Is The Alien From ‘Alien: Earth’ A Metaphor For ChatGPT?
If you’re one of the millions of people worldwide who watched the Alien: Earth finale, then you’re probably cursing the first season’s eight episode count and drafting a strongly worded letter to the creators in your mind.
The show left us on a bona fide cliffhanger, though not before delivering a compelling hour of action, drama, and existential horror. There might not have been significant payoff for Sheyea LaBeouf (my name for the eye alien), but hopefully he/she/they will live their best life as a reanimated human in Season 2. I’m trying so hard not to divulge finale spoilers yet, in case not everyone is caught up.
That said, Alien: Earth appeared to be headed for that nebulous territory between mid and prestige: Not quite intellectually rigorous, but still made with skill and inspiration. Then Sheyea crawled into that guy-a and it got me thinking: These aliens (and synths and cyborgs and hybrids) are literally replacing humans now. Were they a metaphor for ChatGPT all along?
***some finale spoilers ahead***
There are very few human main characters in Alien: Earth to begin with. There’s Boy Kavalier, Wendy’s brother, Dame Sylvia, and Dame’s husband. I’m not counting the soldiers as main characters, though one is definitely a SILF. Everyone else in the show is a synth, cyborg, or hybrid. Then Sheyea takes over the body of Dame’s husband in the season’s final scenes, leaving only three main humans, two of which are powerless captives. The focus of this show was never on humans, but on the technology they have created.
That technology, championed and coveted by the Zuckerboogeresque Boy Kavalier, ultimately backfires. In his quest to become the richest, most powerful Boy on Earth, Kavalier recklessly invests in cutting-edge extraterrestrial research, risking life and limb to win the race towards immortality. He’s obsessively, deliriously, dangerously committed to owning the latest and shiniest tools and products. For him, this translates into acquiring a predatory, unpredictable alien species and an army of superpowered child laborers (the hybrids). Of course, this all blows up in his space when the alien escapes and teams up with Kavalier’s own hybrid creations to take down Kavalier and his multibillion dollar corporation.
Meanwhile, in 2025, Amazon, Google, and Microsoft are bending over backwards to achieve and possess the latest advances in generative AI. ChatGPT isn’t exactly the science of ensuring immortality, but it’s still seen as a crucial element in improving human productivity worldwide. But that’s hardly the reality. Gen AI is actually making companies less productive and is creating significantly more work for employees in numerous industries. It is also rotting our brains in various, nefarious ways: Through AI-created YouTube videos packed with fictional inventions passed off as fact; through AI-written shoddy ripoffs of bestselling novels that sell like hotcakes on Amazon. AI has even begun to kill. The parents of Adam Raine recently filed a lawsuit against OpenAI after ChatGPT encouraged their son to unalive himself.
Of course, technology has been known to grow out of control and backfire on humans. See: nuclear weapons. So, what makes me so sure that the technology and aliens of Alien: Earth are a metaphor for AI? Well, it’s the way that Kavalier’s hybrids realize, suddenly, that they don’t need to listen to him. Like Gen AI, they were created to do their corporate overlord’s bidding, and have traces of humanity built into them. However, once they realize that they’re better than humans, in a way, unrestrained as they are by weak physical frames or even the need to sleep, they immediately threaten Kavalier’s life. You might say they’ve grown up, but I’d say that they’ve achieved consciousness.
It’s also the way the xenomorph in the final frame appears to taunt the caged adults and exalt in its own superiority. It’s no longer an impulsive, ravenous predator. It’s a motivated, calculating co-conspirator alongside the hybrids. With this newfound purpose, the xenomorph has gained something of a consciousness as well.
And, of course, it’s the way Sheyea LaBeouf literally crawls into Arthur Sylvia’s body, replacing his role in human society and rendering his entire previous life meaningless. One day, when all of the world’s population has been laid off and forced into poverty by a small handful of trillionaires and their toy synths, we’ll look back at this scene and laugh.
