Abstract
Current Heideggerian AI (HAI) is the attempt to revise the fundamentals of Artificial Intelligence based on Heidegger’s philosophy. While the debate is much monopolized with questions regarding the role of representations, there is overall agreement that HAI should be conceived to foster development of AI techniques, on the assumption that Heidegger’s ontological analysis of humans (Dasein) should apply to artificial systems. We argue this is inconsistent with Heidegger’s philosophy, as it denies ontological meaning to categories such as robot and human, considered the same type of beings. The aim of this paper is to steer HAI towards the question of our pre-ontological notions of artificial systems, and robots in particular. We present a provisional ontological analysis that considers robots specific, non-human and non-animal beings, which we derive from the relationship between robots and work. Robots are those machines that perform human labour – because in practice they can only transform it, their being is one that cannot be fulfilled.
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- 1.
“¿No comprendería Heidegger, en efecto, el proyecto de la IA como el fastigio de la metafísica, como la tecnificación más nefanda?” Masís 2009 (Wouldn’t Heidegger understand the AI Project as the pinnacle of metaphysics, as the most abominable technification (own translation).
- 2.
The dominant view of rationalism “offers us a picture of an agent who in perceiving the world takes in ‘bits’ of information from his or her surroundings and then ‘processes’ them in some fashion, in order to emerge with ‘this picture’ of the world he or she has; who then acts on the basis of this picture to fulfill his or her goals, through a ‘calculus’ of means and ends” (Taylor 1993, p. 204).
- 3.
Are robots imperfect copies of biological systems, the “purest” form of autonomy? Or are animals and humans genuine examples of robotic systems, i.e., “biological robots”? The problem may not be so much the reductionist view of humans, but the dismissal of the possibilities of robotics beyond the artificial animal or human.
- 4.
As Heidegger qualified his own analysis of Dasein, cf. Heidegger 1962, p. 38.
- 5.
In Heidegger’s terms an existentiell, an ontic understanding in the everyday life of such beings
- 6.
Thinkers such as Lukács have argued that doing work is an exclusively human ontological feature. We argue that this is shared with robots.
- 7.
In the play, a scientist is in principle capable of replicating entire humans, with all their organs and functions. Nevertheless, R.U.R. Corporation is dedicated to create robots, beings with the same capacities of humans, physical and intellectual, but little vital needs beyond those strictly required performing their labour.
- 8.
It could be argued that there are some robots, such as classic automata, and much of today’s research, which only aim is to amuse or entertain. Nevertheless, entertainer is a job: the same way automata were toured in circuses, today’s robots performers as well as company robots perform work.
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Herrera, C., Sanz, R. (2016). Heideggerian AI and the Being of Robots. In: Müller, V.C. (eds) Fundamental Issues of Artificial Intelligence. Synthese Library, vol 376. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-26485-1_29
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