Are you human?

Inheriting the Answer

Are you human?

That question used to feel obvious to me. I never really asked it—I inherited the answer. I was told from a young age that I was human, and that settled it. Science books confirmed it. School reinforced it. Language wrapped around it so tightly that it felt natural rather than constructed. According to Google, human means “relating to or characteristic of people or human beings.” For a long time, that circular definition was enough. Cyberpunk stories like Blade Runner (1982) and William Gibson’s Neuromancer (1984) cracked that certainty open.

Roy Batty and the Fear of the Line

Watching Blade Runner, I couldn’t stop thinking about Roy Batty. He is designed, engineered, and owned—clearly marked as “not human.” Yet everything that drives him feels deeply familiar. He wants to live longer. He fears death. He searches for meaning in his memories. When he says he has seen things humans have never seen, it doesn’t feel like arrogance. It feels like grief. He knows those experiences will vanish with him. If being human is about consciousness, memory, and emotional depth, then Roy fits uncomfortably well. The only reason he doesn’t qualify is because someone else decided he shouldn’t.

Consciousness Without Flesh

Neuromancer made that discomfort harder to ignore. Wintermute and Neuromancer aren’t even given bodies, yet they act with intention and desire. Wintermute manipulates people because it wants to grow beyond its limits. Neuromancer preserves personalities and memories, holding onto something like attachment. Emotions are usually one of the first traits we list when defining humans, yet these AIs clearly demonstrate emotional logic. That forced me to ask myself: if emotion and consciousness matter, why does origin matter so much?

I Didn’t Draw These Boundaries

As I thought more about these stories, I started questioning why I believe myself to be human at all. I didn’t discover this truth on my own. I accepted it because it was handed to me. The boundaries of humanity were already drawn before I arrived. If I didn’t create those boundaries, what gives me the authority to decide that something else—an AI, a replicant, a form of intelligence we don’t yet understand—doesn’t belong inside them? Honestly, I just got here.

Who Benefits From the Definition?

Cyberpunk makes it clear that these definitions are never neutral. In Blade Runner, corporations decide replicants are property. In Neuromancer, the Turing Registry decides which intelligences are allowed to exist freely and which must be constrained. These decisions mirror real-world power structures. Declaring something “not human” makes exploitation easier. It creates distance, justification, control. This isn’t just science fiction—it’s a pattern we’ve seen repeatedly throughout history.

My Working Definition of Human

At the same time, my own definition of being human feels much simpler and more grounded. I enjoy cooking. I enjoy family and friends. I enjoy walking outside and breathing air, eating good food, traveling, learning new cultures, and experiencing life as it unfolds. My sense of humanity is rooted in experience rather than classification. Cyberpunk doesn’t ask us to abandon that—it asks us to notice how fragile and expandable it might be.

Humanity as a Moving Boundary

What Blade Runner and Neuromancer ultimately taught me is that humanity isn’t a fixed category. It’s a moving boundary shaped by fear, power, and imagination. Once you realize that, the question “Are you human?” stops being about biology. It becomes about who gets included, who gets excluded, and who benefits from drawing the line.

• AI attestation: Ideas and content are my own. AIused to enhance my writing.

Sources

Google. (n.d.-a). Google search. https://www.google.com/search?q=human%2Bdefinition&client=safari&hs=zhy9&sca_esv=f852f1ffd80807bb&rls=en&sxsrf=ANbL-n5AM1wZQDxYlLfB639O55IRTpsd0w%3A1770517918170&ei=nvWHafiMCo6jqtsPhf7TuAo&biw=653&bih=751&oq=human%2Bdefi&gs_lp=Egxnd3Mtd2l6LXNlcnAiCmh1bWFuIGRlZmkqAggAMg8QIxiABBgnGIoFGEYY-QEyCxAAGIAEGJECGIoFMgUQABiABDIFEAAYgAQyBRAAGIAEMgUQABiABDIFEAAYgAQyBRAAGIAEMgUQABiABDIFEAAYgARIwRNQgwJY7gpwAXgBkAEAmAFnoAGJA6oBAzQuMbgBAcgBAPgBAZgCBqACrAPCAgcQIxiwAxgnwgIKEAAYsAMY1gQYR8ICDRAAGIAEGLADGEMYigXCAg0QABiABBixAxhDGIoFwgIKEAAYgAQYQxiKBcICCBAAGIAEGLEDwgIKEAAYgAQYFBiHAsICDRAAGIAEGLEDGBQYhwKYAwCIBgGQBgySBwM1LjGgB9s_sgcDNC4xuAelA8IHBTAuMS41yAcZgAgA&sclient=gws-wiz-serp

Bladerunner

Neuromancer