We witness since about 2022 a kind of hype around artificial intelligence – apparently it started with Chat GPT. And indeed, it is technologically a fascinating development and hard to believe: the idea that apparently part of what is generally seen as essential for human being or humanness can be replaced by technology. Looking at a wider array around these questions, we have to include as well the debate about genetic modification, another technology, that claims to replace natural development by human intervention. In the perspective of Western thought we may even see this development as replacement of god as almighty power by human beings; it is about the enlightened rational being, acting in this spirit and replacing mystery by rationality as ultimate wisdom. And of course, it is easy to see, that the further development resulted in a very limited understanding of rationality, namely one-sided and utilitarian in thought and behaviour.
Being well aware of the danger of highlighting one aspect and putting it over others, when we assess a certain development, the following is nevertheless an aspect that may play a role in the entire development of artificial intelligence. It is the capital interest not as economic force alone but as expression of the devaluation of human existence.
Again, being aware of the fact that a country is not one country, does not represent one train of thought only, a recent study by colleagues from Stanford University (Nestor Maslej et altera: 2024: The AI Index 2024 Annual Report,” AI Index Steering Committee, Institute for Human-Centered AI, Stanford University, Stanford, CA)may be telling an important story from behind the scene of the development of artificial intelligence.
* The leading forces in the development of artificial intelligence are located in the United States of America; furthermore, they are not public institutions but the major players are in fact industrial corporations – though public funding surely plays an important role.
* While the investment in the US is in quantitative terms incredibly high if compared with others, it is also interesting to see where the money is going: “China dominates industrial robotics”. Various figures suggest that this aims at collaborative systems, whereas in the US investment is more driven towards replacing workers, and even more so: replacing humans in areas of “higher activities”. One may refer to the three-sector model (see in particular the works of Colin Clark, Jean Fourastié), later expanded by adding sectors in accordance with the increasing differentiation of the overall process of production, and ion the Western strategy pushed as matter of ‘sublimation of production’.
Obviously, this raises the question, if digitisation and AI aren’t in this logic centrally a strategy of dehumanisation human existence – not by replacing labour, but ,more sublime through dissolving the substance of being human, i.e. being a social, productive and ecological creature. We may interpret the increasing distancing of activities from primary to secondary, then especially to tertiary sector and further as refining; but we may also see it as alienation.
* This, of course, brings us to another topic that is essential when it comes to the question of Human Rights and nature: Are we as humans part of nature or can we claim to be superior, able and allowed to ‘make the earth subject’. Here, language plays a trick as it would not be about making nature subject in the legal sense; on the contrary, we are witnessing first the externalisation, then the subordination of nature. In consequence, the danger of processes of digitisation in the widest sense is that at some stage we might reach a point of no return: the Anthropocene turning into an ‘artoscene’: subordination of nature turning – paradoxically – into the dominance of artificial systems. We can see this already today in social orders and communication: knowledge and deep understanding are replaced by information, target-oriented announcements; substantial relations and disputes are replaced by legitimation by procedure; discourses are reduced on short messages and emoticon-ification … . One of the problems is the reduction of human communication, following even in many cases the ‘requirements of the system’, not allowing an unfolding of complex and contradicting topics.
In the debate about universal and global Human Rights we find especially two strands – and two camps. The two strands are defined by the two poles ‘pure existence’ on the one end and ‘liberties’ on the other end; the two camps, find the soci(et)al orientation on the one end and the individualist orientation on the other end. This categorisation allows to assess the meaning of developments around digitisation in the widest sense for Human Rights in a systematic way.
Basic premise for any investigation is always a specific conception of man, surely value-based, i.e. led by moral soundings, but such soundings are based on the analysis of the objective relationality of existence. Here, we employ the following understanding: man is a socio-political being, developing a self-understanding emerging from his/her way of producing and reproducing life, while this is defined by the developmental stage of the productive forces.
Against this background, the sequencing of rights, as proposed by T.H. Marshall, is highly problematic. He suggested the emergence of rights as sequence from civil to political to social rights. There are good reasons for questioning the definitions: wasn’t claiming civil rights by the bourgeoisie a question of enforcing the right to act economically in one’s own interest? But before moving the critique on this way further, the question is in the present context a different one: talking about pure existential rights would reduce human beings to a status that we may call ‘animalistc’; elevating humans to supreme savours, above nature, would fade out the socio-productive and relational character. In consequence, existence would be changed to an alienated being, reminding us of what Marx stated, namely that the worker therefore only feels himself outside his work, and in his work feels outside himself. He feels at home when he is not working, and when he is working he does not feel at home – however, now it is a matter of affluence, making everybody prone to this kind of de-humanisation. In other words, as much as we must insist on the realisation of the most basic right, it is increasingly important to secure humanness of being. And intelligence is exactly about this: humanness as processual, relational, emphatic and full of humour. Aiming on a network of artificial intelligence that is superior to man, moving towards a new singularity as it is a new American dream, pursued by people like Jeff Bezos or Eon Musk, is surely a threat of Human Rights, as much as one hears about working conditions in their companies and the exploitation of natural resources for their e-mobility plans.
Coming back to AI chat bots etc., their danger is … their use of forming humankind to an appendix – one does not need to study medicine to know what this means.