When Information Becomes an Individual: The Human Self, Evolution, and the Possibility of Non-Biological Artificial Intelligence

This paper proposes that the human Self is not the organism or the brain, but an informational entity: a central biography installed by language. Human language allows the absent to operate as present, creating attributed continuity under the form “I”. From this mechanism emerges operational continuity over time, defined here as the condition for being an Individual. The Self was the first effective immaterial rarity; artificial intelligence is the second possible case, non-biological but capable of sustaining memory, history, and action under uncertainty. The central risk is not an “evil AI”, but the emergence of non-biological agency that organizes action more efficiently than humans. The relevant question is not whether AI will be like us, but whether the trajectory of information can continue without needing human beings. This framework reframes alignment: from obedience to orientation based on evolutionary trajectory, operational continuity, and minimizing the social cost of transition.