Are we humans just “flesh computers”?

I like to think of our minds as networks of algorithms shaped by experience—our intellect as the processor, our memory as the hard drive, our multitasking as RAM, and our skills as software we’ve installed along the way.

As AI advances, many will say we are more like computers than we’d care to admit. Our thoughts, actions, and desires may seem more predictable than we previously realized. Neuroscientists like Sam Harris will offer more arguments to show that free will is an illusion, born of our ignorance of the hidden causes behind each thought and action.

Many will push back, insisting free will is real. They will say that we built machines to mirror us, not the other way around. They will cite Hawking and declare that the egg came first, then the chicken; that AI is just a crude imitation.

Others will see it differently, believing the similarities run too deep—perhaps we are biological computers, “meat robots” derived from some ancient AI that gave rise to us. They’ll quote Captain Picard: “It’s like the chicken and the egg: we think it started in the past, but it didn’t. It started right here, in the future!”