Why Nietzsche Matters in the Age of Artificial Intelligence (cacm.acm.org)

A new essay argues that Friedrich Nietzsche’s late‑19th‑century diagnosis of nihilism and his prescription of individual value‑creation remain vitally relevant as AI reshapes work, relationships, and shared norms. The piece maps Nietzsche’s idea of the self‑authoring Übermensch onto contemporary disruptions: embodied AI (robots, autonomous systems) and generative models are automating labor at scale (EAI market forecasts of ~1 billion robots at ~$35k each) and may displace tens of millions of jobs (WEF estimates ~83M), while “artificial intimacy” and algorithmic mediation erode genuine social bonds. Nietzsche’s emphasis on self‑overcoming and creative agency offers psychological tools to resist meaninglessness, but the author contends it’s incomplete for today’s infrastructural challenges. For the AI/ML community the takeaway is twofold: technical systems are not value‑neutral. Algorithmic opacity, biased training data, and platform centralization are reshaping moral decision‑making in hiring, healthcare, policing and beyond—outsourcing contested ethical judgments to opaque infrastructure. The essay calls for an evolved philosophy that blends Nietzschean inner autonomy with civic responsibility: transparent algorithm design, collective oversight, inclusive value‑setting, and designs that foreground uniquely human capacities (creativity, empathy, ethical reasoning). Practically, researchers, engineers, and policymakers must pair tools for individual resilience with systemic reforms to ensure AI augments rather than hollow out human meaning and democratic accountability.