Why a truly humanoid AI may not be possible

Humanoid AI may dazzle with its ability to mimic, but without a living body to think and feel, it can never truly become one of us. Paul Budde reports.

Despite the breathless talk of “humanoid AI” taking over the world, we keep forgetting a basic biological truth: The human mind comes from a living body, not an intelligent brain.

Not just any body, but a body built cell by cell inside another person, shaped by immune responses, hormones, hunger, and the constant struggle not to die. If this new generation of philosophical and neuroscientific research is correct, Anna Ciaunica‘s very long time article, From Cells to SelfThe dream of creating a truly human-like machine may not be far off; It may also be biologically impossible.

I last wrote about hominids in 2020, and this post reflects how my thinking has evolved since then. Also relevant are my recent thoughts on organoid intelligence.

From Cells to Self

We tend to imagine cognition as something that happens inside the skull; as if the brain were some kind of supernatural command center directing the rest of the body like a CEO. This view is gradually losing its validity.

Long before neurons appeared, long before any organism developed a brain, the task of survival was already underway at the cellular level. The cells that make up the embryo, the oldest regulatory structures of human life, are already making decisions about boundaries, resources, and survival.

We all started as a single cell. This cell divided, organized itself, negotiated with neighboring cells, and most importantly, learned to distinguish between what belonged to the developing organism and what did not. The primary architect of the self is the immune system, not the nervous system. It begins working before neurons develop, establishing the fundamental distinction between self and non-self on which all subsequent cognition will be based.

This is a troubling idea for those who believe that intelligence arises solely from neural complexity. But human cognition did not begin with the brain; It started with metabolic regulation, immune signaling, and the collective intelligence of cells.

The body thinks before the mind

The more we learn about how organisms develop and survive, the clearer it becomes that thought is not an abstract activity floating above the body. It is based on the body’s struggle to maintain its own life. When we are too cold, hungry, or sick, our thinking collapses. When our immune system weakens, the integrity of the self collapses with it. Every act of human cognition depends on the biological reality of being a defenseless creature in a changing world.

This means that intelligence as experienced by humans is inseparable from the body. We are not brains in a vat; we are bodies in constant negotiation with our environment, and our brain is just one part of a much larger self-regulating system. A body that begins inside another living body adds another dimension. The placenta is not a passive organ but a dynamic interface between two immune systems, shaping development long before consciousness emerges.

This date is important. A truly humanoid intelligence requires not only computation but also development, metabolism, and a history of addiction.

Why is artificial intelligence different?

This raises an obvious question: Where does this leave AI? The large language models and machine learning systems that now attract public attention operate through broad statistical correlations. They cannot regulate their own temperature, recover from illness, manage hunger, or fear death. They do not develop inside another organism; They don’t have the immune system to decide what belongs to them and what threatens them.

What they have is pattern recognition, scale and speed. What they lack is subjectivity constructed without embodiment.

An AI can simulate empathy but not feel pain. It can simulate uncertainty but does not experience fear. It can simulate memory but does not metabolize or age. He can produce an endless stream of texts about birth, death, hunger or love, but he has never experienced any of them.

This gap is not an unimportant detail; It may represent a fundamental limit beyond which computation cannot pass.

The limits of humanoid ambition

None of this means that AI is unimportant or that it won’t reshape our lives. It already is. But it does suggest that the ambition to create a truly humanoid AI, a being with human-like consciousness, emotions, and moral agency, is deeply misguided.

If cognition emerges from the interaction of all living systems, from immune complexity to developmental history, then the idea of building human-equivalent intelligence from silicon circuits rests on a category error. This is equally true of organoid intelligence, which, although impressive, may never have consciousness.

We often treat the brain as if it were the whole story of human thought. But without the vulnerable, metabolizing, decaying body, the brain would never have developed. Without the immune system, it cannot distinguish between self and non-self. Without a lifetime of sensory input filtered through a fragile body, human-style consciousness could not emerge.

A humanoid AI requires more than code. It required being alive.

What could a humanoid AI still become?

This doesn’t mean that AI can’t be powerful, creative, or socially transformative. This means that artificial intelligence will be its own type of intelligence, not a copy of our intelligence.

A humanoid AI could still be:

• an extraordinary problem solver without biological limitations;
• a partner in scientific discovery unconstrained by fatigue or lifespan;
• an interpreter among human systems too complex for us to comprehend; And
• An amplifier of human creativity rather than a replacement for it.

But there will be no being that starves, is afraid, grows old, or dies. It will not climb from the cells to the self. And so no matter how sophisticated it is, it won’t be us.

Paul Budde IA is a columnist and managing director of independent telecommunications research and consultancy. Paul Budde Consulting. You can follow Paul on Twitter @PaulBudde.

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