What Comes After Power?
The Value of Values
Fidji Simo, now leading OpenAI’s consumer products division, recently laid out a sweeping vision for artificial intelligence. She described AI as the most powerful tool for human empowerment the world has ever seen. In her words, “AI can give everyone more power than ever before,” with the potential to transform education, expand access to healthcare, boost creativity, and improve economic opportunity for millions of people (OpenAI, 2025).
It is a bold and hopeful message. It points to a promising future for curious, driven people who ask the right questions or are ready to learn how.
But it leaves something out.
Simo, like many leaders in the tech world, focuses on what AI can do—how fast it can make things, how far it can reach, how much it can produce. What she does not fully address is what AI should do, or who gets to decide. The conversation is centered on outcomes, not values. We are building systems that shape everything from classrooms to hospitals, but we have not agreed on what they should serve or who they should serve best.
At the same time, in a recent essay for The Atlantic, David Brooks argued that American culture is suffering from a breakdown in shared moral understanding. He writes that we once had a clearer sense of what was right and wrong, shaped by institutions like families, schools, religious communities, and civic groups. Today, many of those institutions have weakened or fractured. In their place, we often find confusion, mistrust, and a public square where people talk past one another instead of working things out together (Brooks, 2025).
These two ideas—rapid technological growth without moral direction, and cultural drift without shared values—are not unrelated. They describe different parts of the same challenge. We are gaining tools at incredible speed, but we are losing the deeper framework that helps us decide how those tools should be used. The question is not just whether we can build something, but whether we still know why we’re building it in the first place.
What’s missing is a serious, public conversation about values.
Not vague slogans or polished brand statements, but clear ideas we can name, debate, agree on, and actually apply. These values need to shape how we build technology, how we teach in schools, how we govern institutions, and how we live together.
We could start with a few that still carry broad meaning.
Responsibility means owning the impact of your choices, even when the results are unintended. If you build or lead something powerful, you should be accountable for what it does.
Honesty means telling the truth, especially when it is uncomfortable. It requires clear language, real transparency, and a refusal to hide behind spin.
Fairness means designing systems that do not give extra advantages to people who already hold power. Everyone should have a real chance, not just a theoretical one.
Stewardship means recognizing that power, resources, and knowledge are not just yours to use. They are held in trust—for others, and for the future.
Humility means being open to feedback and willing to revise your thinking. It means knowing you are not always right, especially when your choices affect people you do not see.
But naming values is just a beginning. They have to be defined in public, not left to private platforms or elite committees. They must be built into laws, policies, and product designs. They have to be taught not just in classrooms, but in workplaces, governments, and everyday decisions. And they must be backed up with clear consequences when they are ignored or violated.
This is not quick work. It is not flashy. It will not go viral or draw crowds. But without it, we will keep expanding our tools while shrinking our ability to guide them wisely. The gap between what we can build and what we are morally ready to manage will only grow wider.
I do not know exactly how we begin to fix this.
There is no single group in charge and no easy path forward. What there is, however, is a growing number of people who feel the tension between power and purpose. Many of us are starting to ask the same questions. If we want our systems—whether in technology, government, education, or daily life—to reflect something more than speed and profit, then we have to name what that something is. We have to say it out loud, together, and build it into the decisions we make.
This is not a technical challenge. It is a human one. Whether we choose to face it or keep drifting will tell us what we truly value, more clearly than any words ever could.
Sources
Simo, Fidji. “AI as the Greatest Source of Empowerment for All.” OpenAI. July 21, 2025. https://openai.com/index/ai-as-the-greatest-source-of-empowerment-for-all
Brooks, David. “Why Do So Many People Think Trump Is Good?” The Atlantic. July 2025.https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/07/trump-administration-supporters-good