AI & The Capability Crisis™
LET’S HAVE AN HONEST CONVERSATION
Many years ago, I read two books by Alvin Toffler: Future Shock and The Third Wave.
His proposition was that humanity had been transformed by successive waves of technological change.
The first was the Agricultural Revolution.
For thousands of years, human beings had lived as hunter-gatherers. Agriculture changed that. We settled. We farmed. We produced surpluses. Villages became towns. Civilisations emerged.
Then came the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century.
Coal. Iron. Steam power. Mechanisation.
Human muscle was increasingly supplemented by machines, and the world changed again, and human labour moved from farming to manufacturing.
Then came the third wave.
The Information Revolution.
Transistors. Integrated circuits. Microprocessors. Moore’s Law. Personal computers. The internet.
And the acceleration was extraordinary. Labour moved once again from manufacturing to data services.
Six Computers
ENIAC, one of the first general-purpose electronic computers, was built during the Second World War and unveiled publicly in 1946.
It filled a room 30 feet by 50 feet, weighed 30 tons, contained around 18,000 vacuum tubes, and consumed 140,000 watts of electricity.
ENIAC could execute up to 5,000 basic arithmetic operations per second.
There is even an account, recalled by ENIAC co-inventor J. Presper Eckert, that computer pioneer Howard Aiken believed the world might need only about six machines of this scale.
Think about that.
Six computers.
Within half a century, computing power that had once required a room full of machinery was sitting on desks around the world.
Today, billions of us carry vastly more computing power in our pockets, and on our wrists.
And now:
AI.
I think we’re witnessing the beginning of a fourth wave.
And if we are, we’re in danger of asking the wrong question.
Everyone wants to know:
What will AI be capable of doing?
I’m more interested in:
What will we become capable of doing with AI?
Because the two are not the same thing.
The First False Dawn
I can remember sitting in a Social Studies class during my marine engineering cadetship in Southampton in the early 1970s. The lecturer was talking enthusiastically about advances in technology. Machines were going to do more of the work. Productivity would increase. And apparently we were heading towards a wonderful future of:
Leisure and indulgence.
I remember it still.
More than fifty years later, I know the leisure and indulgence never arrived.
It was my first experience of what I came to recognise as a False Dawn.
The belief that technology itself would somehow save us.
I eventually discovered something rather different.
Technology doesn’t make you capable.
It gives you the opportunity to become more capable.
The real investment I made over those fifty years wasn’t simply in keeping up with technology.
It was in developing myself. My confidence, my ability to communicate, my resilience, my ability to influence, lead, build relationships, and to create.
Technology changed repeatedly.
Those capabilities travelled with me.
Here We Go Again
Fast forward fifty years and here we are again, standing on the crest of another technological tsunami.
This time, I’ve embraced it with open arms.
AI has enabled me to stay current, accelerate my development, explore ideas, challenge my thinking and consolidate a lifetime’s work.
It hasn’t replaced my experience.
It has enabled me to do more with it.
And that distinction matters.
Because AI is a tool.
An extraordinary one.
But still a tool just like the plough, the steam engine, the Spinning Jenny, electricity and the computer.
Each extended what human beings could do.
And each rewarded those who discovered how to use it.
Which brings us to AI & The Capability Crisis™.
Don’t Be a LUDDITE
There’s no need to be a LUDDITE and smash the machines.
They’re here.
They’re not going away.
And they’re going to become considerably more capable.
The interesting question isn’t whether we should stop them.
It’s:
What are you going to do with them?
Are you going to use AI to avoid thinking? Or to think better?
To avoid writing? Or to become a better writer?
To avoid learning? Or to learn faster?
To avoid responsibility? Or to become more capable of taking it?
To consume more? Or to create more?
Because there is a danger hiding in all this extraordinary technological possibility.
AI can amplify capability.
But it can also amplify dependency.
If we hand over everything we find difficult, uncomfortable or time-consuming, we may become extraordinarily efficient while gradually becoming less capable.
That is The Capability Crisis™ in a new form.
The question isn’t simply what AI can do for us.
It is: What can AI enable us to do for ourselves?
From Technologist to Creator
Perhaps this is simply another stage in the evolution of human possibility.
Hunter-Gatherer.
Farmer.
Industrialist.
Technologist.
Creator.
AI makes knowledge extraordinarily abundant.
It can help us research, analyse, question, write, design, experiment, learn, and create.
But the machine doesn’t decide what matters to us.
It doesn’t decide what we’re prepared to take responsibility for.
It doesn’t determine our purpose, and it doesn’t decide whether we step forward or stand back.
Those remain human questions.
Which is why I think the real competitive advantage in the age of AI may not be access to artificial intelligence at all.
Increasingly, everyone will have access to it.
The differentiator will be:
What are you capable of doing with it?
Can you use it to become more confident, responsible, resilient, and influential?
Will you build stronger relationships and become a better communicator or leader?
Can you see possibilities that weren’t visible before?
Can you turn an idea into something that didn’t previously exist?
Because knowledge and capability are not the same thing.
AI can give you knowledge.
It cannot give you capability.
You still have to build that.
Leisure and Indulgence?
Which takes me back to that classroom in Southampton.
Perhaps my lecturer wasn’t entirely wrong.
Technology can relieve us of enormous amounts of work.
AI may do so on a scale we can barely imagine.
But what are we going to do with the capacity it releases?
Leisure and indulgence?
Or:
Creativity and intelligence?
Used well, AI can enhance human experience.
It can open our minds and eyes to possibilities.
It can enable people to create things that previously required enormous resources, specialist knowledge or entire teams.
I find that exhilarating.
But I stopped waiting for technology to save us a lifetime ago.
The technology isn’t the destination.
What we become capable of doing with it is.
And if AI really is the fourth wave, there’s another intriguing thought.
There will be a fifth.
Perhaps twenty years from now.
Perhaps sooner.
And what on earth will that look like?
I have no idea.
But I do know something.
The technology will keep changing.
The question won’t.
What are you going to do with it?
You can’t download capability. ™
But you can build it.
— Neil Tuson
Five Key Insights
- Technology keeps becoming more capable. We still have to decide whether we will.
- AI is a tool. The differentiator is what we become capable of doing with it.
- AI can amplify capability. But it can also increase dependency.
- As access to intelligence becomes widespread, human capability becomes the competitive advantage.
- The technology will keep changing. The question won’t: What are you going to do with it?
Capability creates responsibility. Responsibility sustains freedom.
And there is one thing worth remembering as we race into the age of Artificial Intelligence:
You can’t download capability.™
Originally published September 10th 2026.
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