotics, genetic engineering and more.

My core argument is simple: while we are rapidly making scientific breakthroughs and gaining god-like technological powers, we have invested far too little time and money on agreeing on the telos– the purpose, the direction, and the ultimate destination of our progress. Our outdated, pre-AI economic system continues to reward the relentless creation and deployment of game-changing tools, often without asking why they should exist, who they should serve, who is in charge, or what future they are bound to create.

For decades, we have been told that the future is made elsewhere – primarily in the United States – and that here in Europe, it simply happens to us. The forces shaping tomorrow seemed beyond our control: Silicon Valley, Wall Street, non EU governments, and dominant global stock markets such as NASDAQ.

Recent events have challenged that assumption. The actions of the current U.S. administration have created significant disruption and confusion across Europe and in Brussels, yet they have also forced us to confront a crucial truth: the future is not something that happens to us. It is something we choose. More precisely, it is the sum of the choices we make every day, here in Europe. And now it’s time to take charge of our Preferred Future.

In this era of hyper-exponential advances in AI and the resulting Intelligence Revolution, Europe has the unique opportunity – and the mandate – to become the moral center of The Good Future.  A Switzerland-like European federation is not the loss of sovereignty – it’s the Pooling of Sovereignty.

In parallel with the accelerating climate crisis and extreme geopolitical upheaval, we have now (July 2026) entered the Intelligence Revolution. Humanity is facing a tsunami of hyper-exponential and combinatorial technologies: robotics, quantum computing, nuclear fusion, synthetic biology, and geo-engineering (to name only a few). Together, these forces – all amplified by AI – could create unprecedented prosperity – or profound instability, and even cause our demise as a species, if left unchecked.  As I like to say, it could be heaven or it could be hell (the HellVen dilemma). The outcome depends not only on the technologies themselves (reminder: AI is no longer just a tool — it’s an agent) but how we use them, on the choices we make and the ability of our leaders to shape the future wisely.

The most important question is no longer what technology can do. The answer is increasingly: almost everything. By 2030, capabilities that seem extraordinary today may become commonplace (such as Super-Intelligence or AGI). The real question is what technology should do. What kind of future do we want, and how will we make sure our voice matters?

Europe’s Future in the Intelligence Age: the most important question is no longer what technology can do, but what we want it do

Technology can seemingly do almost anything that humans used to do, and science fiction is increasingly becoming science fact.  By 2030, many capabilities that seem extraordinary today may become commonplace (such as Super-Intelligence or AGI); already AI is no longer just a tool – it’s an Agent, a ‘digital entity’.

Now, the real question is what technology should do, and what we should NOT pursue, or forego for the time being. Not blind and money/power-driven techno-optimism but a new, progressive humanism.

European leaders must ask: What kind of future do we want, and how will we make sure our voice truly matters? Will we be dragged into a technocratic world that is optimized for machines and efficiency, focussed on profit, growth, and endless consumption? Or will we create a world centered on human (and planetary) flourishing, purpose, well-being, collaboration and shared prosperity? How will we prepare for the inevitable standoff between the U.S. – led technocratic and increasingly transhumanist world order, and the European humanist and social-capitalist worldview?

Europe faces its greatest test since the end of World War II. In a world increasingly dominated by geopolitical turbulence, power-plays and posturing, algorithmic ‘enshittification’ and omni-potent global technology empires, Europe can no longer afford to wait, follow, or drift. Europe must find its collective voice, define its purpose and direction, and act with courage and determination.

Our unique strength does not lie in being bigger, faster, richer or even happier than others. It lies in our ability to offer a distinctly human-centered vision of the future; one grounded in democracy, sustainability, ethics, and shared prosperity. A future built on the 5Ps: People, Planet, Purpose, Peace and Prosperity.

We are entering the Intelligence Revolution, and the resulting changes will be faster, deeper and much more disruptive than the Industrial Revolution or even the Internet Revolution ever was. Not in 250 years -but in 1o years!

“Human-Only Work is our Future!”

That’s the problem with school as we’ve known it: decades spent downloading facts “just in case,” memorizing what a machine can now recall in half a second. Yet knowledge without wisdom is like water in the sand.

The future no longer belongs to the people who know the most. It belongs to the people who can learn, unlearn and relearn (Alvin Toffler), who can create, imagine and intuit, and who can go beyond information and data toward understanding, wisdom and consciousness. That means moving from competing with machines to nurturing and honing what machines cannot, and should not, replicate: empathy, ethics, imagination, collaboration, curiosity – the Androrithms.

Education has to stop being about information, explicit knowledge and content – and start being about character.

Call it a return to HECI – Humanity, Ethics, Creativity, Imagination – or simply call it becoming more human again. The schools, colleges and universities that matter in five years will go beyond knowledge and teach human experience over downloading information and data, or honing routine skills. They will excel in real-world challenges, mentorship, collaboration, creativity and teamwork – not just with lectures and mere knowledge transfer (which will increasingly happen on a screen (or in the Metaverse?) and with AI assistants). It’s all about Androrithms not Algorithms.

Machines are for answers, but humans are for questions. And graduation was never the finish line — it was the starting gun.