What it Means to Be Human in the AI Age

As thinking and creativity are increasingly being delegated to AI, algorithms are essentially shaping our sense of reality and conditioning how we think.

Modern-day Existential Crisis: What happens to humanity as AI turns eerily 'human'? Image Credit: Vecteezy

The question on what it means to be human has become an existential quandary of modern times, as machine intelligence is attaining superior cognitive power. In just a few years, artificial intelligence (AI) has acquired uniquely human traits. The technology is quickly inching toward becoming an entity indispensable to how individuals and communities’ function. As AI turns increasingly ‘human’, it is fundamentally transforming how human beings think, solve problems and create.  

The human brain with all its complexity and reasoning abilities is regarded as a masterpiece of evolution. The mere ability to rationalize, draw from lived experiences and solve problems have set human beings apart as a superior being from the rest. Above all, the ability to create value, whether it be through art, literature or innovation is something innately human. This act of creating has satisfied existential concerns since time immemorial.

The Schumpeterian notion of creative destruction has heavily shaped prevailing perceptions on AI and consequences for humanity. While creating new opportunities, new technologies or techniques would also wipe out its predecessors and destroy jobs in the process. Elsewhere, it has been hypothesized that AI would eventually wipe out humanity, much like the Terminator.

Proposed by Austrian economist, Josef Schumpeter in 1942, creative destruction pertains to innovation and the paradox of progress. The advent of new technologies while creating opportunities for progress, destroy existing modes of production and occupations.

However, the biggest threat from AI is to the MIND itself. As thinking and creativity are increasingly being delegated to AI, algorithms are essentially shaping our sense of reality and conditioning the act of thinking.

AI is Rewiring the Human Brain

According to Rene Descartes’ 17^th Century dictum, “Cogito Ergo Sum”, the fact that an individual thinks essentially proves they exist. Thinking is what creates awareness of the internal self, as relative to the external. In biological terms, thinking also evolves in relation to external stimuli including technological change.

Throughout history, the advent of new techniques and technologies, ranging from writing to television, have altered human cognition. The human brain has coped by rewiring its capabilities, often at the cost of others. For instance, as humans became literate, the brain compromised by reducing its face-recognition capability from the left hemisphere. Once important matters could be written down and recorded, the brain also reduced its ability to retain information.

As thinking gets delegated to AI, neural pathways set for problem-solving through first-hand assessment are increasingly being redirected toward delegation and oversight. The brain’s new workflow now consists of cognitive processes that are being fed by instantaneous machine-generated input, as opposed to lived experiences and conventional wisdom. In turn, this limits human beings’ ability to validate and acquire knowledge independent from predictive algorithms.

As AI becomes the very lens through which perceptions of the world are formed, the technology is mediating the interaction between the internal and the external. With AI becoming a dominant framework for problem-solving, thinking gets detached from reality. The price may be paid by the brain’s innate sense of situational awareness.

What of Creativity?

March 2025 witnessed the Ghibli takeover of the internet. Behind the scenes was an image generation update implemented by ChatGPT. Through the simple act of prompting, millions of ChatGPT users gained the power to reimagine themselves in the Ghibli Studios world. In one sense, the marvel of AI, made art less mythical and accessible to all.

However, in another sense, it corrupted the spirituality and sanctity of the artistic process. Each of Ghibli studio’s movies for instance, have 24 frames per second – taking 192 days to complete by an artist working 8-hour shifts. Art in this way is the fruit of hard-earned labour achieved through the artists’ own sacrifices.

Devoid of this artistic process itself, art becomes commonplace, imitable and meaningless. In the words of famous American science fiction writer, Ted Chiang, “AI ‘art’ abdicates the thousands of ‘choices’ inherent in artistic agency”.

Somewhere, creativity, an output achieved through trials, errors and course correction is the last bastion of humanity.

Moreover, AI’s increasing hand in creative processes is leading to largescale homogenization. Even where AI-human teams work together in combinations geared toward improving efficiency, ideas across domains are growing increasingly similar to each other.

This is essentially a manifestation of a fundamental shift in how humanity engages with creativity itself. Instead of making diverse errors and resolving them using unique context specific solutions, humanity is slowly being programmed to follow an AI-given DIY guide.

An Evolving Counterculture

Globally, there appears to be a counterculture evolving to the great AI takeover of the cognitive sphere. This counterculture is not anti-AI in itself, but seeks to counter threats to artistic freedom and artists’ livelihood.

A central demand that the Writer’s Guild of America, a collective of Hollywood scriptwriters, made to producers during the infamous 2023 strike, had to do with AI not controlling the writing process – a stipulation that the big production houses had to agree with. More recently, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced that only movies in which the acting and writing was done entirely by humans would be considered for the Oscars.

There were several who applauded when American comedian/actor Seth Rogen stated recently, “if your instinct is to use AI and not go through that process. You shouldn’t be a writer. Because you’re not writing.”

Somewhere, creativity, an output achieved through trials, errors and course correction is the last bastion of humanity in an age where it is preparing to take the next big leap. Surviving what AI does to it would require humanity to think away from the algorithm and hold on to the ability to think outside the (AI) box.

Experiencing the real world with all its variables, rather than through AI’s eyes, is what shall power the indomitable spirit of human ingenuity. This is also what it shall take to find and cling on to the idea of being human in the AI era.

Disclaimer: The article expresses the author’s views on the matter and do not reflect the opinions and beliefs of any institution they belong to or of Trivium Think Tank and the StraTechos website.

Anupama Vijayakumar

Anupama is the Director (Research) of Trivium Think Tank, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India. She is also the Editor of the StraTechos website.