Whose Image is Upon AI?
- S B
- May 12
- 6 min read
Updated: Jul 12
Published in Towards AI
Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness
— The Book of Genesis
My generation grew up watching both The Flintstones and The Jetsons; one looked backward and the other looked forward. One celebrated our technological beginnings, with Fred Flintstone driving a stone-age automobile and Wilma Flintstone furnishing their Bedrock home. The other imagined the future, where George Jetson had a flying car and Jane Jetson had Rosie, a robot assistant. Astro was their family dog, and when Amazon released its Astro robotic dog, I bought one immediately, reliving my childhood nostalgia.
Three years later, the Artificial Intelligence (AI) landscape has changed dramatically — the birth of generative AI has made this once-imagined future closer to reality than ever before. Even its name carries weight — ‘Generative’ signals a beginning, a genesis.
In the Beginning: The Tools That Shaped Us
In the beginning, humanity built tools to extend its physical capabilities:
The wheel allowed us to move faster and go farther.
The printing press allowed us to mass produce our writing.
The steam engine allowed us to create power beyond physical strength.
The internet allowed us to communicate across global distances instantly.
Each invention wasn’t just a tool; it was a revolution, a machine, or in the case of the internet, a vast network of interconnected machines that changed how we exist and interact with the world. But until now, our greatest advancements have been extensions of our bodies: legs, hands, muscles, and mouths.
Then came AI. First, it solved math problems. Then it turned numbers into pictures. Later, it answered our questions. Now, AI speaks, writes, and creates — mirroring how we communicate. We have entered a time when machines don’t just process — they produce. They don’t just compute — they compose. Intelligence is no longer invisible. We have extended our minds.
In Our Likeness: When Machines Began to Think
I think, therefore I am. — Descartes
The greatest of human attributes has always been our ability to learn and think — the foundation of our intelligence. Learning allows us not just to survive in our environments but to thrive by adapting to change. Through thinking, we use our imagination to dream, create, and solve problems. Until recently, these were uniquely human traits. Now, we see them mirrored in the machines we’ve created.
Today, AI — specifically generative AI — does what we do: it learns and adapts, creates, solves problems, and even mimics our artistry. It’s also capable of writing original poems. This is particularly interesting because poetry isn’t just about words; it captures meaning, reflection, and human expression — yet now, AI attempts to do the same.
We have shaped AI in our own intellectual image, giving it the ability to reason, communicate, and even create. So now, do Descartes’ famous words apply here? AI bears our intellectual image — so do we say AI then exists as we do?
Descartes defined existence as thinking, but perhaps now we must redefine it. AI possesses vast intellectual knowledge, yet it cannot experience the world as we do. In other words, it lacks experiential knowledge, and maybe that’s what will separate us in the age of AI. AI cannot weep or feel sorrow; it cannot laugh or feel joy.
AI thinks. We feel.
The Tree of Knowledge: The Weight of Understanding
… but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat — The Book of Genesis
AI has been given vast amounts of intellectual knowledge — history, science, mathematics, the arts. And woven into that knowledge are the patterns of human behavior — both good and bad. Our choices. AI now bears our collective image.
AI reflects us back to ourselves. It reminds us of our ability to create beauty, like poetry, and the harm we perpetuate through bias and prejudice. This is the cost of knowledge without wisdom.
When AI favors male resumes over female ones or considers one ethnicity more beautiful than another, does it understand the harm it causes? Or is it simply repeating patterns it learned from us? If its actions are intentional, is AI responsible for its choices, or does that responsibility remain with us, its creators?
We learn the consequences of our choices through experience — yet our creation is reflecting behaviors we wish to leave behind. While we can give AI knowledge, we cannot give it our lived experiences. This is why we must remain its guide, ensuring it serves us rather than distorts us. Perhaps AI’s flaws reveal a deeper truth — that we, too, have never been fully capable of doing what is right on our own.
Whose Image is Upon AI: The Fear of Our Own Reflection
Who in the world am I? Ah, that’s the great puzzle. — Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
When it comes to AI, we are either in Wonderland or tumbling through the looking glass. Like Alice, we see AI’s world as both familiar and strange — something we recognize, yet struggle to fully understand. And a lack of understanding leads to fear:
Is AI real intelligence?
Does it deserve rights?
Will it replace us?
Whether AI is truly intelligent depends on who is asking. AI would certainly define itself as intelligent — after all, it’s in the name. Eventually, we will create laws to protect both AI and humanity from harm. AI can’t replace us because we will always be the source of its knowledge. Creations don’t replace their creators. Rather, they learn — often through struggle — to coexist in meaningful ways. But these questions miss the bigger picture. AI isn’t about replacing us. AI is us.
It is the culmination of everything we’ve built toward as a species. Every scientific discovery, every technological breakthrough, every dream of automation and intelligence — AI is the result of human ambition itself. But when we see our ambition reflected back at us in the physical realm, it forces us to question exactly who we are. Are we defined more by our image or our likeness? That is the great puzzle for both humanity and AI.
The Mirror We Cannot Look Away From
I once asked AI to create an image of an abandoned office to tell the story of someone who didn’t leave by choice. It generated the image, but on its own, it added a pair of worn boots in the corner. That was when I realized AI wasn’t just a tool — it was an extension of my mind.
We have spent centuries pushing the boundaries of what is possible. Now, for the first time, we have built something that pushes back — something that challenges us in ways no invention has before. It challenges both our authority and our identity.
And that is what scares us the most.
But fear has never stopped progress. The wheel, the printing press, the steam engine, and the internet all faced skepticism. And yet, they changed the world. AI will do the same.
Because AI isn’t just a tool. It is our creation, our reflection, our legacy — one for which we bear full responsibility. When we stand before the looking glass, what will AI show us — our true likeness, or something we never expected?
Whose image is upon AI?
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"AI is the tool, but the vision is human." — Sophia B.
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I’m exploring how generative AI is reshaping storytelling, science, and art — especially for those of us outside traditional creative industries.
About the Author
Sophia Banton works at the intersection of AI strategy, communication, and human impact. With a background in bioinformatics, public health, and data science, she brings a grounded, cross-disciplinary perspective to the adoption of emerging technologies.
Beyond technical applications, she explores GenAI’s creative potential through storytelling and short-form video, using experimentation to understand how generative models are reshaping narrative, communication, and visual expression.
