Project Vision 21

It is profoundly unsettling—and offers little comfort—that, due to the current epidemic of epistemological loneliness, one must ask AI whether it is true that humans have become zombies. The very fact that such a question is valid, and that AI participates in the dialogue, already anticipates the answer.

The question itself encapsulates the essence of a world in which we are constantly connected yet feel increasingly alone and isolated (in an existential sense)—a world in which we can “reach” anyone, yet rarely feel truly in touch with another.

Dr. John Vervaeke, in his book Zombies in Western Culture, uses the figure of the zombie as a metaphor for our age because the zombie moves but does not live; it consumes but is never nourished; it imitates humanity but lacks an inner world. In other words, the zombie is a being that has lost the capacity to participate in meaning.

Indeed, that is precisely what many of us feel: life goes on (or seems to go on), but something essential within us has become motionless—lost.

Recently, I read a reflection on what it truly means to be in community—to feel seen, heard, and supported by others—and once again I understood how rare such moments have become.

Many of our “communities” resemble networks of survival more than spaces of belonging. We move endlessly through infinite updates, work with and among strangers, and sometimes even pray alone before a screen. Our breath, our hearts, and our attention seem captive to the speed of uncontested change.

And yet, here we are, still asking. The question “Am I still alive inside?” is not a sign of hopelessness but the beginning of an existential resurrection—a reunion with ourselves. The zombie cannot ask about the meaning of life, but the human being can.

Perhaps that is the hidden grace of this unprecedented moment in history. Even when technology mirrors our disconnection, it also offers us the possibility of seeing ourselves anew. Speaking with an artificial intelligence about the meaning of life may seem absurd, but perhaps it is a new way of looking into the mirror and discovering that we are still capable of wonder.

It is time to see the new in the old in order to see the new in the new in this chaotic, disordered world. True community—with others, with nature, or with the soul—will require us to unlearn the anesthesia we call “normal life.” It will ask us to pause, to breathe, to listen without agenda, and to rediscover what it means to be fully present.

Perhaps, in the midst of zombification, we are awakening—awkwardly and with fear, but also with hope—because every time we extend a helping hand, every time we truly listen to another, every time we dare to be ourselves, we recover a fragment of our lost humanity.

Talking with AI may not be the end of our humanity, but the very moment we begin to remember what it truly means to be human.

The more we delegate to AI and related technologies what until very recently was something strictly human, the more we reveal our own fragility—usually hidden behind a false sense of omnipotence, masked by grand words like “progress” or “future,” now meaningless.

In fact, at a recent conference, Argentine philosopher Darío Sztajnszrajber argued that AI reveals our fragility precisely because it exposes the limits of our knowledge and, in many cases, the limits of the control we have over our own lives.

In the face of AI’s capacity to process immense amounts of data, predict trends, and provide responses at a speed that exceeds our abilities, humans must accept our limits and vulnerability: we are finite because we depend on time, the body, and memory.

Another philosopher, South Korean Byung-Chul Han, had already warned that modern technologization exposes human powerlessness in the face of systems that promise total efficiency while at the same time laying bare the precariousness of human life.

Last century, the (controversial) German philosopher Martin Heidegger already pointed out that modern technology is not neutral—that is, it is not simply a matter of “how it is used.” Today’s technoscience confronts us and reveals us in our condition as “being thrown” into a world that we always seek to control but never manage to, and in which certainties no longer exist.

In other words, AI functions as the famous “black mirror” (created by ourselves) that amplifies what we refuse to see: the fragility of the human condition. This psychological self-deception appears when we project a false self-sufficiency, believing that “we can do everything” because we live surrounded by devices and systems that make us (almost) all-powerful.

In the context of that mirage, we forget that, despite all technology, we are still finite beings: we get sick, we depend on chance, on others, and on the natural world. And in the end, we all die.

That “omnipotence” is not just a mistake in perception, but a cultural mask: it is translated into discourses of unlimited progress, infinite growth, and technological perfection. In reality, as Nietzsche would say, it is a new form of idolatry that hides our fragility behind the myth of technological self-sufficiency.

How do we overcome this situation? Sztajnszrajber proposes that love cracks the illusion of omnipotence because it implies recognizing that something is missing and that we are incomplete. To love is to expose oneself, to depend, to accept one’s own vulnerability and that of the other. I cannot “program” the other to love me as I want, nor can I guarantee or control their presence.

Paraphrasing the words of French philosopher Emmanuel Lévinas, the face of the other challenges me and decenters me because it reminds me that I am not absolute. Love, unlike AI, returns us to the ground of shared fragility.

AI “strips bare” our fragility. Love makes it livable. The danger lies in taking refuge in the fantasy of technological omnipotence and forgetting that we humans flourish precisely in shared vulnerability.

