Stone-Age Behavior Meets Godlike Technology

Credit to: Mini Philosophy
The biologist Edward Wilson argued that humanity has Paleolithic emotions, Medieval institutions, and Godlike technology. I think that combination explains why we feel so unstable as a species. Our tools have outgrown both our psychology and our systems.

Toby Ord, author of The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity, argues that the problem is not theoretical but existential. For hundreds of thousands of years, humans were relatively powerless yet safe. We could harm one another but not the planet itself. Now, a single keystroke or algorithmic decision can trigger consequences far beyond any tribe’s imagination. Yet our bureaucracies still seem to move at the speed of dial-up internet, and our brains still chase gossip, dominance, dogmatic blind belief, and revenge.

Ord’s point isn’t that people are evil; it’s that our instincts and institutions haven’t evolved to match our power. In the workplace, this same mismatch shows up every day. Teams equipped with modern collaboration tools still rely on ancient emotional wiring – dogma, defensiveness, and the “I am right, you are wrong” reflex.

That’s why I created SpatzAI. It’s a behavioral system designed to upgrade our emotional operating system (OS) before our technologies run away with us. The idea is simple: when a team member senses especially overly dogmatic or unfair behavior, they can issue a verbal 1. Caution, politely and in real-time. If ignored, they can up the ante using the SpatzChat app to 2. Objection, signaling the issue is escalating. If still unresolved, they can issue a 3. Stop, automatically posting their spat on the Spatz Team and AI Review platform, – STAIR – and inviting the team and AI to review the behavior transparently together.

I believe that this is how species-level wisdom begins, through structured micro-corrections at the human level. Fair systems for small teams may serve as a prototype for fair systems for humanity.

Maybe I’m wrong, but I think learning to object to dogmatic blind belief safely, could be the next evolutionary step in aligning our Paleolithic emotions with our Godlike tools.