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In the first segment of a two-part Revealing Men series on how men will adjust to the advance of artificial general intelligence (AGI)*, Randy Flood, director and co-founder of the Men’s Resource Center, describes what happens when “technology starts outperforming men physically, mentally, and cognitively.” In a world where masculinity has been “equated with utility,” the rise of AGI, he says, “can become like an existential crisis.” Looking through the lens of decades of clinical experience, and speaking directly to listeners, Flood addresses how our ideals of masculinity will need a reset if we want to preserve our humanity.
In the second segment [not yet available], Flood shares a conversation about AGI, men, and intimacy with Dr. Simon Fokt, PhD, a philosopher and lecturer at HTW Berlin.
This transcript is from the first segment and is edited for length and clarity.
The Revealing Men podcasts are available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher.
What Will AGI Take Away?
A few months ago, I was sitting with a man in my office — a professional in his early 40s. Bright. Capable. Successful. The kind of guy everyone thinks has it together. He finally looked at me and said:
“Randy, I’m worried AI is about to do my job better than me.” He wasn’t talking about a layoff. He was talking about an identity collapse.
‘I’ve always been one of the smartest persons in the room. That’s who I am. But now I’m in competition with something that doesn’t sleep, doesn’t make mistakes, and doesn’t get overwhelmed. So, what does that make me?’
I was taken aback. I sat with the silence, (which I try to do and model that it’s okay). Eventually, I told him ‘It makes you human. And that’s the one thing AI can’t be.’
But here’s the thing: that didn’t reassure him.
AGI: The Ultimate Stoic Male
For centuries, we have been building machines that replace men’s bodies. In many places, we replaced the value of men’s physical strength with machines (the plow, engine, industrial machinery, robotics, automation).
And, while we still have jobs that require strength and stamina—roofers, builders, farmers—those jobs continue to get tools that lessen the load. We don’t swing as many hammers; we pull the trigger of a nail gun. We don’t dig as many ditches; we drive the ditch digger.
And now, we’re building machines that don’t replace the body, they replace the mind. Everything that once defined the “smart man,” e.g., strategy, problem-solving, mastery, technical brilliance, etc., is being absorbed by AGI. What used to take a brilliant young associate weeks can now be done in minutes. What took experts months can be solved in seconds.
This is our modern Frankenstein: A creation designed to help us, now making us question who we are.
This is not science fiction. This is the psychological reality of masculinity in 2025.
You can feel it in the culture. You hear it in men’s anxieties: ‘What am I good for? What do I offer? What’s left of me if AI can do everything I was trained to do?’
Masculinity’s Next Evolution
Our society has defined men by two things: the power of the body and the power of the mind. But if machines outperform both, then what remains?
What remains, ironically, I think, is the part of the self that men were never encouraged to develop: emotional intelligence, empathy, connection, vulnerability, relational depth, spirituality, and soul.
These are the survivors. The last human territories.
If machines can do everything we labeled masculine, then masculinity’s next evolution is rediscovering the heart and the soul. This may be the only part of humanity that cannot be automated.
Creating a Roadmap for Men’s Humanity
Years ago, I ran domestic abuse intervention groups. These were good men, but they struggled with harmful behaviors.
When you peel back their behaviors, you see the same pattern—and often. They don’t know how to relate intimately or feel emotionally. Anger, sure. Control. Yep. Fixing problems? Oh, yeah. Absolutely. But shame, vulnerability, insecurities, fear, loneliness, grief? They had no roadmap for that. It was never introduced to them. That was the inner life.
And when men have no emotional roadmap, what do they default to? Power. Logic. Control. Dominance. That’s when men become dangerous. Not because they’re strong, but because they’re emotionally disconnected. They’re fearful and anxious, but often deny it (because that’s unmanly), and don’t know how to talk about it. So, they are at risk of acting it out and hurting the people they love.
And this is exactly how we should think about AGI. It’s all capability, but no consciousness. All power, but no humanity.
Frankenstein vs. AGI
I remember reading Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. I was fascinated by that book. (If you’ve never read it, I highly recommend it. Talk about an 18-year-old who understood psychological and cognitive development without ever taking a class about it!)
Frankenstein felt shame. He felt longing, abandonment, and loneliness from his creators abandoning him. He felt the grief and eventually, rage about it. He suffered in deeply human ways.
