In the age of AI, we must protect what makes us human

Privacy, as a thing of value in the human experience, is perhaps as old as clothes, or doors, or whispers. As a legal concept, though, it’s younger than the Kodak camera. The concept of a right to privacy was first sketched out in 1890 by Samuel Warren and Louis Brandeis in direct response to the emerging threats posed by "instantaneous photographs and newspaper enterprise." These new technologies, they wrote, had "invaded the sacred precincts of private and domestic life" — requiring a fresh evaluation of personal rights. This fact is worth reflecting on: It wasn’t until cameras began invading our privacy that we recognized a need to protect it — and even then, it took decades to enshrine a right to privacy in law. You could call this period, in which innovation sprints forward, yanking culture with it, while the law limps along behind, the messy middle of any technological revolution. In the messy middle, things you can’t anticipate, and maybe never even considered, suddenly become essential to address. You can see this phenomena in the development of the printing press, the steam engine, the automobile, the mobile phone, and more — and it’s a defining characteristic of the burge