Beyond the Digital Horizon: Embracing the Physical World in the Age of AI

As the former Director of the Biological Technologies Office at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and as a current Technical Fellow at Battelle, I’ve seen a lot of “world changing” and “revolutionary” new technologies sweep across the globe. Many overpromise and underdeliver. 

Today’s dominator of technology news is generative artificial intelligence (AI) and the associated projections of both the amazing vision of what it will be able to do, and the corresponding worries around potential abuses, job elimination, plagiarism, and science fiction stories of machines overtaking the human race. Before we all lose our minds worrying about our world turning into a James Cameron movie, let me help to put this technology into focus. It is my opinion that generative AI tools will emerge as important but, on their own, will not solve the world’s problems and also will not result in the end of humanity as we know it.

Through all of the fears of AI as well as the struggle in the corporate world to find its true value there is a stunning disconnect between the fantasy digital world AI lives in and the physical world all of you who are reading this live in. Humans are composed of cells and molecules subject to the influence of the physical world. It has been this way on this planet for more than 200,000 years. Every interaction, every breath, every heartbeat, and every sip of water we drink to sustain our cells is a testament to the physical nature of our existence. The profound impact of the physical world on our lives has driven us to seek understanding of the enormous complexity of how cells and molecules interact (individually and en masse) so that we can have some control over our bodies and the environment.

Digital advancements alone are not going to solve all the physical problems that exist on our planet today. While artificial, machine learning models and digital advancements offer unprecedented opportunities for knowledge generation and problem-solving, they reach their limits in the physical world. That doesn’t mean these tools aren’t useful. They just are not the end all, be all.

Assuming that AI could somehow disrupt our fundamental entanglement with physical matter is foolish because humans and computers fundamentally exist in two separate worlds. The way this relationship might change is if the entirety of human existence is transitioned and “uploaded” to being fully digital, which might be possible with neurotechnology. However, the practical and technological understanding of how this could remotely play out are not known today and are still in the domain of science fiction.

For the 100% of humanity that still lives in the physical world, there are challenges we face today that can be aided by AI and perhaps if we focus our use of this emerging technology on these kinds of problems the true value of AI will emerge. For example, at Battelle, we’ve been working for decades on conquering “forever chemicals” and reanimating the bodies and voices of those who are living with paralysis. And we know AI can help.

No amount of digital technology can directly remove per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) from the water we drink so it doesn’t deteriorate our collective health. The fluorine molecular bonds are the strongest in chemistry and they need to be physically broken to mitigate their harmful effects. It takes heat, pressure, filtering, and physical manipulation of chemicals to make polluted water clean; could an AI be inserted into the loop of PFAS bond breaking to make the process more efficient? We’re proving how developing AI can be a partner that can shrink the time in solving real problems instead of hoping for a vague, speculative impact of AI that is an overpromise. 

That’s also why we’re using this technology to help transform the lives of those among us living with serious physical challenges. While digital tools can aid diagnostics and patient monitoring, they alone cannot replace the physical interventions required to heal people living with paralysis from injury or disease. But an AI system could be put in the loop with a next-generation medical device that can stimulate and record muscle activity while a stroke survivor is learning to move again. Someday, AI could tailor the rehabilitation based on the user’s performance to optimize the speed in which they get to their movement goals.

AI could be disruptive in unintentional ways. It’s possible that our fascination with the digital world's novelty could steer resources, as well as the next generation of inventors, engineers and problem solvers, away from the physical sciences. Well-intentioned parents and teachers may nudge the future biologist or chemist toward the field that prognosticators say will be grossly understaffed in the future. At Battelle, we invest heavily in STEM education through our philanthropic giving. And right now, we’re making sure that the next generation of scientists, engineers, mathematicians and technologists, who are digital natives, fill the roles of both the physical and digital innovation cycle.

Generative AI is yet another tool to apply to our physical world, but let’s not let the promise of this new technology overwhelm us, make us overconfident or cause us to catastrophize the future. We will always walk a physical path as human beings, no matter what digital tools we choose to guide us.