To understand how AI will reconfigure humanity, try this German fairytale | Clemens J Setz

The article discusses how artificial intelligence (AI) will reconfigure humanity, drawing parallels to the German fairytale "The Fisherman and His Wife." The story revolves around a man who catches a talking flounder, which turns out to be an enchanted prince that can grant wishes. The man's wife, Ilsebill, wishes for increasingly excessive things, eventually wanting to become the pope and God, which enrages the elements and transforms her back to her original impoverished state. The article suggests that the moral of the story - not wishing for anything beyond one's entitlement - can be applied to the challenge of dealing with the feeling of emptiness that AI may leave us with, as it replaces creativity with something closer to magical wishing. The article also mentions variations of this classic fairytale motif, where the wishes are clumsy or contradictory, or unintentionally harmful to someone close.