Dhaka, June 14 -- There exists, at the tremulous edge where machine logic collides with the chaos of consciousness, a fundamental truth not spoken in silicon nor carved into the cold architecture of neural nets, that which makes us human-the ache, the paradox, the memory that bleeds without warning-is precisely what will bar artificial intelligence from ever taking the whole of our world. This is not to say it will not try. It already has.

Across celluloid and circuitry, we have watched its ascension foretold-Her with its ghostly seduction, Ex Machina with its glacial elegance, Blade Runner 2049 with its synthetic tears under neon rain-and yet, even as the screen pulses with the possibility of synthetic sovereignty, something within the ...