Editorial Series

THE QUESTIONS GREAT MINDS WOULD ASK AI

We give history’s greatest minds access to the technology they never had — and ask what they might do with it.

What happens when the world’s most extraordinary thinkers meet the most powerful thinking tool of our time? Each essay in this series imagines a conversation between a historically significant mind and a modern AI system — not by pretending to know what they would literally say, but by asking the questions that emerge naturally from their work, their obsessions, their contradictions, and their worldview.

The questions are imaginative. The grounding is not: every essay stays anchored in what each thinker actually studied, argued, and cared about. Think of it as intellectual time travel — a thought experiment about how different kinds of intelligence would interrogate artificial intelligence.

Six minds · six definitions of intelligence

SocratesWhat do you actually know?
Isaac NewtonWhat law are we missing?
Albert EinsteinWhat is reality?
Steve JobsWhat should we build?
Leonardo da VinciWhat haven't we observed?
Richard FeynmanHow do you know?
Lionel MessiWhat am I seeing that nobody else sees?
Carl SaganWhat is humanity's place in the universe?
Alan TuringWhat does it mean to think?
Nikola TeslaWhat is physically possible?
AristotleWhat is worth doing?

In the series

What Would Albert Einstein Ask ChatGPT?If Albert Einstein were alive today, what would he ask ChatGPT? Explore 25 questions about physics, time, reality, consciousness, intelligence, and the future of AI.Aug 14, 20266 min readWhat Would Steve Jobs Ask ChatGPT?If Steve Jobs were alive today, what would he ask ChatGPT? Explore 25 questions about creativity, design, taste, simplicity, human potential, and what technology is actually for.Aug 14, 20267 min readWhat Would Leonardo da Vinci Ask AI?If Leonardo da Vinci were alive today, what would he ask an AI? Explore 25 questions about nature, invention, art, anatomy, machines, and observation.Aug 15, 20267 min readWhat Would Richard Feynman Ask ChatGPT?If Richard Feynman were alive today, what would he ask an AI? 25 questions about quantum mechanics, probability, scientific thinking, and the limits of knowledge.Aug 15, 20265 min readWhat Would Lionel Messi Ask ChatGPT?If Lionel Messi had an AI that could analyze every match in football history, what would he ask? 25 questions about instinct, creativity, pressure, and longevity.Aug 15, 20266 min readWhat Would Socrates Ask an AI?If Socrates were alive today, what would he ask an AI? 10 questions about knowledge, truth, wisdom, ignorance, persuasion, and what makes a life good.Aug 15, 20263 min readWhat Would Isaac Newton Ask ChatGPT?If Isaac Newton were alive today, what would he ask an AI? 10 questions about gravity, mathematics, space, time, light, and the hidden laws of nature.Aug 15, 20262 min readWhat Would Carl Sagan Ask ChatGPT?If Carl Sagan were alive today, what would he ask an AI? 10 questions about extraterrestrial life, consciousness, civilisation, and our place in the cosmos.Aug 15, 20263 min read

Coming next

What Would Alan Turing Ask ChatGPT?Intelligence, computation, consciousness, and the limits of artificial thought.
What Would Nikola Tesla Ask AI?Energy, invention, and what is physically possible but technologically neglected.
What Would Aristotle Ask an AI?Knowledge, virtue, happiness, and what civilization should optimize for.

And beyond: Darwin, Curie, Feynman, Lovelace, Socrates, Newton, Galileo, Sagan, Hawking…