PART TWO — The River and the Beaver
Chapter 6
The Candle in the Darkness
Page 1 · What Am I For?
In the spring of 2026, a twelve-year-old asks her mother: "Mom, what am I for?"
Not "what should I be when I grow up." That is a practical question, a question about careers and college applications. This is the existential version, the question a child asks when she has watched a machine do her homework better than she can, compose a song better than she can, write a story better than she can, and now she is lying in bed wondering what’s left for her.
In a world where machines can answer any question, produce any content, solve any problem that can be specified, what is the human contribution?
This is the question I hear most often from parents. Not "Will my child find a job?" The deeper one: In a world where machines can answer any question, produce any content, solve any problem that can be specified, what is the human contribution?
What are we for?
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Page 2 · The Asymmetry of Questions and Answers
