What Fire Can Teach Us About AI Hesitancy

Nobody has explained AI to you in a language that isn't "how to make money with it." Sure, you can absolutely have that conversation but I want you to know about the undercurrents of the AI transition so you can make wiser choices.

To do that, I will outline the case for comparing how humans reacted to fire in prehistoric times to how we are reacting to AI now and then share a virtues-driven framework to illuminate how we might approach this historic challenge.

People's reactions to AI right now mirror what we can reconstruct about early humans' reactions to fire. The fear of AI is rational and avoidance is understandable. Both also come with a cost.

Every major technological shift in history (fire, agriculture, Industrial Revolution, AI) follows the same pattern, which is that the people in power know about it first and position themselves.

The defaults around AI are being set right now and even the man valued at two trillion dollars goes from exhilaration to terror on any given day. Every month a hesitant person sits out, the defaults get harder to change, with phenomenal downstream implications for all of us. This isn't "learn AI some time."

We saw this exact arc with social media: it started out open and accessible. A decade later the platforms had consolidated and by the time the regulatory conversations got serious, the damage was assumed to be unchangeable. AI is in that exact window right now.

When we think about the early humans who saw fire, we can guess that the ones who moved in early got the foraging advantage while the ones who waited got pushed to worse territory. The fire didn't slow down to let the cautious ones catch up. I think we are safe to assume that AI will also not slow down.

The people building this technology are also the ones building bunkers. That second part is usually not the headline

The AI builders are also bunker builders because they already know what could come of all of this. There is an understanding in the class of people who hold the keys to AI that the technology they're building may not work out to be just "fine". While they are eager to paint a utopian future after full saturation of AI has occurred, they all admit that the time in between now and that hopefully utopian future will be extremely bumpy. So they are positioning.

Before I go any further, I want to mention that I would not have voted for this. I would not have voted for AI to be designed and then deployed in such a way that it is threatening. Someone literally decided to create it in that fashion. It was not inevitable.

If someone decided tomorrow, at the global level, we are not doing AI, I'd be fine with that and go right back to the other timeline.

Unfortunately, it has been decided that that will not happen. The way our geopolitical landscape has been designed means that if anyone takes a more reasonable approach with AI, the rest of the world will continue on its merry way and that reasonable country will just become vulnerable.

I am against designing geopolitics such that this is the bind we find ourselves in and also wonder, how can AI be used to change this so that this is the last time the actions of a few create something that feels like a natural disaster for the rest of the world?

What if the thing stopping you isn't fear of AI, but distrust of who's got the keys to it?

Early hominins did not react to fire with instant control or sudden comprehension. The archaeological and behavioral evidence supports a staged transition spanning roughly 2 million years. At first, it looked like passive exposure, where fire caused by natural events like wildfires and lightning strikes altered the landscape. Our ancestors found accidentally cooked food in the territories that experienced fire and investigated burned zones where new growth sprung up, which made for better foraging.

Later, they learned to read and predict the path of fire, and to keep foraging while it burned around them. They did not try to control it. Instead, they had their tolerance adjusted through exposure. Then, they started carrying the fire they found by keeping embers alive. Before creating fire independently, they just foraged for fire. This lasted over a million years.

There is no extreme clarity on when humans began making fire on purpose, but estimates place it about ~400,000 years ago. From beginning to end, this entire process took about 1.5 million years to go from just tolerating fire to creating it.

Humans began controlling fire by first overriding their fear. Most people with AI are in the tolerance-building phase right now, although many are still running from the fire. Some are standing near it, watching. A very small number are collecting it and carrying it with them.

Nobody Voted On Fire Either

Before we talk about how to use this knowledge to plan our response to AI, it's important to acknowledge that fear of fire is rational. Fire killed people, destroyed shelters, food sources and entire landscapes. I doubt that the ones who eventually used it were less afraid. They were just the ones who recognized that the advantages outweighed their fear. I believe the thought processes around AI are very similar.

Again, I would not have voted for this exact rollout of AI. And no one voted for fire either. Nobody chose it; it just happened. The power imbalance in our society is currently so intense that the advent of AI is similar to a natural event over which we have very little control. How can we use AI to change that equation?

Currently, there is a three-tier economy forming around AI, which resembles the same three-tier economy that seems to have always existed: Class one: Makers of fire, class two: collectors of fire, class three: bystanders of fire. And class one: owners of AI, class two: operators of AI and class three: users of AI.

