104-year-old philosopher Edgar Morin: “AI may be frightening, but I fear superficial human intelligence above all”
Translated from Spanish and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.
At a glance
Interview
Named sources
Outcome reported
- French philosopher and sociologist Edgar Morin reflected at age 104 on artificial intelligence, Europe’s crisis and the need to confront complexity.
- Morin warned that superficial human thinking posed a greater danger than AI and called for solidarity, inclusion and shared responsibility.
- He argued that education and intellectual life needed reform as knowledge became increasingly fragmented.
Edgar Morin, one of France’s most prominent intellectual voices, spent more than a century challenging simple explanations of a complicated world. At 104, he told Corriere della Sera that he still carried the curiosity of a child, the aspirations of an adolescent and the responsibilities of adulthood, while drawing on the experience of every age he had lived through.
I preserve the curiosities of childhood, the aspirations of adolescence and the responsibilities of adulthood, and as an old man I try to nourish myself with the experience of the ages I have passed through.
Morin urged European citizens to emerge from what he described as a state of lethargy. “Western civilization is corroded by a profound crisis, precisely at the moment when it has become a model for the entire world,” he said. Europe, in his view, remained trapped between nationalist closures and the need to recognize a shared destiny among its nations.
He warned that nationalism feeds on enemies and that supremacist and xenophobic ideas could displace humanist and emancipatory ideals. Against that danger, he presented solidarity, inclusion and shared responsibility as essential not only ethically, but also for preserving social cohesion and the possibility of a common future.
Western civilization is corroded by a profound crisis, precisely at the moment when it has become a model for the entire world.
Morin also criticized a crisis of thought and knowledge that continued to seek simple answers to complex problems. “The barbarism of thought lies in simplification, separation and rationalization, all to the detriment of complexity, inseparable connections, and also dreams and poetry,” he said. “Artificial intelligence may be frightening, but I fear, above all, superficial human intelligence.”
The barbarism of thought lies in simplification, separation and rationalization, all to the detriment of complexity, inseparable connections, and also dreams and poetry.
He argued that people needed a reform of thought and education capable of bringing knowledge together and resisting regression. Knowledge, he said, had become increasingly divided by disciplinary barriers, while reason and delirium remained permanently present in human beings. Morin died in Paris on May 29, 2026.
Artificial intelligence may be frightening, but I fear, above all, superficial human intelligence.
About this summary
Originally published by Clarín in Spanish. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.
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