By Melissa Kiguwa

We are living in an era where artificial intelligence is evolving with determined speed. A world experiencing exponential advances in technology. The question that matters the most right now is not “what can AI do?” but rather, “what remains human?

AI can simulate language and generate art, but it cannot experience awe. It cannot metabolize grief. It cannot feel the holy ache of becoming oneself. The question “what can AI do?” is not a question of capability, but one of essence. This question is not a riddle that needs to be solved, but rather a mirror that we must learn to hold ourselves to over and over again.

In a bid to become more efficient, we seem to have slowly severed our connection to one of the most important forms of intelligence that humans possess: the body.

Because we are living in a world that is captivated by things like performance, metrics, outcomes and optimization, productivity has become virtue and speed is mistaken for intelligence. Perhaps the desire that we have to keep up with the very machines that we have built has taught us to internalize their logic.

Integration vs. Performance

True becoming is not algorithmic. It is the ability to integrate insight through our mind, body, and spirit. But as human beings, we tend to forget that this kind of embodiment is available to us. We forgot the power of our aliveness, and that living, true living, requires presence, breath, sensation, vulnerability, wisdom, and connection.

The body reveals truths that cognitive understanding alone cannot reach. It holds memories that we can’t name, but remember when we hear a song or smell a whiff of perfume. We carry within us things like generational trauma, inherited behaviors, and even a sense of destiny and fate.

The Spiritual Cost of Disembodiment

Artificial intelligence in itself is not the real danger that we face. It is the numbing emotion, the outsourcing of intuition, the increasing disconnection from our internal experience, and the belief that knowing is more valuable than being.

The soul’s work is not imitation. It is becoming—uniquely, fearfully, and wonderfully, and when we look towards the spiritual aspect, I often draw from a Hasidic tale about the great Rabbi Zusha. The power of this story lies in its incidence on the personal. Near death, he said, “When I get to Heaven, they will not ask me, ‘Why weren’t you Moses or King Soloman?—Because I was never meant to be Moses or King Soloman.’ They will ask, ‘Why weren’t you Zusha?’”

AI will bever be able to feel the butterflies that you do when you embrace the person that you love. It will never understand the expansive tingle you feel in your chest when the sky opens at sunset. It will never feel the breaking open of sorrow that humans feel when they have to bury a loved one. AI will never be able to replicate the moments that make us human, because we didn’t only experience them, we were transformed by them.

AI may be able to simulate Moses. It can even simulate you. But it will never become you. But you have to know who you are, to know the difference.

Moving Toward a New Definition of Intelligence

As machines surpass us in data recall and pattern-matching, intelligence is no longer just what you know. It is how deeply you can feel, how present you can become, and how aligned your choices are with your body, your mind, and your soul. And, in my work with elite athletes, founders, and leaders going through great changes, I’ve found that the ability to pause, to listen internally, and to feel deeply are the things that determine how we experience long-term growth.

We can’t rely on AI to help us become more human. Only we can do that. And the only way that we can do that is to reclaim the ancient, quiet languages that we have always known, but often neglect. The question AI can’t answer is not a weakness in its code—it is a call to remember ourselves.

The beat of our heart, the rise of our breath, the wisdom in rest, and the fire of purpose is something that no machine will ever be able to mimic.

Melissa Kiguwa is a Spiritual Director, futurist, writer, and founder of Future Intelligence™—a proprietary methodology used by elite athletes, founders in transition, and executive leaders navigating deep change.