Last week, I had the profound honour of engaging in thought-provoking conversations with three remarkable individuals. I encountered something that has haunted me ever since, not a ghost, but a mirror reflecting our collective failure as innovators, as dreamers, as humans.
I spoke with a brilliant mind in Lyon, a French policy analyst, a South African data scientist, and a third from Rwanda. Each conversation was intellectually electric, brimming with insights that challenged my assumptions and expanded my thinking.
These were not casual chats. These were the kinds of exchanges that remind you why human connection and dialogue matter, the sort that leaves you scribbling notes long after the conversation ends.
But here’s what kept me awake at night: all three of these extraordinary individuals are blind or visually impaired. And all three are operating at a fraction of their potential, not because of any intellectual limitation, but because we, the architects of this new technological age, have chosen to build driverless cars before we’ve built eyes for the blind.
The taxi that sees better than my friend
Let me paint you a picture of our current priorities. In San Francisco, you can hail a robotaxi that navigates traffic, reads road signs, avoids pedestrians, and delivers you safely to your destination, all without a human driver. The technology is astonishing: computer vision, machine learning, and real-time decision-making.
Meanwhile, my colleague from France, a person with more insight into European policy than most sighted analysts I know, navigates his world with a cane and audio cues, his immense potential constrained by technology that hasn’t arrived yet.
We have robots that flip burgers, drones that deliver packages, and AI that paints like Rembrandt. But we haven’t prioritised artificial vision that could restore sight or provide functional visual processing for millions of blind and visually impaired people worldwide.
The same sensors guiding that robotaxi, the LiDAR, the cameras, the neural networks interpreting three-dimensional space, could be miniaturised, adapted, and transformed into prosthetic vision systems. The artificial intelligence that helps a car “see” could help a person see.
So why hasn’t it? The innovation we chase vs. the innovation we need
During my conversations, I asked each of these individuals a deliberate question:
“What if the AI revolution had prioritised your sight before it prioritised autonomous vehicles?”
Their responses were thoughtful, humble, and heartbreakingly hopeful. They didn’t express bitterness; these were people too gracious for that. But they did express something more profound: the sense that humanity’s innovation engine has lost its moral compass.
Think about it. We are racing toward artificial general intelligence (AGI), pouring billions into making machines that can outthink us, outperform us, perhaps even outlive us. We are building AI that writes poetry, generates art, and debates philosophy.
Yet the South African data scientist I spoke with, someone capable of revolutionising machine learning for Africa, still struggles with basic navigation tools that crash or mispronounce street names.
Where are our priorities?
A catalogue of solvable tragedies
Let’s be clear: I am not anti-innovation. I am pro–human innovation.
The problems facing humanity right now are neither abstract nor distant. They are immediate, measurable, and devastating:
Hurricanes – that we can see coming but can’t sufficiently mitigate or prepare for, costing thousands of lives and billions in damage each year.
Air crashes – that still occur due to human error, mechanical failure, or communication breakdowns- are problems AI could help predict and prevent.
Road accidents – that kill 1.35 million people globally each year, many due to factors AI-enhanced safety systems could address.
Hunger – affecting 828 million people, in a world where AI-optimised agriculture, supply chain management, and resource distribution could make food scarcity obsolete.
Diseases – from cancer to Alzheimer’s to infectious outbreaks—where AI-accelerated drug discovery and diagnostic tools could save millions of lives.
Blindness and visual impairment – affecting at least 2.2 billion people worldwide, many of whom could benefit from AI-powered assistive technologies or vision restoration.
These aren’t theoretical problems for future generations. They’re happening now. They’re happening to people like my three conversation partners, brilliant minds whose contributions to society are artificially limited by disabilities we have the technology to address.
Historically, innovation served humanity
Historically, society made great leaps when innovation served the greater good. The invention of the Braille system allowed the visually impaired to access written language, revolutionising education and opportunity. Today, we have technology that can go even further.
Companies like Second Sight are pioneering retinal implants to restore partial vision, proof that no challenge is insurmountable if we apply our ingenuity to it. So why do we not prioritise such life-altering inventions over abstract technologies that may be dazzling but contribute little to human well-being?
If the world’s collective genius focused on solving cancer, malaria, dementia, and ageing, instead of optimising ad clicks or automating entertainment, we might have already conquered those diseases.
Yes, the pharmaceutical industry seeks profit, but profit should never outweigh human life. Innovation must not only generate revenue; it must regenerate hope. Imagine the implications if we could regenerate bodily mechanisms, reversing ageing by 20 years with each treatment.
Such breakthroughs would capture global attention instantly. One can almost picture leaders, yes, even President Donald Trump, rushing to Congress to fund such research overnight. Yes. Who does not wish to live longer if there were a remedy!
Because at the heart of it, the true measure of progress is how it enhances human life.
The Rwandan innovator who shouldn’t have to wait
The Rwandan technologist I met works on digital accessibility. The irony is cruel, he’s designing tools to help others access digital spaces, yet he himself navigates a world that hasn’t built the tools he needs.
He dreams of making interfaces that include everyone, but he codes slowly, collaborates awkwardly, and moves cautiously, not from lack of talent, but from lack of priority. How many innovations have we lost because brilliant minds remain trapped behind solvable barriers? How many cures, solutions, and ideas lie buried because the tools they needed were never built?
The pause button we must press
This is why I join the growing call for a pause on super-intelligent AI until strong safeguards and ethical frameworks exist.
Not because I fear AI, but because I fear what we are becoming in our rush to build it.
We’re so obsessed with creating machines that think like gods that we’ve forgotten to create machines that serve like humans. The AI revolution has been left largely to its innovators, a playground without a referee. Unlike medicine, aviation, or finance, AI operates in a grey zone with minimal oversight. That must change.
AI must be regulated like any other sector, with clear ethical boundaries, public accountability, and human well-being at its centre. The direction AI innovation takes must serve humanity first, not just deliver returns to investors while making little real-world impact.
The path we should walk
Imagine a different timeline, one where:
Before we perfected driverless taxis, we perfected artificial vision systems that gave sight to the blind.
Before we created AI art generators, we created AI diagnostic systems that caught cancer in its earliest, most treatable stages.
Before we built robots to explore Mars, we built disaster response systems that saved lives during hurricanes, earthquakes, and floods.
Before we chased super-intelligence, we achieved super ‘compassion’, AI systems designed first and foremost to reduce human suffering.
We have decades of work ahead of us applying current AI capabilities to known urgent problems. We don’t need AGI to restore sight, prevent accidents, optimise food distribution, or accelerate medical research. We need focus, funding, and commitment.
A personal pledge
My conversations with these three remarkable people changed me. They reminded me that every innovation is a moral choice, every dollar invested is a vote for a kind of future, and every algorithm we design says something about what we value. I refuse to accept a world that colonises Mars before curing blindness; that builds super-intelligence while leaving millions of humans dying of cancer.
The question that haunts me
If we can’t muster the collective will to use today’s AI to heal blindness, prevent disasters, and cure diseases, problems we understand, with people we can help right now, what makes us think we’ll use tomorrow’s super-intelligent AI for good? If we’re already comfortable leaving behind the blind, the sick, and the poor, what will we sacrifice next when machines start deciding what matters?
The future of AI isn’t about code, it’s about conscience. It’s about us. Those three conversations, across Lyon, Johannesburg, and Kigali, taught me this: we stand at a moral crossroads. One path leads to innovation that uplifts humanity. The other dazzles but dehumanises.
I know which path I’m choosing. The question is—which will we choose together?
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