This year I’m definitely going to attend the phenomenology and philosophy of technology conference as well. This time I’m planning to ride the wave of fashion and write an article on artificial intelligence. I haven’t quite settled on the title yet—maybe I’ll call it “The Self-Realization of Technology—A Phenomenological Reflection on Artificial Intelligence”?
The “self-realization” of technology somewhat echoes KK’s idea of “what technology wants”: people want self-realization, and so does technology. And “artificial intelligence” is precisely the process and result of this realization.
My concern with artificial intelligence is obviously different from the philosophy-of-AI perspective usually discussed by analytic philosophers (though I will also try to touch on some of their questions). My thinking does not unfold from the standpoint of philosophy of cognition at all, nor do I focus on questions of mind or consciousness. Rather, I enter from the angle of history of science and philosophy of technology, retrace the history of technology by reinterpreting the concept of “artificial intelligence,” and then show why “artificial intelligence” is technology’s self-realization.
Some of the ideas for the paper already appeared in my article on AlphaGo, but the paper will certainly need a more systematic exposition. My line of thought is roughly as follows. If fully fleshed out, it could probably become a little book. Depending on the situation, I’ll either write some of the chapters first or produce a brief outline and take it to the conference.
1. The essence of “intelligence.” “Wisdom” is a virtue; it is not exclusive to human beings, though it is indeed a human “specialty.” What is this capacity called wisdom, fundamentally speaking? It is “leaving blank space”: deficiency and its expansibility, its extensibility—in other words, the capacity to “learn.” What is called a “smartphone” is also really talking about expansibility and improvability.
2. I cite “The History of Media as Transcendental Philosophy.” From Meno’s paradox—“How is learning possible?”—to “history of technology.” Human intelligence, that is, learning, is possible because memory can be externalized and fixed in technical artifacts. Intelligence is the capacity of being “learnable,” and technology is “what can be learned.”
3. So technology and intelligence have always been two sides of the same coin: intelligence demands self-expansion and self-extension, while technical artifacts are precisely this expansion and extension themselves. Technology is the extension and solidification of “intelligence”; through artifacts, human beings realize themselves and complete themselves. So “artificial—intelligence” is originally mutually constitutive: human beings use intelligence to realize the making of artifacts, and in turn rely on artifacts to realize themselves.
4. Technical artifacts extend, converge, and solidify human wisdom; one could say that from the very beginning they “carry” wisdom, and this “wisdom” from the very beginning has independence—that is, it is not the wisdom of any particular person, nor is it easy to say that it is so-called “collective wisdom,” but rather that wisdom “exists” within the artifact itself.
5. That technical artifacts “have wisdom” means that they also possess “blank space,” “deficiency,” or, in other words, the characteristic of being expandable and extensible. Can artifacts “learn”? It seems that artifacts without autonomous consciousness cannot “learn” on their own, but if we allow them to “借助” human beings, then of course they are also learnable, and artifacts likewise seek “completion” in their own ways. But on the other hand, can human beings really learn “on their own”? Human learning is possible only by “借助” external technical artifacts and technical activities; “learning” was never a purely inner event occurring within the soul. Human self-improvement and the self-improvement of artifacts are originally a mutually constitutive relation.
6. Since wisdom means deficiency, does the development of wisdom then mean the strengthening of deficiency? In a certain sense, yes. This is why people say that “writing harms memory.” As people continually extend intelligence into technical objects, they become increasingly dependent on these technical environments; human beings dwell within technology. From the very beginning, human beings have not related to technology simply as masters to be in control of it, but have always had to entrust themselves to technology. While breaking through the body’s deficiencies by means of technology, they also acquire new deficiencies and are constrained by technology.
7. Insofar as technology is an extension and limitation of human beings, ancient technology and modern technology are the same. The difference is that in antiquity the human body was often experienced as a whole, with the various senses not yet split apart from one another, while the technical environment had not yet closed itself into an integrated whole. Each technology extended a specific capacity and pointed toward a specific purpose. All kinds of artifacts ultimately became a whole only within human life. In modernity, however, the technical environment closes itself into Gestell; the entire technical environment, represented by the factory assembly line, is linked end to end and becomes self-contained, while the human body instead becomes fragmented. Vision is first peeled away under print culture; in the factory assembly line, workers’ hands are peeled away. The labor of the worker’s hands has nothing to do with their emotions and desires; it is governed by the rhythm of the machine.
8. With the advance of industrial civilization, the “dissection” of the body and the “integration” of artifacts have become increasingly evident. “Artificial intelligence” in the narrow sense—that is, “computers”—was born precisely against this background. The history of “computers” interprets the disintegration of the body and the independence of artifacts.
9. So “artificial intelligence” in the narrow sense, that is, the technical artifact as an independent “other,” is the final destiny of the entire history of technology. The “realization” of “artificial intelligence” is neither a completed tense nor a future tense, but a progressive tense; the realization of artificial intelligence is technology’s self-realization itself. The whole history of technology can be understood as the actualization of “artificial intelligence.”
10. Technology was originally the solidification of intentionality. Not only can “Skynet” dominate humanity; any technical object can dominate humanity. Whether “artificial intelligence” has “self-awareness” is actually a relatively secondary issue. The domination of human beings by technology is more fateful than the domination of one personality over another.
11. Artificial intelligence is indeed “terrifying,” and its developmental trend is almost impossible to avoid. But the key lies in understanding just why it is terrifying, rather than in figuring out how to resist it. We say that nature is “terrifying” (worthy of “reverence”), but that does not mean that human beings cannot attain a good life within nature.
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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