On the Irreducible Role of Human Consciousness, Imagination, and Agency in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
Human consciousness, imagination, agency, and the capacity to care are fundamental, non-computable properties of living beings, not emergent byproducts of computation. Artificial intelligence systems, regardless of sophistication, are derivative constructs that optimize and simulate but do not originate meaning, experience joy or suffering, or possess moral stake. The paper argues that intelligence narrowly defined as problem-solving is an insufficient metric for comparing humans and machines; instead, human primacy is grounded in pre-formal imagination, lived experience, authorship, responsibility, and care. AI should be considered a structural steward rather than a sovereign agent, with legitimacy derived from human intention and governance, re-centering technology within a human moral and existential frame.