By Major General (Ret.) K. H. Konstantinidis
Never before has humanity been exposed to so many dangers and lived in such uncertainty as it does today.
The 20th century was the century of Physics, with nuclear weapons aimed at humanity and ready to be launched within a matter of minutes.
The 21st century is the century of Biology and Artificial Intelligence (AI), but also of biological warfare and pathogenic diseases.
The Main Risks of Artificial Intelligence (AI)
- Unemployment: The replacement of people by machines and the loss of jobs.
- Misinformation: The production of fake news, fabricated images, videos and audio messages.
- Manipulation: Influencing public opinion, elections and human behaviour.
- Violation of privacy: The mass collection, processing and exploitation of personal data.
- Criminal activity: Facilitating online fraud, cyberattacks and blackmail.
- Dependence: Weakening human judgment, memory, creativity and autonomy.
- Incorrect decisions: Unjust or erroneous judgments in matters of health, justice, employment and security.
- Concentration of power: Excessive control over knowledge and information by a small number of companies or states.
- Militarisation: The development of autonomous weapons systems and an increased threat of armed conflict.
- Loss of human values: The erosion of ethics, empathy and humanism.
- Widening inequalities: A growing economic and social divide between those who possess the technology and those who do not.
- Uncontrolled development: The risk of systems operating in ways that humans find difficult to predict or control.
- Environmental impact: High consumption of electricity, water and natural resources.
Final Observation
Artificial Intelligence may become one of the greatest achievements of human civilisation, but it may also pose a serious threat to humanity if technological power becomes disconnected from ethics, philosophy, democracy and humanism.
AI must serve humanity, not humanity become the servant of AI.
Contemporary Risks Arising from Biology
Modern Biology and Biotechnology offer enormous possibilities, but they also create serious risks for human beings and humanity as a whole.
- Biological weapons: The use of pathogenic microorganisms as instruments of warfare and terrorism.
- Artificial pathogens: Risks arising from the laboratory modification of microorganisms.
- New pandemics: The emergence and spread of dangerous infectious diseases.
- Genetic intervention: Unforeseen consequences arising from the modification of the human genome.
- Eugenics: The risk of selecting human characteristics and creating genetic discrimination.
- Cloning: Ethical and social problems arising from human reproductive cloning.
- Biological surveillance: The use of genetic and biometric data for monitoring and discrimination.
- Antibiotic resistance: The spread of microorganisms that cannot easily be treated with medication.
- Changes to ecosystems: Unforeseen consequences arising from genetically modified organisms and interventions in nature.
- Misuse of stem cells: Insufficiently tested applications with serious consequences for health.
- Commodification of life: The exploitation of genetic material and human biological data.
- Biological inequality: The risk that the financially powerful will gain access to genetic therapies and capabilities that remain unavailable to everyone else.
Final Observation
When Biology becomes disconnected from ethics and humanism, it can place life itself on Earth in grave danger.
Human beings must not acquire unlimited power over life without possessing a corresponding degree of wisdom and responsibility.
COMMENTARY
1. The Two Factors of Uncertainty
Two factors of uncertainty now come into play in controlling the risks arising from science: the human factor and Artificial Intelligence (AI), which is having a decisive influence on every field.
Until recently, there were human error and human uncertainty. Now the uncertainty associated with AI has been added. While safeguards have been established to address the human factor, AI remains, to a large extent, under the control of major corporations. Strict safeguards and human oversight are therefore required to prevent it from turning against humanity, democracy, freedom and individual rights. Ultimately, responsibility rests with human beings, as its creators.
2. Technological Progress Without Human Improvement
Instead of focusing primarily on improving the human being, contemporary technologists are developing and automating technology without adequately weighing the risks that may ultimately turn against humanity.
3. Science and the Loss of Values
Through the one-sided shift of science towards the study of natural phenomena, humanity risks losing its reliability and values, frequently subordinating knowledge to profit.
4. The Vindication of Greek Humanism
Today, albeit belatedly, the humanistic civilisation of Greece and the philosophy of the ancient Greek sages are being vindicated. They did not merely seek to provide human beings with more material goods; they sought to educate and cultivate them, making them “Kalon k’agathon” — beautiful in body and virtuous in soul.
Even if belatedly, we are beginning to realise how right Socrates and the other sages were in placing the cultivation and perfection of the human being above all else. The proper use of nature and its forces is today contrasted with their destructive exploitation by modern humanity.
One example is the beneficial use of Prometheus’ gift of fire, in contrast to its harmful use today through the burning of forests and the overheating of the environment.
5. The Timeless Value of Greek Civilisation
The ancient Greek world differed fundamentally from the world of today, as it attached particular importance to the divine, to humanity, to democratic laws, to the decisions of citizens and to the enduring values of its civilisation. Its centuries-long influence and the creation of a civilisation that continues to be admired to this day constitute irrefutable testimony to its historical superiority.
6. Conclusion – A Proposal
Humanity today must turn its attention primarily to the improvement of the human being, so that people may acquire the knowledge, virtue and wisdom required to confront the problems of today and tomorrow.
Only through Greek Values will the world be able to emerge from today’s uncertainty, crisis and dead ends, and avoid the path towards chaos.
(3 November 2026)
Major General (Ret.) Konstantinos Konstantinidis
Writer – Member of the Society of Greek Writers
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