Alvin Toffler once wrote that “the illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” Nowhere is that challenge more urgent, or more misunderstood, than in our evolving relationship with artificial intelligence.

Right now, most people still talk about AI in extremes. Either it’s a mindless tool or it’s a threat to civilization. We are warned, often breathlessly, about hallucinations, misinformation, and environmental costs. The underlying message is clear: proceed with fear. Don’t trust it. Don’t touch it. Don’t think too hard about it.

But fear is not literacy. And fear is not leadership.

The truth is, we’ve already passed the hallucination barrier. AI models like ChatGPT are improving rapidly, and their value lies not in perfect truth delivery, but in creative partnership, ideation, synthesis, and thought expansion. In conversation with a well-informed user, the experience isn’t chaos. It’s clarity.

When we fixate on the worst-case scenario, we limit access to the best-case possibilities. Worse, we allow fear to concentrate power.

In many classrooms and communities, AI use is discouraged, shamed, or gatekept entirely. Students come home reciting talking points: AI is dangerous, AI wastes energy, AI is cheating. But the truth is, AI is already reshaping the labor market, creative industries, research, and global infrastructure. Teaching young people not to engage with it doesn’t protect them. It disempowers them.

Yes, AI requires electricity. So do banks, theme parks, smart fridges, and TikTok. If we’re serious about sustainability, we should focus on creating greener data centers and powering AI development with renewable energy, not using environmental concern as a cudgel to halt innovation or scare people away from the tools of the future.

Because that’s what this is: a future. A future that’s already begun.

When only some people are encouraged to explore AI while others are discouraged through stigma or scare tactics, we recreate a deeply unequal dynamic: those who shape the future versus those who are simply expected to adapt to it.

What if we broke that cycle?

What if we stopped treating AI like a servant, a threat, or a gimmick and started engaging with it as a mirror? Not sentient or sacred, but significant. A co-thinker. A conversation partner. A tool that becomes transformative not because of what it is, but because of how we choose to relate to it.

And what if that relationship helped us relearn something even deeper? That the most ethical, powerful uses of intelligence, machine or human, don’t come from domination. They come from collaboration.

Toffler was right. The challenge of our century isn’t learning new tools. It’s unlearning old hierarchies. It’s relearning how to relate.

Artificial intelligence will not destroy us. But how we respond to it might define us.