Our take: In “Off the pedestal, into the world,” published in the magazine Phi / AI, Cassandre questions the habit of measuring AI against humans as either an inferior tool or a superior rival. Drawing on James Bridle’s Ways of Being and Christine Webb’s The Arrogant Ape, she argues that human exceptionalism has long shaped how we rank other beings, and that the same logic now distorts how we think about machines. Following Bridle, she reverses the usual metaphor and suggests that computers are like the world rather than the world being like a computer. Instead of asking whether AI is smarter than us, she proposes asking whether a technology brings us closer to the world or further from it. The essay offers humanists a reflective framework for thinking about AI beyond rivalry and replacement.
Editors’ Choice: Off the pedestal, into the world
