· 7 min read
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has rapidly evolved from a futuristic concept into an everyday reality—powering recommendation engines, optimising logistics, and even simulating human-like dialogue. Along the way, it has stirred a broad range of emotions. Some people laud AI as a saviour, predicting it will cure diseases and solve climate change. Others fear it as a menace—a harbinger of human obsolescence or a tool for digital surveillance. Yet both these reactions risk missing AI’s deeper significance. AI’s importance lies not in its ability to generate brand-new knowledge independently, but in how it holds a mirror up to our social and economic systems, challenging us to reflect on the questions we choose to ask.
Central to understanding our current economic trajectory is the concept of “Lotka’s wheel.” Named after mathematician and demographer Alfred J. Lotka, it originally describes how biological or energy systems tend to exploit resources and expand until they hit the limit of what their environment can sustain. When we say our economy is “trapped in Lotka’s wheel,” we mean it is locked into a relentless cycle of converting the living world into inert commodities to fuel perpetual growth. Instead of pausing to reconsider our fundamental goals, we keep spinning faster, driven by a logic that equates progress with maximising production and consumption.
Technology itself is not the culprit here; rather, our adherence to growth-at-all-costs is. Every powerful invention—from the steam engine to the assembly line—has served to accelerate this cycle. AI is merely the most recent addition, one that can automate extraction, optimise resource use, and refine social control. Yet to blame AI alone would ignore a key point: any technology reflects the values and priorities of those who wield it. A hammer can build a home or destroy a wall; AI can be used to liberate human potential or to concentrate power in fewer hands. The outcome depends on the system that surrounds it.
What sets AI apart, however, is its ability to access and synthesise the vast storehouse of human knowledge we have gathered. It does not spontaneously invent new truths or create new data in isolation. Rather, AI relies on patterns and insights drawn from what humans have already produced—literature, scientific research, historical records, cultural artifacts, and more. Seen in this light, AI becomes less of an autonomous brain and more of an amplifier of our existing collective intelligence. By revealing patterns and possibilities within the trove of data we feed it, AI can shine a bright spotlight on both our strengths and our shortcomings.
This spotlight forces a profound shift in our understanding of intelligence. For centuries, we have measured intelligence by one’s capacity to find correct answers—whether in standardised tests, scientific breakthroughs, or product innovations. The faster and more efficiently we solved problems, the more “intelligent” we were deemed to be. Yet in an era when machines can provide or retrieve answers far more swiftly than any human can, the old notion of intelligence begins to lose its luster. If a program can sift through terabytes of information in seconds, perhaps intelligence is not primarily about quick solutions but about which questions we choose to explore.
By surfacing our existing knowledge in new ways, AI can challenge us to think about the underlying goals of our society. If we direct AI to maximise efficiency and profit without regard for ecological or ethical considerations, it will turbocharge that process—spinning Lotka’s wheel even faster. But it can just as easily help us probe deeper questions: How do we create an economy that respects ecological limits? How can we structure institutions so that benefits and resources are shared more equitably? Which measures of well-being truly reflect human flourishing, rather than just endless consumption? AI itself does not choose these questions; we do. Indeed, its power to reveal hidden patterns or produce rapid analyses only holds value if we know what we want to investigate in the first place.
This realisation highlights a critical insight: rather than fearing AI will replace us, we might ask how AI can expand our capacity to think. Because it draws on humanity’s accumulated knowledge, AI can help us see connections that human minds alone might miss. It can uncover correlations—say, between educational policies and mental health outcomes—or track subtle environmental changes across an entire planet. But crucially, it doesn’t spontaneously decide which patterns are worth finding. Its purpose is guided by the questions humans frame. As a result, the real stakes lie in our willingness to question deeply held assumptions: about growth, about wealth, and about what it means to thrive within the limits of a living planet.
Of course, much of our economic and cultural system still values speed, scale, and competition above almost all else. The reward structure of our society—driven by quarterly profits and global competition—often leaves little room for moral or ecological reflection. Yet AI, ironically, may expose this very flaw. By automating many forms of labor and rapidly producing endless streams of data, AI can reveal just how narrow our thinking has been. If productivity is nearly effortless and the real challenge becomes setting worthy goals, perhaps the problem lies not with the lack of solutions but with the lack of purposeful questions.
Here is where we find AI’s potential as a force for good. If it is used with intention—steered toward questions that promote empathy, sustainability, and an ethic of shared well-being—it can help us explore new paradigms. For instance, AI could be used by social justice and climate movement to communicate beyond their peers, it could help us design policies that favour local resilience. It could highlight patterns of injustice buried under mountains of legal and financial data, offering lawmakers evidence to enact meaningful reforms. But none of this will happen automatically. AI’s analyses and data-crunching prowess only serve whatever aims we plug into it.
Still, the most profound promise of AI may lie in its capacity to democratise knowledge. By transforming data into accessible insights, it can give voice to those who have long possessed the curiosity, the imagination, and the capacity to ask daring questions—but who lacked the specialised skills or resources once required to communicate effectively. In a system where proficiency in writing, calculating, codeing and strategising has too often been the gatekeeper to being heard, many great thinkers and dreamers have been overlooked. They may not have had the means to present their ideas in polished academic prose or sophisticated spreadsheets, but they possessed the gift of wonder, of forming connections, of peering beyond the horizon of everyday assumptions.
AI can act as a bridge between these hidden minds and the larger world. By providing tools that transform raw curiosity into analysable frameworks—interpreting patterns, translating concepts across languages, or illustrating data in intuitive ways—it lowers barriers that once kept visionary yet uncredentialed voices on the margins. Through AI, curiosity is no longer dismissed as waste; it becomes a precious spark that can ignite fresh insights. In this way, asking the right questions becomes an act of wisdom rather than a distraction, and the collective pursuit of knowledge is enriched by minds that might otherwise have gone unheard.
Yet to use AI wisely, we must recognise the difference between intelligence and wisdom. We often confuse these two terms, assuming that more knowledge automatically leads to greater insight. In reality, intelligence is about knowing: facts, data, logic. Wisdom is about knowing you don’t: it involves nuance, humility, and the willingness to ask better questions. Intelligence seeks answers; wisdom questions the framework in which those answers arise. Intelligence can win an argument with sheer data; wisdom can win people by illuminating deeper truths. Intelligence fills our minds with information; wisdom opens them to possibilities we haven’t yet considered.
The world doesn’t just need more intelligence—it needs more wisdom. Real progress doesn’t come from knowing everything; it comes from realising there is always more to learn. That is why the art of inquiry is so powerful. In a civilisation too often fixated on the speed and scale of production, genuine curiosity may appear wasteful. Yet it is precisely this capacity to wonder—especially when paired with the collective knowledge AI can help us access—that can move us beyond the blind pursuit of growth. By asking the right questions, we transcend mere information and approach deeper understanding. In doing so, we channel intelligence into wisdom: acknowledging our limits, exploring what we don’t know, and forging connections that enrich both our minds and our communities. Ultimately, it is wisdom—rooted in humility and guided by meaningful questions—that holds the key to stepping off Lotka’s wheel and envisioning a future worth creating.
illuminem Voices is a democratic space presenting the thoughts and opinions of leading Sustainability & Energy writers, their opinions do not necessarily represent those of illuminem.
