It’s a remarkable promise: any idea we have can now become a technological reality through artificial intelligence. What’s truly new is this: we no longer need to master programming languages — our everyday language is enough to control programs and digital agents.
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, describes this vision on his blog as follows:
“We — the whole industry, not just OpenAI — are building a brain for the world. It will be deeply personalized and easy for anyone to use. Good ideas will define our limits. For a long time, ‘idea people’ — those without technical know-how — were laughed at in the startup scene. But to me, it looks like their big moment is coming.”
Altman doesn’t naively believe in a techno-utopian future. He thinks in extremes, exploring both the light and dark sides of technological progress. In this way, he resembles a modern-day Faust: a pioneer driven by an insatiable thirst for knowledge, stepping into the unknown — not recklessly, but with the hope that progress is better than stagnation. At the same time, he invests in visionary projects like nuclear fusion and biotechnology.
At an event hosted by the U.S. Federal Reserve in July (video), Altman was asked what keeps him up at night. His answers were striking:
This points to the central question of our time: How — if at all — can we control the dynamics of technology?
A philosophical term is re-emerging in this context: wisdom. Modern neo-Stoicism, for example, advocates calmness and self-discipline in the face of technological disruption. Rooted in ancient Greek philosophy, it doesn’t view AI as a threat, but as part of a changing world. The Stoic mindset calls for inner moderation: technology must not become the measure of humanity — rather, we must preserve our mental and moral autonomy in the face of it.
Against this backdrop, we ask: What role will AI play in the future of travel?
More and more platforms now offer personalized travel planning powered by AI. Everything is becoming easier: planning, booking, and finding destinations. But one question remains that often goes unasked: What is the real meaning of travel?
Much of today’s travel content suffers from being superficial — fast, interchangeable, designed for the masses. The same phrases dominate again and again: “The 10 best beaches…,” “Top postcard spots…,” “Must-see cities…” But these often fail to address the deeper why behind travel.
We aim to explore new paths that combine high-quality travel content with AI tools — without losing sight of what travel is truly about. Travel content is only authentic when it communicates real experiences and genuine insights. And if Sam Altman’s vision holds true, it may soon be possible for us to bring exactly these kinds of ideas to life — with the help of technology.
(Read the original article in German.)
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I’m deeply interested in the philosophy of travel. My concern is that, amid all the fascination with AI, the quality of travel content might decline. So the real question is: What is the true meaning of travel? And how can we develop AI-supported travel platforms that offer more than just superficial tips and generic recommendations? Thinking about business models....
Hi Andreas, thanks for joining the Travel Massive community and sharing your discussion here.
We've been tracking the impact of AI in travel for a few years now (see our #AI topic). There's two camps on this in terms of the content creation space:
• "AI stole my content:" LLMs have trained on a blogger's hard work to visit and report on a destination is now being regurgitated into chatgpt itinerary planners and AI-snippets with little to zero reference to the person who discovered and shared that knowledge. In my view, this is a form of IP theft and only large publishers such as the NY Times can fight this. For the rest of us, the tech establishment is coming for your content. The only way around this is paywalls to prevent agents.
• "AI is great / AI is helping me make money": The same kind of AI models as above are being used to improve advertising offers on blogs and website and increase conversion rates. This is helping bloggers generate income, in an ever increasing online world with more content and competition.
The interesting thing is that I don't believe both camps are mutually exclusive. I for one, believe in both the above statements. And this has left me wondering for a good while about how I can feel so strongly about two things that are seemingly at odds with each other.
If you zoom out, it's a bit easier to rationalise the paradigm shift going on from the customer's perspective. People want answers to things to make decisions. Travel has an infinite number of questions. So AI can (emphasis on "can") help people get answers to their travel questions.
The challenge is that LLMs are just statistically choosing the next word (or pixel in the case of images) and therefore statistically AI is going to make errors. This is infuriating for the "AI stole my content" camp because not only did AI steal their content, it often makes it worse!
Where I see AI working best in travel is to help do the "heavy lifting" of data analysis, connectivity and customer support behind the scenes, in what we call "the engine room" of travel. I believe there's a lot more opportunity in this space than the customer-facing "top of funnel" marketing. You're probably already benefiting from AI in your travels without knowing it - from faster passport controls, better handling of delays, or even new modes of transport such as self-driving taxis.
PS: Here's a few articles worth exploring:
Thank you for your response, Ian. I share your view technology is a topic beyond good and evil. It's also interesting to see ChatGPT’s response to my question about whether AI can assist in developing a lecture on Goethe’s Italian Journey. Goethe left behind a body of work spanning 30,000 pages. ChatGPT gives a genuinely intelligent answer to this question. Here is the unaltered transcript of the corresponding prompt:
• “Understanding” requires a subjective center. I analyze Goethe’s wisdom, but I do not become wiser through it.
• I do not research out of inner drive, but because I am prompted to. My “curiosity” is simulated, not real.
• Wisdom arises through deliberation in existential contexts. I can imitate these contexts, but never experience them.
In any case, it would be great if we could continue analyzing this topic! Thanks for the links!