Why I Turned to Polymathy in Preparation for the Age of AI

I’ve been watching the rise of artificial intelligence for decades.

Back when most people were still focused on dial-up internet and flip phones,

I was reading Ray Kurzweil and other futurists who saw what was coming.

They predicted a world where technology wouldn’t just improve incrementally—

it would accelerate exponentially.

And I believed them.

I saw the outlines of the future forming.

A world where machines would learn faster than us,

do things better than us,

and change our lives whether we were ready or not.

That’s when something clicked for me.

If we were going to survive—let alone thrive—in a world shaped by AI,

we humans would have to evolve too.

Not physically. Not mechanically.

But mentally, emotionally, and intellectually.

We would have to become polymaths.

Not in the old-school Renaissance sense of mastering twelve fields at once—

but in the modern sense:

Humans who can learn fast.

Adapt constantly.

Think across disciplines.

See connections.

Create new meaning.

Because here’s the truth:

AI is about tech intelligence. Polymathy is about human intelligence.

And if we want to keep up—

if we want to stay useful, creative, curious, free—

we must become humans of many intelligences.

The future belongs to the adaptable.

The world doesn’t need more narrow specialists.

It needs curious, brave, agile thinkers—

people who can connect dots across domains,

ask better questions,

embrace emergence,

and reinvent themselves again and again.

That’s what polymathy offers.

That’s why I’ve been preaching it for years.

Because I knew this time would come.

Now, it’s here.

The world is accelerating.

AI is rising.

And the humans who will thrive…

are the ones who can keep learning.

Keep evolving.

Keep becoming.

The polymaths.