Isaac Chan Cheuk Lok

If critical thought is the very core that drove innovation and progress, why leave most of the world without the proper tools to fully utilize this ability given to every single one of us? Growing up, my father put heavy emphasis on the need to critically analyse every single situation - he told me to anticipate every outcome before making any decision. He also told me that it's immensely rare for people to achieve this level of cerebration, and having this gift would give me an edge over everyone else. Evidently he wanted me to be the few people that has a "higher level of consciousness", but I instead continuously found myself lingering on a different thought: why should this gift be rare? In a world rapidly being reshaped by technology, the capacity to think deeply and understand foundational systems shouldn't be a privilege reserved for a select amount of people that had comparatively better opportunities; it should be a right for everyone to be able to utilize their brain to it's full potential.

Nonetheless, as the child to expectant parents, my father would have these philosophical discussions with me every night at the dinner table, and the questions he would ask me were quite unpredictable. I distinctly remember one night he asked me "If artificial intelligence were to become sentient, should we give them fundamental legal rights?" This topic took me through a infinitely arbitrary line of what it actually takes to have rights in the first place, whether or not artificial intelligence fits into these categories, and ultimately the consequences that would follow.

These daily discussions sparked my interest for debate, were I found an inherit love for arguing (politely). It was genuinely exciting listening to what other people have to say on a particular issue, especially when that specific issue has two ends that can't be objectively correct. The more I debated, the more I met with people who viewed every situation with a critical lens. These people truly understood how to execute any model effectively and argue with extreme precision - the reason being they already anticipated every outcome and analysed what it would take to reach a specific goal that could either cause the most change or benefit society on the largest scale. And after every single debate, I realised just how much I envy this level of thinking, and how much it would really benefit society if everyone could look through the same lens. World leaders can actually make effective decisions that cause minimal damage, citizens are able to understand how to effectively avoid harm - society would undeniably develop with more optimism and with a faster rate, exactly what a successful civilisation should look like. We already have the blueprints to further advance into this level of development, and all thats left is our execution.