Developments in technology in recent years have awakened two feelings at once: admiration and anxiety. Systems that can write texts, create images, translate and generate code within seconds are genuinely astonishing. Yet those same developments are also magnifying a question, especially in the minds of young people: “If machines will do many things better than we can, what place will remain for us?”

This is not the first time humanity has experienced such fear. When the steam engine appeared, people thought physical strength would become redundant; when computers became widespread, they feared that certain professions would disappear. The difference today is that the issue is no longer confined to physical labour. This time, machines can also perform some human intellectual activities.

The subject therefore extends beyond an economic debate and becomes a deeper question: What was it that made us valuable?

When we look at the Qur’anic account of the Prophet Adam from this perspective, a striking scene emerges. When Almighty God declares that He will place a vicegerent on the earth, the angels point to the possibility that human beings will cause corruption and shed blood. At first glance, their question seems reasonable. The angels worship, do not rebel and do not err. The human being, by contrast, appears upon the very scene of creation together with his weaknesses.

Yet Almighty God points to a truth they cannot see: “Indeed, I know what you do not know.” Adam is then taught the Divine Names (al-asmā'). When the angels are unable to name them, what distinguishes the human being becomes visible.1 The measure of superiority here is not power, flawlessness or worship alone; it is knowledge. Yet this knowledge is not a dry accumulation of information.

In the Risale-i Nur, the teaching of the Names (ta‘lim al-asma’) is understood together with the human potential that opens onto every science, art and discovery. The human being was created with the capacity to read the universe, discover the relationships among things and perceive the meanings within existence.

The human story, then, does not consist merely of learning. The human being is also a being who makes sense of what he learns.

Today, artificial intelligence can access within seconds information distilled from millions of texts. It can process in a very short time much of the knowledge that people acquire through years of reading. This produces a sense of inadequacy in some people, because we have long been accustomed to measuring worth by knowledge. We assumed that the person who knew more was more valuable.

The Qur’anic scene, however, points elsewhere. What elevates the human being is not merely possessing knowledge, but being able to transform knowledge into meaning.

When physicians look at the human body, they do not see organs alone. When astronomers look at the sky, they do not merely count stars. When people look at bread, they do not simply calculate carbohydrates. Things are read not only through their material properties, but also through the meanings to which they point. An unseen distance lies between information and meaning. It is often within that distance that the human being becomes truly human.

The outcome of the teaching of the Names becomes visible here. As human beings learn the names, they come to know things. As they come to know things, they begin to read the universe. As they read the universe, they turn towards the One to whom those names belong. What we call ma‘rifatullah—knowledge of God—is, in one sense, a journey of this kind.

This is precisely where human beings in the age of artificial intelligence must turn and look at themselves anew. Machines can calculate, write texts, process data and surpass us in certain fields. But were these things alone what made us human?

When we return to the scene recounted at the beginning of the Qur’an, the question still stands before us: Was human worth hidden in how much we knew, or in our ability to find, within what we knew, paths leading to our Lord?