In domains as disparate as playing Go and predicting the structure of proteins, artificial intelligence (AI) technologies have begun to perform at levels beyond which any humans can achieve. Does this fact represent something lamentable? Does superhuman AI performance somehow undermine the value of human achievements in these areas? Go grandmaster Lee Sedol suggested as much when he announced his retirement from professional Go, blaming the advances of Go-playing programs like AlphaGo for sapping his will to play the game at a high level. In this paper, I attempt to make sense of Sedol’s lament. I consider a number of ways that the existence of superhuman-performing AI technologies could undermine the value of human achievements. I argue there is very little in the nature of the technology itself that warrants such despair. (Compare: does the existence of a fighter jet undermine the value of being the fastest human sprinter?) But I also argue there are several more localized domains where these technologies threaten to displace human beings from being able to achieve valuable things at all. This is a particular worry for those in unequal societies, I argue, given the difficulty of many achievements and the corresponding amount of resources needed to achieve great things.

在下围棋和预测蛋白质结构等不同领域，人工智能 (AI) 技术已经开始达到人类无法达到的水平。这个事实是否代表着一些可悲的事情？超人的人工智能性能是否会在某种程度上削弱人类在这些领域取得的成就的价值？围棋大师李世石在宣布退出职业围棋时也提出了同样的建议，他指责 AlphaGo 等围棋程序的进步削弱了他高水平围棋的意愿。在本文中，我试图理解世石的哀叹。我认为，超人类表现的人工智能技术的存在可能会通过多种方式削弱人类成就的价值。我认为，技术本身的本质并不值得如此绝望。（比较：战斗机的存在是否会削弱人类最快短跑运动员的价值？）但我也认为，在一些更局部的领域，这些技术可能会取代人类实现有价值的事情的能力。我认为，考虑到许多成就的难度以及实现伟大事业所需的相应资源量，这对于那些生活在不平等社会中的人来说尤其令人担忧。