Did you know the reorganization happening around AI right now isn't gradual? It already happened. You're finding out after.

The Fire Payoff and Using Virtues To Lock Into the AI Age

We have talked a lot about the destructive potential of fire and AI, but it's key to remember the upside, particularly the parts of the upside that we might be inclined to forget about because this is all very stressful:

Fire's biggest long-term advantage wasn't cooking or warmth, it was actually the extended day. This allowed for an increase in storytelling, group coordination and social bonding. It fundamentally reshaped how human beings relate to each other.

AI is doing the same thing right now and the opportunity before us is to shape what the upside looks like. This isn't a skills gap. You can get the skills. It's a timing decision.

If you keep waiting for someone virtues-driven to go first, you might be the one you're waiting for.

Two kinds of people are watching this moment. One is waiting to feel ready. One already knows readiness isn't coming first.

The virtues that humans have always organized themselves around give us a human-grounded operating system for the AI Age. We can use them to be the person who moves through this transition well and helps others do the same.

Courage is the backbone. This is because we can deduce that fear-override of fire or AI preceded control. Early hominins didn't stop being afraid of fire. They acted near it anyway because the payoff demanded it. Courage vitalizes all the other virtues. Without it, wisdom about fire (or AI) stays theoretical.

Wisdom allows us to navigate the tolerance phase. Even today, we can observe chimps in the wild reading fire, predicting its path and making moment-to-moment decisions about when to stay and when to move. That's wisdom: knowing which response the moment calls for. This is in opposition to "fire good" or "fire bad." That's what operators do with AI. Users either run from it or sit passively near it. Operators read the moment and choose the right tool.

Discipline separates fire-collectors from fire-makers. For over a million years, hominins maintained fires they found by carrying around embers that they found. That required sustained daily attention. The worse conditions got (rain, wind, migration), the more committed you had to be to keeping that fire alive. This is the same with AI: the initial excitement fades, the tool gets frustrating and results aren't instant. The ones who keep showing up build something durable.

Love is why fire became irreversible. Fire's lasting advantage was the extended day that gave us campfire time and group bonding. Fire changed how humans related to each other, and that locked it in permanently. AI has the potential to liberate humans into an upward creativity spiral and to open the door to an age of reflection. The only way we get there is if those who have the tendency to lean away from AI lean in.

Hope is critical in a world where many seem to be paralyzed by it dawning on them that "AI is coming". Right now, the door to the operator class is open to anyone who wants to learn the tool. That door may not always be open. The early hominins who saw fire-altered landscapes as opportunity rather than threat had hope.

Curiosity within the class of people operating AI will be a force multiplier because they will be able to distinguish what is working versus what is not as it relates to the tool itself, but more importantly they will be able to determine how to align AI creation with inspiring goals for humanity's future. Those who stay in the user class are at risk of being forced to accept the default, which may not be representative of their values.

Zest is also a prerequisite… and I think we can divide zest into two categories: physical zest and cognitive zest. If you've ever worked with AI, you know that it can be tempting to just stay in the creativity spiral until someone reminds you to come back to Earth. Maybe it's your partner who comes in and says, "did you know it's 2am?" There seems to be an interesting time warp phenomenon that happens when working with AI. Time passes really fast. It's important to remember that you are likely in a flow cycle. One of the key pieces of a flow cycle is release. The time where you step away. Almost all of my biggest breakthroughs around what I am building happen when I have stepped away. Don't forget to do that.

Cognitive zest is also going to be really important. There is a temptation to see all of these dramatic changes in our world and think, does this really have to happen now? Why do I have to confront all of this? I hear you. It's a lot. And, as one of my favorite writers, Byron Katie, says, "every time I argue with reality, I lose. But only 100% of the time". Don't waste your time arguing. Instead, drive all that energy into establishing your position in this new context.

Gratitude grounds all of it. It's recognizing that fire exists, that AI exists, that these tools are available at all. As I have said, I would not have voted for this and yet here we are. I can appreciate the opportunity without endorsing the circumstances that created it.

Applying these virtues to the AI Age will allow more of us to shape the upside of a world where AI is present. In the fire age, we got more time in the day and the opportunity to begin engaging in more advanced forms of communication. What we get from the AI Age is still very much open for discussion. The time to shape that before the window closes is now.