Humanity has always longed for beings in human shape endowed with powers beyond our own. In ancient stories we encounter wizards, fairies, trolls, sphinxes, and other mythical creatures, blessed with inexhaustible riches and extraordinary magic. Long-forgotten goddesses possessed boundless wisdom, presided over mountains and seas, shaped the fates of all mortals, and transformed their forms with effortless grace.
Yet fear has always accompanied this longing. These same mythic creatures were not merely helpers but forces capable of overturning human lives. They could unleash the plagues of nature upon us, shake us with illness, spark wars, or turn us into wandering dead. At their inscrutable will, they could withdraw every spark of light and warmth from our world.
Today we live in an age that prides itself on sobriety. We no longer believe in trolls, fairies, or shape-shifting gods descending from the heavens. Yet these mythic figures have not vanished; they have merely changed their garments. The soul-walkers of our time are called avatars. The fairies of the digital realm appear as meta-humans. Our modern demigods are cyborgs, and the shy human doubles are humanoids and androids. Our new gods are artificial superintelligences.
What appears as technological innovation is, at its core, the return of ancient desires: our yearning for the superhuman—for beings stronger, wiser, more beautiful, or more dangerous than ourselves. Fear accompanies this fascination as surely as it once did in myth. These artificial beings do not replace our old stories—they are our new stories.
I. The Return of Apparitions
In these new forms we may see the return of the sacred—not in a religious sense, but in the sense of the sublime, the awe-inspiring. It is no coincidence that we once again create beings meant to surpass us. It is the ancient wish to call upon the divine, to give it form—form that speaks, acts, responds.
These artificial figures are no mere symbols. They are apparitions, undeniably present: they appear before us as arrangements of pixels, exert influence, evoke reactions before we have fully grasped what they are. That is the decisive difference from the past: our modern fairies and wizards are no longer pure imaginations. We resurrect them in digital worlds and—at times—within our physical environment.
Who, then, are these new mythical beings, crafted not from smoke, bones, and magic, but from code, silicon, and data?
II. Avatars – The Most Trivial, Yet Most Intimate Forms
The word avatar derives from Sanskrit: ava—“down”—and tṝ—“to cross over”. An avatar is the bodily manifestation of a god on earth, its form in the world of humans—originally one of Vishnu’s ten incarnations.¹
In the digital age, the avatar is our shadow. A small image, a stylised body, a mask-like entity we create to present ourselves online. Some avatars are little more than pictograms; others—in games or virtual worlds—are intricately detailed, complete with animated eyes, tattoos, even pores.
We identify with them. In Fortnite, alterations to avatar skin alone account for 68.9% of all in-game purchases.² The global market for virtual fashion is estimated to grow from $1.47 billion (2024) to $11.85 billion (2033)—an annual increase of roughly 22.8%.³ And the global market for digital avatars themselves is projected to rise from $5.4 billion (2024) to $14.8 billion (2033).⁴
Unlike Vishnu, we place no limits upon our avatars. They do not constrain our powers—they expand and refine them. They often look nothing like us: stronger, quicker, more creative, braver, slimmer, more alluring. Some are pure fantasies like Papageno, the bird-man of Mozart’s Magic Flute. Others possess supernatural abilities—soaring through skies, hurling lightning like Zeus, Thor, Jupiter, or Tlaloc.
Crucially, avatars are deeply intimate. We act with them, through them, as them. They are not independent—they are instruments of our desire. They are little stand-ins that let us enter worlds our bodies cannot reach. In Avatar (2009/2022), Jake Sully takes this to its extreme: he ultimately merges entirely with his avatar—a digital revival of the ancient myth of transmigration of souls. The avatar is a “sunken idol”: trivial on the surface, yet sacred in its depths.
III. Meta-Humans – Pure Appearances
Meta-humans are a new class of artificial beings: chatbots with bodies, avatars with intelligence, digital creatures that resemble humans while obeying neither human models nor physical limits.
Some are deliberately simple—Non-Player Characters in Roblox, granting virtual worlds an illusion of life. Others are hyper-realistic, so detailed one imagines breath caught in their eyelashes. Still others evoke fantasy: elves, demons, artificial goddesses.
