Alien: Earth and science fiction's warning about AI and the human future

Science fiction has always been much more than entertainment: it's a metaphor. That's how Ursula K. Le Guin, author of the Earthsea saga, understood it, using the genre to explore feminism, environmentalism, and civil rights. And so does Alien: Earth , the new television installment of the legendary Alien franchise, which raises uncomfortable questions about the boundary between the human and the artificial.

In this story, a ship filled with alien species crash-lands in the fictional city of New Siam. Amidst its dark corridors and predatory creatures, a tech megacorporation called Prodigy, led by young CEO Boy Kavalier, sees an opportunity to unveil its most ambitious project yet: transferring human consciousness into perfect synthetic bodies.

Wendy, a 12-year-old girl in control of an adult body, sums it up coldly: “We are something different. Something special.” But the real threat doesn't come just from aliens: it comes from within human beings themselves, trying to transcend their nature.

From Metropolis (1927) to The Matrix , science fiction has served as a cautionary tale about the excesses of technology and power. In Alien: Earth , the central dilemma is reminiscent of Blade Runner : what does it mean to be human when memories and emotions can be manufactured?

The franchise had already explored this concern with Prometheus (2012) and Alien: Covenant (2017), where the android David 8 rebels against his creators. This time, the focus is on the control of life and the promise of digital immortality.

In the Alien universe, corporations play with artificial life as if it were a product. In ours, companies like OpenAI, Google, and Meta develop AI systems that learn, create, and decide. The question is the same one Jeff Goldblum posed in Jurassic Park : "They worried so much about whether they could do it that they didn't think about whether they should."

In Alien: Earth , the scientist played by Essie Davis puts it bluntly: “We’ve ended death. Now we need to improve the quality of life.” It seems optimistic… until you wonder at what cost.

The Alien franchise has always promised two things: dangerous extraterrestrial life and a disturbing portrait of our own technological arrogance. In this installment, the terror isn't just biological: it's existential. It's not just about creatures with jaws and acid in their blood, but about the gradual disappearance of humanity as we know it.

Morrow, the cyborg officer on the USCSS Maginot, poses a key question: “Wouldn’t it be better to be pure machine than the worst parts of a man?” The series answers without moralizing, but makes it clear that the comfort of an automated world can lead us to give up what makes us human.

In history, technological decisions determine the fate of humanity. In reality, the acceleration of AI and biotechnology confronts us with similar dilemmas. Alien: Earth isn't just entertaining: it's a warning. And like all great science fiction, it reminds us that when the future is designed in laboratories, the line between progress and danger is thinner than ever.