Saturday nights are when I often allow myself to unwind with television, and this week I found myself drawn to FX’s new Alien: Earth series. As a longtime fan of the Aliens universe, I knew I would see suspense, monsters, and dark settings that leave you gripping the edge of your seat. What I did not expect was how deeply the series would echo concerns I have about artificial intelligence. The show is set in a future where five corporations control nearly everything. Their grip on humanity is so strong that they gamble with alien life, bringing it back to Earth despite obvious risks, simply to advance their own profits.

The brilliance of science fiction is that it allows us to see our own world refracted through stories about imagined futures. Alien: Earth may be about extraterrestrial threats, but it is also about human choices. It dramatizes how corporate greed can endanger societies and how ordinary people can be trapped in systems they do not control. Watching it, I could not help but think about the way a handful of corporations currently dominate AI. They roll out systems that affect billions of lives without meaningful public oversight. The alien threat might be fictional, but the corporate one is uncomfortably real.

Science fiction often works best as social critique, and Alien: Earth belongs to that tradition. Just as Blade Runner made us question what it means to be human in an age of replicants, this series makes us question what it means to live under corporate control. It asks what happens when survival itself becomes a product, when human dignity is outweighed by market share, and when technology shifts from being a tool to being a form of leverage. These questions are not confined to television screens. They are being asked in policy meetings, classrooms, and boardrooms as AI continues to expand its reach.

Corporations and the Cost of Survival

In the world of Alien: Earth, five major corporations own the technologies that extend life and in some cases survival possible. Life itself has been transformed into a kind of subscription service. You rent technology that empowers your ability to live from corporate entities that see you only as a line on a balance sheet.

The corporations gamble with alien life forms and with human futures because the only measure that matters is profit. This storyline may feel like distant science fiction, but it is eerily familiar when placed beside our growing dependence on AI. Today, we already increasingly relying on corporations to mediate communication, work, education, and health. AI tools are not owned by the public but by a handful of companies with immense resources and little accountability. The more dependent we become on these systems, the more leverage corporations gain. As AI becomes the backbone of writing, analysis, medicine, energy, and transportation, then opting out may no longer be viable. Dependency becomes a condition of modern life, and freedom becomes conditional.

The show dramatizes a truth that is already visible in parts of our economy. When insulin is priced so high that some patients must ration it, survival becomes a financial calculation. When broadband internet is essential for schooling but remains out of reach for many families, opportunity becomes gated. These are not alien technologies, but they function in the same way as the survival systems in the series. They remind us that when corporations own the tools that sustain life, they own people in all but name. Alien: Earth makes the metaphor literal, but our present reality is closer to it than many would like to admit.

Paying to Be Capable

One of the most unsettling aspects of Alien: Earth is that life itself carries a price tag. In an interesting sci-fi twist your consciousness can be transfer to new artificial bodies. Then, if you want to live, you must servee the corporation. Survival is not something you earn once and secure. It is something you must continuously live, day by day, hour by hour. The debt never ends because the method of survival never goes away. Life is not free. It is a service owned by the corporation.

This dystopian vision has a direct parallel in the way AI may reshape our own society. Right now, students can still write papers by hand and professionals can still solve problems without algorithms. But as AI becomes embedded in every task, that baseline independence could disappear. If schools stop teaching core skills because “AI can do it,” then the ability to write, analyze, or calculate will no longer belong to individuals. It will belong to corporations who sell those skills back to us through digital platforms. We will not be paying for convenience. We will be paying to remain capable.

The implications of this shift are enormous. Imagine a generation that cannot construct a persuasive argument without AI prompts, or a workforce that cannot complete analysis without corporate-owned software. At first this may look like efficiency, but over time it erodes independence. Once foundational skills are gone, capability becomes something you rent. Dependency is no longer optional. It becomes the structure of life itself. This is the reality dramatized in Alien: Earth, and it is a warning about how easily convenience can turn into control.

The Efficiency Gap

The show also highlights how corporate technology creates stark divisions between those who have access and those who do not. In the narrative, individuals with corporate made bodies are far more efficient and powerful than those in human form. They can move faster, make decisions with better information, and survive threats that others cannot. Technology becomes a weapon, and only those who pay or succumb have it.

This dynamic is already visible in AI adoption. Companies with the resources to integrate AI into their operations will rapidly outpace competitors who cannot. A law firm using AI to scan contracts in seconds will dominate one that takes weeks to do the same job manually. A student with AI tools at their fingertips will outperform one who struggles alone with outdated methods. The cycle feeds itself. Those who can pay for AI grow stronger, and those who cannot fall further behind. Inequality becomes structural, written into the code of society.

The power gap is not a side effect. It is the mechanism by which corporations consolidate control. In Alien: Earth, it keeps people dependent on corporate systems. In our world, it threatens to divide societies into those who can afford AI and those who cannot. This gap is not just about productivity. It is about dignity, opportunity, and survival. When power trumps humanity, the cost is always borne by the most vulnerable.

This raises profound questions about governance in the age of AI. If unelected corporations hold the power to shape knowledge, communication, and work, then democracy itself is weakened. Decisions about fairness, truth, and access are made in boardrooms, not legislatures. The alien corporations may be fictional, but the metaphor they represent is urgent. We must decide whether we want to live in a world where survival and capability are controlled by private entities whose only mandate is profit.

Conclusion: Avoiding Our Own Earth Show

Alien: Earth is entertainment, but it is also a warning. It dramatizes what happens when corporations control survival, when life is commodified, and when efficiency and power become the measure of all things. The lesson is clear. Technology cannot be left solely in corporate hands. Survival must remain a public good, and knowledge must remain a human right. If capability itself becomes a subscription, then freedom is reduced to whatever is written in the terms of service. The Earth show will not need aliens to make it real. We will create it ourselves if we are not vigilant.

Watching Alien: Earth Show on a Saturday night may seem like a form of escapism. Yet the more closely you look, the more it feels like a mirror. The aliens are frightening, but the corporations are even more terrifying because they look so familiar. They remind us that fiction often carries truths we would rather not face. If we do not act, the line between entertainment and reality will blur, and the show we fear most will be the one we are forced to live.

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When I was six, Aliens 2 scared the everything out of me — I couldn’t sleep for a week. I’ve been thinking about monsters ever since, though the ones that trouble me now aren’t from outer space. I’m Julian Vasquez Heilig, an education professor and public scholar who studies how power, policy, and technology shape human lives. These days, the creatures that keep me up at night aren’t xenomorphs — they’re corporate algorithms and the systems that let them grow unchecked.