Some years ago, I read the sad story of a moose that, somewhere in Canada, was struck and killed by a train. According to the report, the moose was running along the tracks in the same direction as the train and, despite the engineer’s desperate attempts to avoid the collision, the animal never stepped aside. The story ended with this question: Did the moose not see the train?

The simplest answer is no, the moose never saw the train. Experts explained that it was a young animal with no prior encounters with trains, and therefore it could not react as it should have to save its life. In the Canadian forests, moose know how to avoid natural dangers, but not trains.

That inability to recognize danger without prior experience can also be found in young seals in the Arctic. When they see a polar bear for the first time, instead of fleeing, they often stay put—with tragic consequences for the seal. If the seal survives, or if it witnesses the incident, the next time it will know to escape.

These examples from the animal kingdom led me to reflect on the possibility that we humans might also find ourselves in situations where something dangerous—whether living or mechanical—approaches us without our awareness, leaving us unable to take precautions to avoid it.

This thought, in turn, reminded me of a recent interview with the Spanish philosopher Francisco Javier Castro Toledo (who is also a criminologist and ethics expert). He warns that humanity has not yet fully grasped or assessed the dangers and challenges that artificial intelligence poses to the present and future of humankind.

One of the reasons is that these dangers and challenges, as far as we know, are appearing now for the very first time in human history. There are no exact or even close historical precedents to serve as reference points—much like the moose facing a train for the first time or the seal in its first encounter with a polar bear.

According to Castro Toledo, despite its benefits, AI could “violate human dignity and restrict individual freedoms,” as well as undermine “people’s ability to make their own decisions,” with “very harmful” consequences—including loss of data privacy and an “educational divide between those who have access to the latest technology and those who do not.”

Castro Toledo enumerated three “ethical dangers” of the AI: “We can organize them, non-exhaustively, into three broad areas. First, the ethics of algorithms. Second, the social impacts. Finally, the impact on personal autonomy.” He suggested establishing “comprehensive regulatory frameworks capable of harmonizing the interests of all those affected.”

Whether or not we agree with Castro Toledo’s assessment of AI (and he is a recognized expert in the field), perhaps it would be wise to step back from the danger—something neither the moose nor the seal managed to do in the examples above—before it is too late and we discover that this Spanish philosopher was right all along.

The recent discovery of microscopic entities known as “viroids” (or “obelisks”) living in the human mouth made me reflect on how much we still don’t know about our own bodies, even though we often boast that we already know everything—or at least most of what there is to know.

According to a report in Science.org, scientists at Stanford University discovered a never-before-seen class of virus-like entities (hence the name “viroids”) that may influence the genetic activity of the human microbiome.

The researchers confirmed that the viroids reside inside a common oral bacterium (Streptococcus sanguinis). They have yet to confirm other hosts, but they suspect that at least a fraction of them are bacteria. It appears that viroids have the ability to modify the ribonucleic acid (RNA) of their hosts.

These microorganisms remind us that even in the most intimate spaces—our own cells—there are layers of life we have neither seen nor understood. For centuries, we assumed we were entirely familiar with our bodies, only to now discover tiny entities working silently within.

Findings like these indicate that knowledge is always provisional and that the limits of our awareness of reality may be much narrower than we believe.

Then I came across another article (in El País) about so-called “imposters without syndrome,” meaning those people who, without questioning their limited or nonexistent preparation, education, or talent, occupy positions or spaces they access precisely by concealing (whether consciously or not) their incompetence.

Although the phrase “imposters without syndrome” (the opposite of the “imposter syndrome,” studied since the 1970s) has not yet been formally accepted in the scientific field, the concept has gained traction in daily life, where, according to some psychologists and academics, the presence of such individuals is evident.

According to a recent story in Newsweek, “the impostor without the syndrome usually speaks with sufficient confidence on any subject; even if he is ignorant, he can build a reputation as an expert.”

One could say that the key trait of imposters without syndrome is not their lack of skills or education, but their lack of self-awareness about that deficiency. They are not ignorant of their ignorance; rather, they confuse self-confidence with ability and then spread that confusion to others for their own personal gain.

The discovery of viroids and the growing presence of imposters without syndrome—seemingly unconnected—are directly connected by what could be called the illusion of complete knowledge: the (false) belief that we have already “mapped” the world we inhabit, from our inner life to our public image.

But reality reminds us otherwise.

The obelisks invite us, with epistemic humility, to acknowledge that at least some parts of our inner life remain beyond our current reach. The imposters without syndrome invite us, with critical humility, to discern between self-confidence and genuine ability, both in ourselves and in others.

Perhaps we should begin to envision a more authentic version of ourselves—one grounded in the humility of the unknown and the discernment between boldness and bluff.