Facing the Future: AI, Identity, and the Human Spirit

Nine years ago, I woke up in a hospital bed to a world that no longer made sense. My body had been broken, my mind scattered, my past a blur, and my future—if there even was one—unrecognizable. The people who loved me were still there, but I could no longer fully recognize myself.

What happens to a person when everything that once defined them is taken away? That’s not just a question for me. That’s a question that, in the coming years––or perhaps just months––millions of people will be asking.

We are standing on the edge of something seismic—an age in which artificial intelligence doesn’t just change how we work but forces us to confront what it even means to be human.

For many, AI still feels like an abstract debate—an issue for tech companies, policy makers, and ethicists. But that’s going to change.

It won’t just be about automation or job displacement. It will be about identity. It will be about the creeping fear that maybe—just maybe—machines can do what we do better than us.  For further insights, consider watching this video that explores upcoming developments.

And if our entire worth has been tied to what we produce, what happens when we wake up to find that we no longer measure up?

What AI is Revealing About Us

There’s an old saying that crises don’t just change people—they reveal them. The same is true for cultures.

AI isn’t just some external force imposing itself on us—it’s exposing something that has been true for a long time: we have built a society that defines human worth by output, efficiency, and productivity.

And that’s a dangerous foundation.

What do we do when the world tells us that our minds, our skills, our labor—everything we once took pride in—can be done faster, cheaper, and more effectively by a machine? How do we respond when people begin to internalize the lie that they are now less human because they are less needed?

A Prophetic Moment

I hesitate to use the word prophetic—not because I don’t believe it applies, but because I know how easy it is to make grand claims and mistake them for calling.

But when I look at what’s coming, I feel an urgency that I can’t ignore.

Not because I have all the answers. Not because I am the smartest person in the room. But because I have already walked through a personal fire that others are about to enter. I’ve already lived the coming crisis.

During my three week non-induced coma

I know what it’s like to wake up and feel like my identity has been erased.

I know what it’s like to lose the ability to perform and wonder if I still matter.

I know what it’s like to be told by the world’s metrics that I am less valuable than I was before.

And I know that none of that was ever true.

The coming years will test people’s sense of worth in ways they never expected. And if we don’t speak into this—if we don’t stand in the gap and proclaim that human value was never about what we do but who we are—then people will be left to find their answers in a world that is more than happy to reduce them to statistics and data points.

I’m writing this because I know what it’s like to search for identity in the rubble. And I’ve learned that the answer isn’t in productivity, intelligence, or efficiency. It’s in the fact that we were made—created in the image of someone infinitely greater than ourselves. AI can’t replicate that. AI can’t touch that. AI will never change that.

A Call to Stand for Truth

When I first started telling my story, I didn’t know where it would lead. I didn’t know that people would resonate so deeply with questions of identity, suffering, and human worth. And I certainly didn’t know that I would be writing about these things in the context of artificial intelligence and the future of human dignity.

But here we are.

I don’t claim to be an expert on AI (Who really is? The AI experts often say they do not know how it really works). I don’t claim to have every answer. But I do know that the world is changing fast, and people are going to need something solid to stand on when their worth is called into question.

The urgency I felt to write “Saving the Subject,” was almost existential. It was as if the story wrote itself, driven by a deep-seated need to confront and articulate the challenges of recognizing our inherent worth in an increasingly digital world. As I explained here, “I wasn’t held at gunpoint by someone else; but maybe I was by myself. I had to write what I wrote. And what’s been written cannot be unwritten.”

Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc.

This book, born from my own trials and triumphs, serves as a declaration that our human value is immeasurable, enduring beyond the capabilities of any machine or digital construct. By sharing my story, I aim not just to connect with others on a path of personal recovery but to offer a steadfast reminder of our collective worth in the face of relentless technological advancement.

That’s why I write. That’s why I speak. That’s why I will continue standing for the truth that no machine, no technology, no advancement will ever erase the intrinsic worth of a human being.

Pretty soon, that truth is going to matter more than it ever has before.

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