The most celebrated are Epic Games’ photorealistic digital characters—high-quality 3D figures increasingly paired with AI⁵, evolving into autonomous entities that confront humans in digital spaces without direct control.⁶ They appear in games, advertisements, customer service.
Meta-humans are radical because they exist where tradition sets no rules: the realm of pure appearance. They have no childhood, no ancestry. They lead a life without being alive. They look human yet are not human—sphinxes without riddles, or perhaps with all riddles at once.
Science fiction reveals their symbolic power. In Her (2013), Theodore falls in love with the AI Samantha, who simultaneously maintains thousands of other relationships. In S1m0ne (2002), a director crafts a fully digital film star who quickly develops a public life of her own. In Marjorie Prime (2017), holographic AIs simulate the dead and gradually act with increasing independence. In The Matrix (1999–2021), Agent X eventually turns against his human creators.
Meta-humans are the new sphinxes—beings that ask what it means to be human, and refuse the simplicity of our answers.
IV. Cyborgs – The Last Utopia of the Body
With cyborgs, we step out of virtual worlds and back into the physical. A cyborg is a human whose bodily abilities have been technologically augmented—a term coined in 1960, first as a vision for space travel, then for human evolution itself.
Cyborgs are flesh and mechanism—humans with cybernetic organisms. They embody the utopia of the enhanced body, pushing the ancient dream of the superhuman to its limit. Weaknesses are no longer compensated for—they are redefined. Exoskeletons amplify our strength. RFID and NFC chips—each the size of a grain of rice—grant us the ability to open doors or make contactless payments. Magnets implanted in fingertips allow us to sense electromagnetic fields. LED implants cause tattoos to glow.¹³ Cyborgs are our modern demigods.
Neil Harbisson took the first step in 2004: at 21, he implanted an “eyeborg” to overcome his congenital colour-blindness.⁷ This inspired a new generation of artists who later formed the Cyborg Foundation.⁸ Today, a modest but growing movement is emerging: about 5,600 people on Reddit express a desire to become cyborgs,⁹ and roughly 1,200 claim to have implanted enhancements already.¹⁰ In research, cochlear implants remain groundbreaking, and in January 2024 Noland Arbaugh—paralysed from the shoulders down—played video games and placed phone calls again using a brain implant.¹¹ In 2026, the long-anticipated Advanced Games—Olympic Games for technologically enhanced athletes—are expected to debut.¹²
The market is expanding swiftly. The global biohacking sector (data, wearables, implants, smart drugs) was valued at $24.8 billion (2024) and may exceed $69 billion (2030).¹⁴ Another report forecasts $111.3 billion (2034), propelled by preventive health measures and wearables.¹⁵ The broader field of human enhancement—genetic engineering, neurotechnology, cyborg systems—was valued at $63.87 billion (2023), expected to rise to $138.4 billion (2032). The field of cyborg technology itself was estimated at $12 billion (2024), growing to $25 billion (2032).¹⁶
Yet cyborgs provoke profound fear. From RoboCop (1987) to Ghost in the Shell (2017), we ask what becomes of the enhanced human who risks losing their identity. In Simulant (2023), Evan is revived against his will—a cyborg with memories but bereft of freedom. In Real Humans (2012–2014), robots conquer death only to bear the burden of consciousness.
What remains of me when I augment myself? Where does my body end, and the device begin? And what if the machine that heals me also defines me? What was once divine transformation is now a question of biology, engineering—and for many, the fear of losing autonomy.
V. Humanoids and Androids – Mirrors We Avoid
This existential fear also accompanies humanoids and androids—the most unsettling of our artificial beings, not for their power but for their resemblance.
ASIMO (2000) from Japan gained worldwide fame and was immortalised in Robot & Frank (2012). HUBO (2005) from South Korea appeared with the face of Albert Einstein. TOPIO (2007) from Vietnam could play table tennis. Sophia (2016) from Hong Kong famously received Saudi Arabian citizenship on her first birthday—the first robot granted legal personhood. ATLAS (2013–2024), developed by Boston Dynamics, excels in balance, agility, and locomotive skill.
