If a society is held back primarily by lack of information-processing, then more intelligence helps. If it is held back primarily by failures of will, judgment, and institutional integrity, then more intelligence does not help — and may concentrate power further.
Hank Green’s claim, verbatim: “perhaps we have been moving throughout my lifetime from a world that was intelligence constrained to one that is wisdom constrained. Perhaps that transition started a while back, but we are in the midst of it still.”
This reframes what AI is for. Pumping intelligence into an intelligence-constrained world produces obvious gains. Pumping intelligence into a wisdom-constrained world has unpredictable effects: it might help, it might concentrate power among those already routing around wisdom, it might do both at once.
Pastoral application: when working with people, ministries, or institutions, ask which constraint is actually binding. A leader struggling with a relational pattern almost never needs more information — they need wisdom they have not yet built. Adding intelligence (more frameworks, more diagnostics, more advice) into a wisdom-constrained situation tends to produce sophistication rather than change. See 2026-04-08-asking-questions-earns-the-right-to-advise for the corresponding pastoral discipline.