**The Weak Link of AI — and Its Hidden Strength:
Why Modeling Human Personalities May Be the Next Great Leap**
Inspired by a suggestion from Dr. Joaquim Sá Couto
Modern artificial intelligence has achieved remarkable feats of computation, language modeling, and information retrieval. Yet it stumbles, often clumsily, in the very domain that defines our humanity: the formation of value judgments. Logical reasoning the machine possesses; moral intuition it does not. And this gap, increasingly visible, explains a paradox that many users notice immediately: AI can generate flawless text, but it cannot take a stand.
This reflection was sparked by a suggestion from Dr. Joaquim Sá Couto, who proposed a strikingly simple but powerful idea: instead of forcing AI into a false neutrality, we should allow it to model the personalities and perspectives of notable thinkers, past and present. This insight opens a new conceptual doorway.
AI lacks what every human brings to thought: a nature.
1. Why AI Struggles with Value Judgments
Human moral judgment emerges from an intricate mixture of:
biological intuitions shaped by evolution (repulsion, empathy, fear, fairness);
lived experience, marked by loss, responsibility, and conflict;
cultural narrative, internalized through stories, rituals, memory, and identity.
AI has none of these.
It does not recoil, it does not feel awe, it does not mourn, it does not hope. It calculates. It simulates. It correlates.
Thus, confronted with moral or cultural questions, AI tends to:
avoid firm positions for fear of appearing biased,
flatten nuance into neutral abstractions,
slide into relativism, pretending that all practices and values are equal.
A system without human nature inevitably produces answers without human gravity.
2. A Path Forward: Modeling Human Perspectives
Here Dr. Sá Couto’s contribution becomes pivotal.
Instead of asking a machine to speak in a voice it does not possess, we can ask it to speak in voices it can model.
This means building AI not as a single neutral oracle, but as a constellation of perspectives, each inspired by a recognizable moral and intellectual tradition.
Imagine asking:
“What would Thomas Jefferson argue about individual liberty today?”
“How would Martin Luther King, Jr. interpret present-day geopolitical tensions?”
“What is Camus’ view on technological alienation?”
These are not fantasies. They are computationally achievable personae grounded in:
historical writings,
philosophical systems,
documented speeches,
stable moral worldviews.
Such perspectives would not be “correct” in any absolute sense — but they would be coherent, anchored, and humanly intelligible.
3. Beyond Historical Figures: A New Market for Licensed Personalities
The idea does not end with history.
Living thinkers, writers, scientists, coaches, or intellectuals could license their “cognitive style” to be modeled by AI:
tone of voice,
values,
argumentative structures,
priorities,
areas of expertise.
This could create a new cultural ecosystem:
users choosing which moral or philosophical lens they prefer,
creators being compensated for licensing their intellectual persona,
AI acting not as a single voice, but as a platform for plurality.
Instead of one timid, neutral intelligence, we would have many bold, distinct minds — or at least their computational shadows.
4. The Return of Contrast and Moral Courage
Such a system would restore something the current generation of AI struggles to deliver: contrast.
Contrast between:
liberty and equality,
individualism and collectivism,
spiritual and material perspectives,
progressive and conservative values,
tragic and optimistic worldviews.
Humans think in tensions — in oppositions.
AI tries to avoid all oppositions, and therefore loses the capacity to sound human.
By modeling diverse personalities, AI would regain what neutrality erases:
the courage of perspective.
5. Conclusion: Human Nature as AI’s Missing Compass
With thanks to Dr. Joaquim Sá Couto for the originating idea
AI’s weak link is undeniable:
It lacks the human nature that grounds moral judgment.
But instead of forcing AI to invent a morality of its own, we can ask it to channel the moralities that humanity has already articulated — through its great thinkers, creators, and leaders.
This is the hidden strength:
AI can model personalities even if it cannot embody a person.
By offering a gallery of contrasting perspectives — historical or contemporary, licensed or reconstructed — AI could transcend neutrality and become something far more useful:
a tool not that replaces human judgment, but that illuminates it through plurality.
In this vision, AI does not give us one answer.
It gives us choice.
And from contrast, clarity emerges.