Academician Ion Tighineanu, President of the Academy of Sciences of Moldova: “Let Us Save the Blue Planet and Human Thinking”

In an article published in Făclia newspaper, Acad. Ion Tighineanu warns that artificial intelligence, while promising progress, must not replace human thinking, but serve it.

SUMMARY

Academician Ion Tighineanu, President of the Academy of Sciences of Moldova and member of the International Science Council, signs an article in Făclia newspaper warning about the risk of artificial intelligence becoming a substitute for human thinking, rather than just a tool for it. The author calls for international cooperation, clear ethical rules, and public responsibility, stressing that the true challenge of the 21st century is not purely technological, but profoundly human.

“Everyone today speaks about artificial intelligence: about its spectacular development, the advantages it offers, the risks it entails, and the impact it will have on human activity. However, we speak much less about human intelligence – the one that actually created artificial intelligence – and about how it will develop in an information environment increasingly dominated by technologies capable of generating texts, images, ideas, and even decisions.

The first quarter of the 21st century has brought unprecedented transformations. Information technologies have become an indispensable part of daily life, and smart devices accompany us everywhere. Artificial intelligence promises to boost economic efficiency, accelerate research, improve medical diagnostics, and help solve complex societal problems. At the same time, this technological acceleration forces us to look lucidly toward the future and ask ourselves: will humans remain the masters of the technology they created, or will they gradually become dependent on it?

In 1992, approximately 1,700 scientists, including the majority of Nobel Prize laureates in sciences at the time, addressed humanity with a solemn warning: the human being and the natural world are on a collision course. A quarter of a century later, in 2017, over 15,000 researchers from 184 countries signed a second warning, drawing attention to environmental degradation, biodiversity loss, climate change, and unsustainable resource consumption. Their message was clear: to save the planet, humanity must change its behavior.

Today, without the environmental threats having disappeared, a new problem of civilizational importance is emerging: preserving the intellectual autonomy of the human being. If, a few decades ago, the brightest minds on Earth called us to save the Blue Planet – our common home – presently we must also turn our attention to its inhabitants, who are facing the risk of becoming excessively dependent on technology.

The danger does not come from the mere existence of artificial intelligence. Like any great achievement of science, it can serve progress or be used abusively. The risk appears when humans stop judging, verifying, asking questions, and taking responsibility for decisions. A technology that offers us immediate answers can become extremely useful, but also profoundly harmful if it causes us to lose the habit of seeking the truth on our own.

The most worrying signals are observed in education. If a pupil or student receives an essay, a problem solution, or a text interpretation from an automated system without traversing the path of understanding, they may obtain an apparently correct result, but they lose precisely the process through which the intellect is formed: the effort to analyze, compare, argue, make mistakes, and correct them. Critical thinking is not transmitted through a simple answer; it is built through exercise, creative doubt, and the confrontation of ideas.

Artificial intelligence must become a tool of education, not a substitute for thinking. It can extend human capabilities, but it must not diminish curiosity, discernment, and the power of creation. Otherwise, we will possess increasingly performant technologies, but people increasingly less prepared to understand, control, and establish their purpose.

Solutions are expected, of course, from the scientific community. Researchers must analyze not only the performance of artificial intelligence but also its consequences on cognitive development, education, culture, social relations, and individual freedom. But the problem is global and cannot be left exclusively to scientists or technology companies. We need international cooperation, clear ethical rules, public responsibility, and a permanent dialogue between researchers, teachers, cultural figures, authorities, and society.

The greatest challenge is not purely technological, but a profoundly human one: how do we direct progress so that artificial intelligence remains in the service of man and the common good? How do we use the power of new technologies without sacrificing freedom of thought? How do we prepare generations capable not only of using intelligent tools but also of understanding their limits and deciding responsibly when and for what purpose they should be used?

The future is not predetermined. It is built through the choices we make today. Only a society that values knowledge, truth, and intellectual freedom can transform technological progress into a force for human development.

Let us save, therefore, not only the Blue Planet – our common home, full of life and miracles – but also the Human capable of thinking freely and critically.“— Acad. Ion Tighineanu, Făclia, September 25, 2026

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