Abstract
There is a red thread running through this book. It is the critique of what we call “Silicon Valley ideology,” or put positively, its replacement by the idea of a digital humanism which demarcates itself from a misinterpretation of artificial intelligence. Digital humanism counters this ideologization of digital technologies with an attitude of sobriety. Digital humanism is not defensive; it does not want to put the brakes on technological progress in the age of artificial intelligence but advocates an acceleration of human progress using digital possibilities to make our lives richer, more efficient, and more sustainable. It does not dream of a whole new human form of existence like the transhumanists; it remains skeptical about utopian expectations but is optimistic about human creativity in dealing with digital potential.
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There is a red thread running through this book. It is the critique of what we call “Silicon Valley ideology,” or put positively, its replacement by the idea of a digital humanism which demarcates itself from a misinterpretation of Artificial Intelligence.
In the broadest sense, Artificial Intelligence refers to everything that can be realized with digital techniques, such as computing, from pocket calculators to autonomously acting, self-learning software systems. The greatest misinterpretation is referred to in philosophy as “strong AI” (strong AI), according to which there is no categorical difference between humans and computers; software systems that imitate human behavior, judgment, and decision-making also have human characteristics. There are two possible readings of strong AI: a materialistic and an animistic one.
In the materialist reading, human brains are nothing more than complex computers. Therefore, the language of mental properties is fundamentally redundant, and with the progress of natural science, mentalese (the language of mental properties) will die out.
If one were to take digital materialism seriously as a worldview, this would mean the end of the human way of life as it is.
In the animistic version one can find in many Hollywood films, software systems are regarded as animate beings that are endowed with mental properties just like humans.
The weak variant of Artificial Intelligence (weak AI) does not claim that there is no categorical difference between humans and computers, but merely that all human, cognitive capacities can in principle also be performed by computers.
The optimistic expectation that the cognitive abilities of software systems are capable of unlimited development is often accompanied by a kind of hope of salvation, according to which digital technologies will free people from the toils and limitations of their existence, create new ways of interaction and communication, give us perfect (digital) partners, and enhance human perceptual and cognitive abilities. The message that comprehensive digital transformation will herald a brave and radically new world, as preached by many entrepreneurs from Silicon Valley, is not coincidentally reminiscent of the millenarian rhetoric of salvation that has always had great significance in US-American culture. As a kind of technological millenarianism, Silicon Valley perverts Christian eschatology and presents the digital revolution as the answer to all our economic, social, and even spiritual problems.
Digital humanism counters this ideologization of digital technologies with an attitude of sobriety. Like all technologies of the past, digital technologies are ambivalent. Digital transformation will not automatically humanize our living conditions—it depends on how we use and develop this technology. Digital humanism argues for an instrumental attitude towards digitlization: what can be economically, socially, and culturally beneficial, and where do potential dangers lurk?
Furthermore, digital humanism opposes strong AI. There is nothing to suggest that software systems have perceptions or even emotions, that they can recognize and make decisions. What can be observed here is a more or less successful simulation of cognitive and emotional processes. We should beware of a specific kind of self-deception consisting of us first developing digital machines that simulate emotions, cognitions, and decisions, and then explaining this behaviour by attributing them mental states.
At this point, an argument comes into play that reaches deep into logic, mathematics, and epistemology. The meta-mathematical results of incompleteness and undecidability of Kurt Gödel and other logicians of the early twentieth century are crucial for this. We have interpreted this as a conclusive refutation of the weak AI thesis. With these results, it has been shown that there can be no complete simulation of human judgment and decision-making. There is much to suggest that the categorical difference between humans and machines is also related to this. This is at least the assumption developed by the mathematician and theoretical physicist Roger Penrose in two extensive monographs (The Emperor’s New Mind, 1989 and Shadows of the Mind: A Search for the Missing Science of Consciousness, 1994). Furthermore, one should be aware that attributing mental properties to software systems, would make our everyday use of computers problematic and block further technical progress in digitalization. If computers recognize, decide, and feel, we would need to treat them with consideration and also grant them human rights, depending on how similar they are to humans. Quite contrary to its intention, strong AI is becoming an obstacle to technological progress.
Digital humanism does not get carried away. It emphasizes the far-reaching immutability of human nature and the conditions of human development. It defends cultural achievements such as the separation of private and public spheres and informational self-determination. It pleads for the strengthening of democracy, also using the new digital possibilities; it warns against a decline of interpersonal connection in times of increasing anonymization and manipulation of Internet communication. It pleads for strengthening the power of judgment in order to enable reliable orientation in the face of an overabundance of data.
Digital humanism is not defensive; it does not want to put the brakes on technological progress in the age of Artificial Intelligence but advocates an acceleration of human progress using digital possibilities to make our lives richer, more efficient, and more sustainable. It does not dream of a whole new human form of existence like the transhumanists; it remains skeptical about utopian expectations but is optimistic about human creativity in dealing with digital potential.
References
Penrose, Roger. 1989. The Emporer’s New Mind. Concerning Computers, Minds, and the Laws of Physics. New York: Oxford University Press.
———. 1994. Shadows of the Mind: A Search for the Missing Science of Consciousness. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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Nida-Rümelin, J., Weidenfeld, N. (2022). Afterword. In: Digital Humanism. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-12482-2_21
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