Lecture
SAILS Lunch Time Seminar: Jan Sleutels
- Date
- Monday 9 October 2023
- Time
- Location
- Online only
Idols of the machine? AI and the Enlightenment
Many of our social insitutions are based on a model of rational agency that goes back to the Enlightenment. The model features a cognitive and moral profile for individuals (a set of rational competencies that everyone should ideally possess), as well as a set of social conditions that must be met for persons to be able to develop and use their rational competencies in an optimal way (e.g., access to information, free exchange of ideas, a private as well as a public sphere, etc.).
GOFAI was originally designed to match the Enlightenment model by imitating and boosting the powers of rational individuals (rule-based reasoning, expert systems, etc.). AI today is very different, however. It combines new technologies such as machine learning with a digital infrastructure that is completely integrated into our daily lives. I discuss how this combination is compromising key aspects of the Enlightenment model. My focus is on the phenomena of epistemic and intentional opacity, and how these affect our concepts of knowledge, agency and privacy.
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