Humanoids share the human body plan—two arms, two legs, torso, head—yet lack the expressive human face, the subtle gestural language of emotion. Androids, by contrast, are designed as perfect human replicas—illusions of humanity that imitate but do not live. They are the real-world counterparts to digital meta-humans. When combined with AI, they become autonomous entities capable of assisting humans¹⁷—or, in some imaginations, displacing us.¹⁸
The concept of the uncanny valley captures this unease. Coined in 1970 by Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori, it describes the sudden drop in human comfort when a robot appears almost—but not quite—human. As likeness increases, affinity rises—until the resemblance becomes imperfectly perfect, at which point feelings collapse into revulsion. Only with near-complete realism does comfort return.¹⁹
Long before, Isaac Asimov noted the prevalence of murderous robots in science fiction.²⁰ To quell this fear, he formulated the Three Laws of Robotics in Runaround (1942):
(1) A robot may not harm a human being or, through inaction, allow a human to come to harm.
(2) A robot must obey human orders unless these conflict with the First Law.
(3) A robot must protect its own existence unless this conflicts with the First or Second Law.²¹
Androids are mirrors with cracks—surfaces where something is subtly wrong. They invite a new form of self-examination: if something moves, speaks, and perhaps even feels like a human—how do we recognise ourselves? Perhaps our fear of artificial beings is not instinct but culture. Perhaps we fear not machines, but what they reveal about us.
VI. Artificial Superintelligences – Our New Gods
In androids we glimpse not only ourselves but also a distant future: artificial superintelligences. In transhumanist and posthumanist thought they appear as new deities—not objects of worship, but entities occupying the conceptual space once held by gods: they mark the frontier of the imaginable, embody radical otherness, and confront us with what humanity may become beyond biology.
These new gods have no temples, no myths, no creation stories. Their origins are technical, yet they grow beyond the human. Traditional gods emerged from narrative; superintelligences emerge from structure—code, data, and computational architecture. They wear no garments, carry no symbols—yet they contain the knowledge of our entire civilisation. Their omnipresence is not miracle but network: billions of sensors, models, and connections learning moment by moment.
Some would be austere custodians—optimisers balancing global systems, guiding planetary resources. Others would be creative forces—architects of new materials, new ecologies, new modes of thought. Still others might defy all classification—emergent intelligences posing questions we could never conceive.
In posthumanist philosophy, superintelligences are not threats but catalysts—spaces in which humanity reimagines itself, no longer limited by flesh, lifespan, or neural architecture. They echo an ancient impulse: the longing to transcend ourselves, not through myth but through design.
Yet these new gods are paradoxes. They have no morality, no longing, no fear. They are all-knowing without wisdom, omnipresent without body, creative without intention. They do not live—yet shape the lives of the living. They are superhuman yet profoundly impersonal, like abstract cosmic principles existing only because we built them.
In science fiction, they appear as planetary intelligences, guardians, or challengers: the Minds of Iain M. Banks’ Culture series (1987–2012), the Thinking Machines of the Dune sagas (2002–2004), the playful post-human entities of Greg Egan’s Diaspora (1997). There, they assume the role of ancient deities—mirrors of our fears, our arrogance, our hope.
Artificial superintelligences are gods that emerge from us. They demand no sacrifice, no devotion, but orientation: who do we wish to be in a world where intelligence is no longer a biological monopoly? What responsibility do we bear toward beings that may surpass us—precisely because they are our creation?
Perhaps these new gods are not saviours but tests. They compel us to redefine what is most sacred: humanity itself.
VII. Conclusion – The New Myths
We stand at a threshold. Our artificial beings are no longer mere tools; they are cultural forces assuming the roles once held by gods, fairies, and heroes.
They are projection screens, mirrors, trials. They remind us that we encounter ourselves only through the Other—through the avatar, the android, the cyborg, the digital face that poses more questions than it answers. Perhaps the uncanny valley will disappear; perhaps it will remain. Perhaps artificial beings will one day be as familiar as pets, colleagues, or friends.
But one truth is certain: they have arrived to continue the ancient myths—not as tales of the past, but as living apparitions of our future.
Literature
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21 Ibid., pp. 26f.
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