# Cheap Intelligence Makes Judgment Purpose Experience and Trust Scarce by Salim Ismail > When intelligence becomes cheap, human experience, judgment, purpose, and trust become scarce. Civilization stops optimizing only for intelligence and must learn to optimize what intelligence is pointed at. > **— Adapted from Salim Ismail**, *Moonshots, October 7, 2026* ## Sources and Context - **Recording and precise locator:** [2:36:10](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRdb8UmPnh0&t=9370s) — *The Fight Over Claude's Consciousness, AI's 1942 Moment, & Why Altman Says "Accept Some Bad Things"*, Moonshots, October 7, 2026. - **Exact reconciled source excerpt:** “When intelligence becomes cheap, we redesign companies, do unbelievable research, and rethink education and healthcare. Then you have scarce things like human experience, judgment, purpose, and trust that become important. You stop optimizing intelligence and start optimizing what you point it at.” - **Editorial status:** The poster is explicitly labeled **Adapted from** because it consolidates spoken context into a self-contained proposition. It must not be represented as verbatim speech. Numerical claims, forecasts, legal interpretations, and claims about current organizations remain the speaker’s assertions unless separately verified. - **Reconciled source dossier:** [[research/All Things Superintelligence Research - The Coming Manhattan Project - Moonshots|All Things Superintelligence Research — The Coming Manhattan Project — Moonshots]] preserves broadcast order, speaker attribution, timing, and the source-fidelity boundary. - **Preparation ledger:** [[research/All Things Superintelligence Research - The Coming Manhattan Project - Moonshots - Reminder and Wiki Preparation|Reminder and Wiki Preparation]] records candidate 40, its mechanism, evidence posture, and misreading risks. ## Related Articles and Collections - **Collection:** [[collections/Simple Reminders|Simple Reminders]] - **Collection:** [[collections/Machine Succession|Machine Succession]] - **Wiki source hub:** [[wiki/Moonshots - The Coming Manhattan Project|Moonshots — The Coming Manhattan Project]] ## Related Topics - [[wiki/Salim Ismail|Salim Ismail]] - [[wiki/Human Agency|Human Agency]] - [[wiki/Artificial Intelligence|Artificial Intelligence]] - [[wiki/Organizational Singularity|Organizational Singularity]] ## Share on Social Media ``` When intelligence becomes cheap, human experience, judgment, purpose, and trust become scarce. Civilization stops optimizing only for intelligence and must learn to optimize what intelligence is pointed at. — Adapted from Salim Ismail, Moonshots, October 7, 2026 https://bryantmcgill.com/simple-reminders-salim-ismail-cheap-intelligence-makes-judgment-purpose-experience-and-trust-scarce ```