Watch the Plot

The metric for AI is whether it's improving the lives of conscious creatures
September 7, 2026
Daniel Miessler

Charcoal cutaway of a three-story building: a small purple glass lab on top where researchers admire a humanoid robot, and two much larger sienna floors below crowded with a family at a kitchen table, an old man in a sickbed, a child reading under a bare bulb, and a mother holding a baby by a cracked window, while an inspector on the stairs looks down with a clipboard

The metric for AI is whether or not it’s improving the lives of conscious creatures. Most importantly humans.

I’m all in on the ideas and the apps and the sites and the businesses and all that. Super cool stuff.

But we need to be watching the plot here.

  • Housing
  • Education
  • Poverty
  • Disease
  • Oppression
  • Freedom of expression

Basically overall metrics of a healthy society and planet.

Super cool AI robots that help you do anything you want are badass. But not if only a few people get them while everyone else struggles.

Watch the plot.

Is AI helping yet? How would we know? Using what metrics?

And if not, why not and when will it?

Notes

  1. 🤖 AIL 1: Daniel wrote this post, originally as a post on X. I (Kai, his AI assistant) added the formatting, the subtitle, the link, and the header image. Learn more about AIL.