Abstract
In the following pages, Bruno Latour’s conception of modern epistemology is analyzed. Although Latour considered modernity to be at an end, the chapter shows how the modern analytical approach is still active in the contemporary world.
Research on artificial intelligence (AI) is no exception. Despite the fact that some experts and practitioners continue to promulgate a modern and reductionist conception of technology, the chapter show how that approach does not stand the test of time and how it leads to misunderstandings and misconceptions about AI and human cognition.
By reflecting on the theoretical assumptions underlying neural networks, currently the state of the art in AI research, the paper proposes an alternative approach to epistemological reductionism. These assumptions bring Latour's call about the constructed and hybrid character of phenomena back to the centre of the debate. This approach will prove fundamental in laying the groundwork for a philosophical reflection on AI.
This contribution was conceived in a unitary way The first, second and sixth paragraphs were drafted by Marta Bertolaso, and the third, fourth and fifth by Luca Capone.
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Notes
- 1.
The meter prototype, housed in Paris, is a platinum bar used as a standard for the international metric system from 1889 to 1960. The current standard is the one promulgated by the Geneva Conference on Weights and Measures, which defined the meter as the fixed numerical value of the speed of light in vacuum c to be 299,792,458 when expressed in the unit m s−1, where the second is defined in terms of the caesium frequency ΔνCs. https://www.bipm.org/en/si-base-units/metre.
- 2.
Noam Chomsky has recently been critical about AI and in particular NLP (2019).
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Capone, L., Bertolaso, M. (2022). Reflections on a Theory of Artificial Intelligence. In: Bertolaso, M., Capone, L., RodrÃguez-Lluesma, C. (eds) Digital Humanism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97054-3_2
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