But AGI does not feel. It doesn’t feel regret. It doesn’t feel empathy, shame, desire, guilt, hope, any kind of existential longing, no fear of death. It doesn’t wake up at three in the morning worrying about the future of its children. It doesn’t sit in shame over its past mistakes. It doesn’t love, or long, or ache, or hope. Only humans do that.
And as painful as those emotions are sometimes, they are the essence of our humanity. We can’t feel the height of joy if we can’t feel the depth of pain.
AGI can think, but it cannot care. And caring is our last line of defense.
Humanity Survives in Community
In his book, Humankind, Rutger Bregman revealed something profound: Humanity did not evolve just because we were the most ruthless. We did not survive just because we were the strongest. We did not dominate just because we were the smartest.
We survived, evolved, and thrived because we learned to cooperate. We could empathize. We know how to nurture and support each other. We built community. We could protect the vulnerable if we chose. We bonded as community members, created cities, communities, and villages.
Kindness, not just dominance, is what made humans the apex species. AGI can’t replicate that. It can mimic empathy. But, it still can’t feel. It’s really not empathy. This is something that some of us might struggle with, but the capacities we gendered as feminine may now be the most crucial for humanity’s survival. The thing is, these capacities are actually human, not necessarily [only] female. We are all born with the capacity to care, empathize, feel, and relate. And yet, in the old gender binary (that we’re still trying to deconstruct), males were not taught these capacities or often had them socialized out of them, in order to perform a more narrow view of masculinity.
“AI Will Free Us” is an Illusion of Ease
We’ve heard this promise before: The dishwasher would free us with more time. The washing machine would free us from having to go down to the river. Industrialization would give us more time for leisure and joy. And, the Internet and social media will help us connect and feel closer, less isolated and divided. But what did we get from all these solutions for more leisure and more time? We got tighter schedules, higher expectations, more anxiety, less presence, less peace, and now, more loneliness.
Humans inherently need challenge. We need friction. We need purpose. We don’t, at least I don’t, enjoy sitting on the beach just because it’s relaxing. I enjoy it because I earned it. It’s time to relax now. You know the phrase, “It’s Miller Time!”
When AGI says it will “free us,” be skeptical. When we lose struggle, we lose meaning. When we lose effort, we lose identity. So, the real question becomes: What gives our life meaning when machines do what we once did to feel purposeful?I think the answer is ‘our inner life.’
Will Humans Still Matter?
The machines that we’re creating are going to surpass our strength and our intelligence, our creativity, our productivity. But those machines cannot replace our conscience, our empathy, our ability to be relationally and emotionally intelligent, our moral reasoning, and just our overall inner life: grief, love, forgiveness, and our spiritual imagination and human ability to connect.
The future will not belong to the strongest or the smartest. It will belong to the most emotionally developed.
The New Human Calling
We live in a time when we can outsource almost everything: our tasks, our thinking, our planning, our creativity, our problem-solving. But there is one thing we cannot outsource. Our soul. Our heart. our inner life. That’s how we’re created. That’s what makes us unique from the animal kingdom.
No machine can love your child. No machine can heal your trauma. No machine can apologize with sincerity. No machine can wonder, or ache, marvel at existence, or the beauty of a sunset.
In a strange, unexpected way, AGI may be pushing us back home to the deepest parts of our humanity.
Our calling now is not to compete with AGI—good luck with that!—but to become the humans we were meant to be. To be empathetic, to be connected, to be emotionally intelligent, spiritually awake, relationally attuned, morally grounded, and soul-driven.
Machines don’t love. They don’t sacrifice. They don’t grieve. Machines don’t hope. Only we do.
Here’s the question I want to leave you with: If machines become stronger and smarter than us, can we become more human than we’ve ever been?
That is our work. That is our calling. And that is the future of men.
Creating a Better Future Together
For over 25 years, the Men’s Resource Center has been at the forefront of working with men to more fully develop their humanity. Our programs and support groups are designed to help them learn the skills needed for thriving in the 21st century. Through our counseling and consultative services, we support them in becoming accountable to their own emotions and the needs of others, building a foundation where men work in communities to create a strong and compassionate society.
If you are seeking a different path or support to face the challenges of today’s world, contact the Men’s Resource Center online or at (616) 456-1178.
*Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. Some companies aim to create artificial general intelligence (AGI) – AI that can complete virtually any cognitive task at least as well as a human. – Wikipedia
