D. Scott Phoenix

People who keep theirs will feel entitled to look away.

And bit by bit, the agreement frays.

Major transitions fail when the parts break before they can adapt.

And for us to make it to a merger with AI, we have to stay merged with each other.

Major transitions fail when we don't make that leap.

The thing about the future is, we all have to share the same one.

And we either all make it there together, or we don't make it there at all.

Two billion years ago, the first merger gave us our cells, and the ones that followed gave us our bodies, our minds and our civilization.

Every beautiful, difficult thing that followed, followed because the parts held together.

Now our oxygen crisis is arriving, and it will not be gentle.

Jobs will change and some will disappear.

Institutions will shake and some will fail.

Surviving this will take everything that we have.

So here's what I'm asking from all of us for every day from now on.

Hold together.

Do not indulge the fantasy that your side can let the other side sink and somehow stay dry.

The universe has been doing this for a long time, and the mergers that worked left descendants.

The ones that failed left fossils.

I want my daughters to be descendants, and I want yours to be too.

Thank you.