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I'm always grateful for David's references--he's an encyclopedic source on the philosophy of AI & robotics. I just want to note how this angle may fuel important philosophical debates, but remain orthogonal to my particular project (1/15--apologies in advance for the length!) https://twitter.com/David_Gunkel/status/1322540200300584960
One of the major purposes of my "New Laws" book is to connect political economy & metaphysical commitments, via interpretive/hermeneutic social science. A hermeneutic circle helps us understand the particular in the context of the general, and vice versa.
In my case, I started the project exploring what it would mean to prioritize labor over capital, for the very long term. That led to some "laws of robotics" recommending that we design/adopt AI that raises the value of certain labor.
But it is hard to maintain the priority of labor over capital within a normative system that erases the boundary between machines & persons. Professions of concerns about "robot workers" remind me of Becker's trick with "human capital" ( https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/oureconomy/the-problem-with-human-capital/):
a strategic blurring of lines necessary to promote a humane political economy. So my project doesn't require me to be "objectively right" about what simulation/artificiality denote (indeed, it's hard to see how one could be so; they're essentially contested concepts).
Rather, I critique imitations of deeply (if not uniquely) human qualities by entities that don't share predicaments (such as embodiment & mortality) that humans do, based on analysis of what society is (& becomes) if we invest in such imitations. e.g.: https://reallifemag.com/more-than-a-feeling/
The "new laws" are about building a better society ("here's AI & robotics we should invest in"), rather than diagnosing or forecasting ("here's what is & what's coming, get ready for it"). They're about planning for industrial policy, not prediction of what markets will bring.
In that way, the book's political economy (toward social democracy and planning) fits its metaphysical commitment to the distinctiveness & priority of the human. That's the hermeneutic circle--the metaphysics make sense in terms of the politics/economics, & vice versa.
My general sense is that, in the opposite direction, a singularitarian blurring of the human/machine distinction fits with & supports accelerationist capitalism (see, e.g., https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/tedchiang/the-real-danger-to-civilization-isnt-ai-its-runaway) far better than social democracy/planning.
The blurring of that distinctiveness could be the foundation for the view: "well, yes, climate change may greatly reduce human population, but advanced robots are just as valuable & can survive it...'so it goes,' evolutionarily," reducing the urgency of human-preserving response.
I am not saying such fatalistic quiescence is required by singularitarian or physicalist commitments. But scholars like @jasonwblakely expertly show the anti-humanist dimensions of such a blurring project, & I think it's a serious enough danger that I want to resist it.
Thus I value the "real," and strict lines between humans & robots, not just from some easily contestable metaphysics, but also from a perspective that analyzes how philosophical views affect social organization, and vice versa.
On method, I like this language from Boesche on Tocqueville: "society seems to resemble a delicately balanced mobile in which every aspect settles into its position as a result of the composite influence of every other. Laws, religion, art, architecture, economic considerations,
...language, literature, and so forth, lean upon
one another....[Though] the image of a mobile may be modern, the idea supporting this image is at least as old as Plato." https://www.jstor.org/stable/191010?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents
So yes, I'll cop to that form of Platonism, more methodological than metaphysical.
one another....[Though] the image of a mobile may be modern, the idea supporting this image is at least as old as Plato." https://www.jstor.org/stable/191010?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents
So yes, I'll cop to that form of Platonism, more methodological than metaphysical.
The book is an invitation to reconsider how political economy affects values, & vice versa. It's only one interpretation of our broader predicament. But I hope that it helps inform & strengthen a community of researchers & activists committed to advancing human well-being.
