The case for embracing AI’s inhumanity

Hello again, and welcome once again to Fast Company’s Plugged In. “What we are building is your second brain, your aide, your consigliere, your reliable chief of staff in your pocket.” That was Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman telling me what he was working on way back in early 2025—a lifetime ago in AI years. The consumer version of the company’s Copilot assistant, he said, would “have its own personality, and really be your sidekick.” He was speaking at an off-site for his team, where I glimpsed a work-in-progress animated manifestation of Copilot in the form of a bouncy critter that looked like it might have been made of Flubber. Later that year, Microsoft released it under the name Mico. Fast-forward to last week, when Suleyman published a thoughtful 5,700-word essay on his personal website. Its point: Artificial intelligence does not, in fact, have human traits such as a personality. “AIs are not conscious,” he wrote. “They do not feel, experience, or suffer. They do not have innate preferences or underlying motivations. They are sequence completion engines, internally hollow, designed to follow instructions and accomplish goals set by humans.” The two moments were not in ba…