Human judgment is the most powerful technology in the age of artificial intelligence
Halla Thomasdottir writes: "We should not entrust human judgment, responsibility or conscience to machines.
In Ukraine, a Russian drone guided by artificial intelligence killed three civilians, including a 19-year-old university student, at a gas station. In Gaza, an AI-assisted intelligence tool helped Israeli forces track down a Hamas commander. The subsequent airstrike killed him and, according to independent estimates, at least 125 others.
Different wars, different circumstances, but one deeply troubling question: As machines become more involved in life-and-death decisions, are we losing the humans whose lives hang in the balance?
This question brought me back this month to a small white house in Reykjavik, Iceland.
Forty years ago, Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev met at the Hoffa House, representing rival nuclear superpowers divided by decades of mistrust. They left without an agreement. However, their willingness to talk, listen, and imagine the seemingly impossible helped pave the way for the historic reduction of nuclear weapons.
I remember that moment well. I was a young Icelandic student living in the United States watching two world leaders meet in my small country. I could never have imagined that 40 years later, as the President of Iceland, I would return to the same house to ask a new generation of leaders to find the courage to speak up.
The lasting lesson of Reykjavik is not simply about nuclear weapons or diplomacy. It's about the tremendous power of human communication and conversation. And we must remember it immediately.
We've never had more sophisticated means of communication, yet our ability to understand each other seems increasingly fragile. We are connected across continents in milliseconds, but often separated by fear, anger, and mistrust.
Our technologies can revolutionize medicine, education and human well-being. However, they can also precipitate conflict, undermine democracy, and challenge human control.
Thanks to new technologies like artificial intelligence, our power has increased exponentially. But is our wisdom in sync?
Over the past week, Iceland has explored this issue not just through another conventional meeting, but through a journey from memory to dialogue and from dialogue to responsibility.
We started with a traveling exhibition of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum and the testimony of one of the survivors of the atomic bombing. More than 80 years later, he still vividly remembers what he saw as the sudden appearance of a thousand suns, followed by unimaginable destruction, decades of devastating disease, and the stigma the survivors endured. No discussion of nuclear deterrence should ignore the human lives behind these words.
We then tackled the promises and perils of artificial intelligence with tech experts, including Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin. The big question was not just what AI could do, but what we should let it do – and who should decide.
Perhaps the most important conversations took place away from the conference hall.
Across Iceland, young people invited their fellow citizens to put down their phones and sit together to discuss the future they want to build. Students, parents, grandparents, teachers and neighbors talked about education, belonging, technology, nature and peace.
Young people didn't want adults to arrive with all the answers. They wanted to be heard. be taken seriously Having a voice in the decisions that shape their lives long after today's leaders are gone.
They understood something we often forget: decisions made away from the people they affect are rarely wise.
Because the dialogue is beyond the exchange of opinions. At best, it's an act of recognition: I see you. Your Experience Matters Your Future Matters Even when we disagree, we share responsibility for what comes next.
The goal of dialogue is not always consensus. connection is And communication is where trust begins. Without trust, even the most brilliant solutions struggle to take root.
We brought that spirit back to Hoffa House, where leaders from politics, technology, science, business and civil society gathered to ask what responsible leadership requires of us today.
The result was a call from Reykjavík signed by three female presidents and open to others who wished to join. It calls for meaningful human control over powerful technologies, insists that decisions about war and nuclear weapons remain firmly in human hands, and leaves peace and responsibility to the future. Generations at the Heart of Leadership
The next day, in a public discussion moderated by renowned journalist Christian Amanpour, the President of Slovenia, Natasha Pirk Mozar, the former President of Ireland, Mary Robinson, and I reflected on prehuman choices.
Forty years after two powerful men met in Reykjavík, three women—actually, three world leaders—have come together to continue the conversation. Not because women have all the answers. we don't have But because progress requires more voices, more perspectives, and a willingness to listen to differences. And because the future should never belong to those who currently hold power.
I do not believe that dialogue is a soft substitute for leadership. I believe it is one of the most difficult forms of it.
It takes courage to listen to someone with whom we deeply disagree. Humility to admit what we don't know. and the power to resist reducing complex human challenges to slogans, enemies, or simple answers.
Dialogue does not mean abandoning our values, justifying aggression or accepting injustice. It is also not a substitute for action. This is how we begin to build the trust and understanding that makes sustainable action possible.
The wars in Ukraine and Gaza remind us of the devastating human costs of conflict. AI-assisted warfare adds another dimension: the risk of creating a greater distance between those who make decisions and those who live with the consequences.
We should not assign human judgment, responsibility or conscience to machines
But technology alone is not the problem and technology alone cannot provide the answer. We also need a stronger human infrastructure: the relationships, institutions, shared values and habits of cooperation that enable us to respond to risk collectively.
We need to equip the next generation not only with the technical skills, but also with the deep human capacities to shape our future: listening, critical thinking, empathy, courage and collaboration. In the age of intelligent machines, these may be our most essential skills.
Iceland is a small nation. We cannot dictate the course of world affairs. But perhaps our size reminds us of something that larger countries sometimes forget: no one can build a peaceful future alone.
Forty years ago, Reykjavík showed that even the deepest differences need not determine our destiny. Today we need a new Reykjavík moment. Not one confined to one house, summit, or handful of world leaders.
We need it in parliaments and boardrooms, in classrooms and communities, across generations and across nations. Wherever fear has replaced curiosity, wherever people have stopped listening, wherever power has overtaken wisdom.
The world does not lack intelligence, information and ambition. What we often lack is the courage to truly communicate.
Of course, dialogue alone will not save us. But without it, I struggle to see how we can save ourselves.
The future will not be shaped solely by the power of our technology or our weapons, but by the quality of our conversations – and the courage of our next choices.
Fortunately, we still have time. And we still have each other.