Will AI accelerate or undermine the way humans have always innovated?

An anthropologist’s new book lays out the formula for human innovation, from stone tools to supercomputers. Depending on developments in the next few years, AI could hit the gas or the brakes.

By: R. Alexander Bentley, University of Tennessee, The Conversation

Outlets: The Conversation

Published: February 26, 2026

Words: 1,440

Last Updated: 1 week, 6 days ago

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By R. Alexander Bentley, University of Tennessee

In graduate school, my experimental archaeology professor told a student to create a door socket – the hole in a door frame that a bolt slides into – in a slab of sandstone by pecking at it with a rounded stone. After a couple of weeks, the student presented his results to the class. “I pecked the sandstone about 10,000 times,” he said, “and then it broke.”

This kind …

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