Consciousness First: Why AI Will Never Own Us

The story

Last week I scrolled through yet another headline about AI surpassing human creativity. It echoed the same fear I’ve heard for years: soon machines will outthink us, outwrite us, outlive us.

The narrative is seductive — AI as the inevitable master, and humanity reduced to its pet.

But then I read Deepak Chopra’s recent reflections on consciousness. And something clicked.

What Chopra says

Chopra argues that our everyday identity — the one built from memory, habits, and ego — is a false identity. The only true self is consciousness itself. His claim is radical: existence and consciousness are the same.

That flips the so-called “hard problem” of consciousness upside down. Instead of asking how neurons magically produce awareness, Chopra suggests the material world is a modification of awareness. Consciousness is not a late arrival in the universe. It is the ground of being.

Implications for AI

If this worldview is right, the whole debate about “AI consciousness” collapses. AI doesn’t have, and never will have, consciousness. It processes data, predicts words, optimizes functions. But it cannot step into the present moment or feel its own being.

That means:

• AI is a story within consciousness, not a rival to it.
• Humans will never become the pet of AI.
• The true danger is not AI overtaking us — it’s us mistaking its clever mimicry for the essence of who we are.

AI can only bring what the past gives it: data, patterns, probabilities. Consciousness, by contrast, is timeless presence. It can choose, create, and reinvent stories.

My point

This is where I stand: if we take Chopra’s view seriously, AI should liberate us, not enslave us. The fear of AI ruling over humanity rests on a materialist illusion — that machines could become conscious. They can’t.

Consciousness is always more.

Consciousness is what allows AI to exist at all.

So the future isn’t about AI surpassing humans. It’s about whether we remember that we are consciousness itself. If we forget, we risk kneeling before our own tools. If we remember, AI becomes just that: a tool. A powerful one, yes, but still just a tool in service of human freedom.

The summary

• Chopra: Existence = consciousness. Ego identity is false.
• Implication: AI cannot be conscious. It’s only data in motion.
• My view: Humans will never be the pet of AI. The risk is in forgetting our nature.
• Consciousness is always more than what AI brings to the table.