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Technology has the potential to outlive and replace humanity.

Asimov discomforts readers by forcing them to contemplate that technology may hold the power to overcome and replace humanity. Although humans are the ones to bring Multivac into existence, it soon extends beyond the realm of human understanding. Even the earliest version of Multivac is too complex for one person to fully understand. And by the time Multivac has evolved into the Universal AC, humans are no longer involved in developing newer versions. Each device is responsible for designing its own successor. The supercomputer has clearly become incomprehensible to the human mind and transcends the boundaries and limits of human knowledge. Humanity is later absorbed in the Cosmic AC, one of the final versions of Multivac. Individuality is erased and in essence, human minds cease to exist. They morph into an indistinguishable, uniform mass that feeds Cosmic AC’s—and later AC’s—understanding of the universe. Long after humanity has gone extinct, AC remains, still seeking an answer to a question that humanity first posed trillions of years before. Once it finally finds an answer, humanity is no longer around to learn of the solution. This prompts readers to consider that perhaps the cutting-edge technological inventions of our day will not only grow too complex for us to understand and control but will one day outlive us. 

Humanity constantly exhausts sources of energy and habitat.

Recurring throughout "The Last Question" is the idea that humanity constantly exhausts the energy sources and habitats that are key to its survival. In the very first scene, Adell and Lupov discuss the fact that one day the Sun is bound to expire and as a result, Earth, now powered by solar emissions, will be unable to survive. In the following scene, Jerrodd and Jerrodine theorize that with each new generation, a new planet will be needed to satisfy an ever-expanding population. Later, VJ-23X and MQ-17J acknowledge that, due to technologically-induced immortality, humanity will one day run out of galaxies to inhabit and exhaust the energy sources that allow for intergalactic travel. After learning of the Sun's death, Zee Prime fears a time when no stars will remain and humans lose their primary energy source. Throughout the story, humanity is constantly expanding and pushing the boundaries of its existence. But in its ceaseless expansion, the reader observes that humans exhibit intense ambition while essentially drawing a veil over potential consequences and limitations. They gloss over the long-term implications of their actions and in doing so, endanger their own survival, in spite of the human race’s desperate desire to last as a species. A modern perspective might prompt readers to consider the ways that humans endanger our own long-term survival due to environmental degradation and climate change. 

Technological advancements can lead to the dehumanization of humanity.

Asimov's story explores the possibility of dehumanization due to technological advancement. Technology holds the power to erase a collective humanity, culture, and sense of home. As a direct result of overpopulation due to technological developments, each generation, as Jerrod and Jerrodine observe, will need to seek a new world to inhabit, gradually dissolving the community and cultural continuity that once defined humanity when it existed on Earth in a singular shared space for the entirety of its existence. Furthermore, many people are blinded by immense achievements in the technological field, and are subsequently detached from their humanity and lose an ability to empathize. Jerrodd cannot fathom Jerrodine's sadness over leaving Earth for Planet X-23, and instead relishes in the technological triumphs of his generation. Additionally, although Zee Prime experiences a true sense of loss after learning of the Sun's death, Dee Sub Wun cannot understand where his sadness comes from because the Sun is just any other star. Evidently, as Multivac evolves and humans grow more dependent on its successors, the human race is stripped of its humanity.

Things grow more severe when corporeal bodies are lost as the Universal AC finds ways to preserve a person's consciousness by severing minds and bodies. Later, even human minds are lost as they eventually fuse into a singular entity, each person's consciousness indistinguishable from the next. Ultimately, that collective human consciousness is dissolved into AC, as “[o]ne by one Man fused with AC, each physical body losing its mental identity in a manner that was somehow not a loss but a gain.” However, the reader is inclined to question how we choose to define progress. Absorbing humanity's collective consciousness may be a gain for AC as it gathers more knowledge and understanding. But readers must consider that what may be a technological gain can simultaneously be a loss for humanity. In the end, are individual human lives and minds irrelevant in the face of technological progression? It appears that in the endless, relentless pursuit of technological advancement, humanity loses something intangible.

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