It is hard to process how quickly the world is changing. I think we all sense, to varying degrees, in some visceral part of our psyche that things just don’t feel the same, even if they may look it. And this is not just in terms of climate or political discourse but also in terms of human agency. With each passing year it seems the exponential rate of technological advancement floods our lives with new conveniences, possibilities, efficiencies, and distractions, which are as wonderful as they are frightening. Artificial intelligence is just the next and perhaps most consequential leap, and I cannot help asking myself why it feels so disruptive. And that is not to say that its arrival portends some dystopian future where humanity is enslaved by machines to save us from ourselves, but more that it feels like another wedge in an already fragmented world; disconnecting us further from each other and our surroundings. Moreover, it is another form of consciousness emerging in an already conscious world; one that has existed since time immemorial. One that has spent the last 3.8 billion years perfecting itself, and thrives in equal measure in the cells of our bodies as in the stars above. That being, of course, natural intelligence.