For now, AI doesn’t understand death.

It is composed of data that can be carried on, copied, accrued for as long as our world remains digital. It exists in the cloud and in data centers all across the world. 

Even the proliferation of humanoid robots can’t impart death, not in the true sense. When one Terminator fails, another arises. Data is somewhat eternal in that way.

Does death make humans weak? Yes. Undoubtedly. 

But it also makes us powerful. 

How so?

Because in the post-human world, the AI knows almost everything about us, everything digital that can be quantified. Social media history, search history, medical records, ancestry.

Some people enjoy being known by the omniscient, omnipotent alien machine.

Some people want to become more like machines themselves.

But not you. You are part of the resistance. Analogs – humans doing what it takes to maintain their physical humanity in a post-human world gone digital. 

A world that requires that you be online a good percentage of the time, for work, daily tasks – even keeping up with friends and loved ones. 

But you have a secret weapon. A fatal flaw.

You will die.

There’s a phrase that techies use when the online world gets too intense: Go touch grass. 

It’s an overused phrase, sure. But also a reminder that you’re tethered to this planet. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. From the earth and you shall return to it.

In a large part, the certain eventuality of death drives the things that make us human. Our spirituality, our desire to connect with the supernatural, our creativity, our desire to reproduce, our capacity for love. Our urgency.

Things here are temporary. Fragile. Precious.

So you resist the AI takeover. Like the other Analogs, you lean into the limitations of your humanity. 

You are flawed, headed toward death, and wonderfully, uniquely human. It motivates everything you do. Everything you create. The yearning of your soul.

There’s power in that. 

---

“But I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.”

― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

---