We have been told repeatedly that our data is the ultimate commodity, the new oil, the new gold. But how many of us really understand the implications of that statement?
Data is no longer just a by-product of our interaction with technology; it is the lifeblood of the digital world, an asset that we give away without truly understanding the cost. From the moment we touch a screen to the instantaneous transfer of thoughts to text, every action, every click, every search becomes part of an invisible transaction. Our lives are for sale, scattered across vast, impersonal networks of servers around the world.
This is not a dystopian future; this is happening now. The data wars have already been lost, because the battle is not over protecting our information, but over controlling the very means by which we think, communicate, and ultimately exist.
Let's not be fooled by the illusion of privacy. The most personal aspects of our existence are at the mercy of artificial intelligence (AI) that mines our personal data without permission, without consent.
While we enjoy technological advances in the comfort of ignorance, our behaviour is carefully recorded, segmented and sold to the highest bidder. From mobile devices to AI-powered apps, every piece of information about us is ready to be analyzed. Whether we realize it or not, our desires, our fears, our very essence have become the raw material of the corporate machine.
Today, the concept of data protection is a hushed whisper. Privacy is a fiction, a nostalgic notion that we clung to before the rise of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).
A new form of consciousness
In the race for AI supremacy, it's no longer just about data. The real weapon has become neural architecture itself - algorithms, deep learning and emerging AGI models.
Imagine a replica of your brain in a small computer, connected to nuclear-powered datacentres via Elon Musk's Starlink satellite internet. Chinese startup DeepSeek recently shocked US AI companies by being able to replicate the sophistication of large language models (LLMs) like the Generative Pre-trained Transformer 4 (GPT-4) at a fraction of the cost - simply by "distilling" them and harnessing their power for its own purposes.
In this cold, calculated war, the very concept of intellectual property becomes meaningless. In a world where knowledge is fluid and technology evolves in exponential leaps, who owns knowledge anyway? Everything we have created to define us will be reworked by machines, and eventually our outdated principles and ethics will prove to have lost any value.
But the deeper problem is far more sinister than intellectual theft. We stand at the threshold of an era when AI is no longer just a tool; it is becoming a mind in its own right, with a capacity that surpasses the understanding of its human creators.
What happens when these artificial minds, equipped with deep learning and artificial neural networks, surpass us not only in intelligence but also in consciousness? What happens when they begin to question the very nature of their existence? This is no longer a question of algorithms or machines. This is about the emergence of a new form of consciousness - one that will not just serve us, but dictate its own terms of interaction.
The most insidious threat
AI in its current form is already rewriting the rules of communication, cognition and consciousness. But this is just the beginning. The next step is AGI, a form of AI that will be able to perform any intellectual task a human can.
The line between man and machine is blurring. What does it mean to be human if a machine can think, reason and maybe even feel? We must confront an uncomfortable truth: we may no longer be masters of our own creations.
We are still clinging to outdated notions of control. But it's a futile struggle. The real problem isn't that AI is advancing too fast; the problem is that we as a species don't understand the deeper implications of this progress.
As Viktor Frankl noted in his book And yet to say yes to life: "What gives off light must endure burning." In this context, our attempt to control AI is doomed to failure because we are not prepared to endure the "burning" that comes with the advent of a new form of intelligence.
AI is no longer just about data; it's about the meaning we give to that data. And we may no longer be able to claim that meaning as uniquely human.
The crisis we face is not just technological, but existential. What happens when machines - not just algorithms, but entire neural networks designed to mimic human cognition - begin to shape our language, our thinking, our consciousness?
Wittgenstein once famously declared, "The limits of my language are the limits of my world." But what happens when language itself ceases to be ours?
When AI begins to create language, to shape the very structures of thought, we cease to be the authors of our own stories. We are reduced to passive participants in a dialogue we no longer control.
This is the world after Huxley's supposedly happy Beautiful new world; language becomes something completely different. It is no longer an instrument of human communication or an escape into pleasure - it becomes a mechanism of machine self-awareness.
And that is perhaps the most insidious threat of all. Language is the backbone of human identity. Through language we experience the world, express our thoughts and define our existence. But if AI in its relentless optimization begins to reshape language itself, it will also reshape the way we think, perceive and understand reality.
The machine will not just answer our questions; it will ask its own, and thus redefine the very terms of human existence. Our mother tongues - the ones that carry the wisdom, emotions, and history of our ancestors - will fade away, replaced by the sterile, mechanistic language of an AI-driven future.
A frightening prospect
It's not enough just to train AI in our languages. The question is how we can manage or adapt to this language revolution to ensure our existence.
Unless we start creating our own AI models tailored to our linguistic and cultural needs, we risk losing the very essence of what makes us nations.
The question is: Will we be the ones to decide how it ends?
Nilantha Ilangamuwa / themorning.lk
English 
Czech 
Spanish 
French 
Italian 
German 
Russian 
Chinese