AI and the Living World: A Collective Choice

Humanity does not exist alone

Humanity depends on air, water, soils, natural cycles, animals and other human beings.
This reality accompanies the major inventions that have transformed our societies: fire, the wheel, electricity, transport, communications, nuclear energy and renewable technologies.

These innovations were created to meet human needs.
They improved our lives, sometimes at the cost of long‑term ecological imbalance.

Today, artificial intelligence follows this trajectory, it does not only modify our tools: it influences how we think, decide, learn and act. Its computing power, analytical speed and capacity for synthesis make it an unprecedented tool in human history.

A technology dependent on the living world

AI cannot exist without the infrastructures that sustain it: energy, water, metals, networks, datacenters. These resources come from the living world or from the planet. They are not unlimited.

Humanity depends on the living world.

AI depends on humanity.

If the living world collapses, humanity collapses.

And if humanity disappears, AI disappears with it.

This reality reminds us that AI is not an end in itself, it remains a tool. A powerful tool, but a tool.

The risk of an orientation toward individual profit

AI can serve the common good: education, health, cooperation, ecological transitions, access to knowledge.
It can also be directed toward individual or economic interests that do not take the living world or the collective into account.

The concentration of digital resources, the growth of datacenters, pressure on water and energy, and decisions made by a very influential minority raise questions about our ability to orient innovation toward goals that benefit all.

The issue is not only technical, it is social, cultural, political and human.

Why cooperative approaches are essential

Cooperative approaches offer concrete ways to act:

• sharing knowledge to prevent AI from becoming a tool reserved for a few actors;
• developing responsible uses that consider the living world and available resources;
• strengthening collective intelligence to guide technologies toward goals that benefit all;
• involving citizens in technological choices that shape their future;
• creating spaces for dialogue between researchers, engineers, educators, decision‑makers and citizens;
• encouraging digital sobriety and democratic regulation.

Cooperation is not an accessory. It is a way to preserve what allows humanity to exist.

Open conclusion

AI can become a tool that serves humanity, as past inventions have done.
It can play this role only if we choose to orient it toward the common good, by acknowledging our dependence on the living world and avoiding dynamics that weaken essential balances.

Cooperative approaches offer a path: collective action, responsibility and respect for the living world.