Startseite Philosophie Outsourcing the Brain, Optimizing the Body: Retrotopian Projections of the Human Subject
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Outsourcing the Brain, Optimizing the Body: Retrotopian Projections of the Human Subject

  • Sabine Sielke
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Artificial Intelligence and Human Enhancement
Ein Kapitel aus dem Buch Artificial Intelligence and Human Enhancement

Abstract

This paper examines the paradoxical retrotopian dynamics, evident in research and science as much as in cultural practice, that drives current visions of the future of human subjectivity and of what it means to be human. Clearly differentiating AI from both trans- and posthumanism, I map the common ground these discourses tread: the aspiration to enhance human life and the seeming certainty that this can be achieved by way of transcending “human nature.” Figuring in cognitive science as a field that has fundamentally informed this conversation, I show how AI, with its dematerialized notion of subjectivity and demise of body (and brain) markets the ongoing “optimization” of the subject and makes the perceived boundary between human agents and their technological environment increasingly porous. Current conceptions of the human subject are retrotopian, rather than utopian, not only because popularized versions of cognitive science and AI revitalize mechanistic notions of humans that go back to the Renaissance. Coinciding with current practices of physical self-optimization, the sense of humans as “brain machines,” I hold, revitalizes and cements socio-economic hierarchies and inequalities that we deemed overcome some time ago.

Abstract

This paper examines the paradoxical retrotopian dynamics, evident in research and science as much as in cultural practice, that drives current visions of the future of human subjectivity and of what it means to be human. Clearly differentiating AI from both trans- and posthumanism, I map the common ground these discourses tread: the aspiration to enhance human life and the seeming certainty that this can be achieved by way of transcending “human nature.” Figuring in cognitive science as a field that has fundamentally informed this conversation, I show how AI, with its dematerialized notion of subjectivity and demise of body (and brain) markets the ongoing “optimization” of the subject and makes the perceived boundary between human agents and their technological environment increasingly porous. Current conceptions of the human subject are retrotopian, rather than utopian, not only because popularized versions of cognitive science and AI revitalize mechanistic notions of humans that go back to the Renaissance. Coinciding with current practices of physical self-optimization, the sense of humans as “brain machines,” I hold, revitalizes and cements socio-economic hierarchies and inequalities that we deemed overcome some time ago.

Kapitel in diesem Buch

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Table of Contents V
  3. Acknowledgements VII
  4. Introduction: Affirmative and Critical Approaches to Artificial Intelligence and Human Enhancement 1
  5. Part 1: Challenging “Strong AI” from the Perspective of Human Agency
  6. The Artificiality of the Human Mind: A Reflection on Natural and Artificial Intelligence 17
  7. Merits and Limits of AI: Philosophical Reflections on the Difference between Instrumental Rationality and Praxis-Related Hermeneutical Reason 33
  8. Experience, Identity and Moral Agency in the Age of Artificial Intelligence 51
  9. Outsourcing the Brain, Optimizing the Body: Retrotopian Projections of the Human Subject 79
  10. Life Care/Lebenssorge and the Fourth Industrial Revolution 101
  11. Part 2: Examining Merits and Limits of Applied AI
  12. AI’s Winograd Moment; or: How Should We Teach Machines Common Sense? Guidance from Cognitive Science 127
  13. Passing the Turing Test? AI Generated Poetry and Posthuman Creativity 151
  14. Why Neuroenhancement is a Philosophical Issue 167
  15. The Future of Artificial Intelligence in International Healthcare: An Index 181
  16. Part 3: Encounters with Artificial Beings in Film, Literature, and Theater
  17. Dark Ecology and Digital Images of Entropy: A Brief Survey of the History of Cinematic Morphing and the Computer Graphics of Artificial Intelligence 209
  18. Sentience, Artificial Intelligence, and Human Enhancement in US-American Fiction and Film: Thinking With and Without Consciousness 225
  19. “I, Robot”: Artificial Intelligence and Fears of the Posthuman 237
  20. AI on Stage: A Cross-Cultural Check-Up and the Case of Canada and John Mighton 261
  21. Artificial Intelligence from Science Fiction to Soul Machines: (Re‐)Configuring Empathy between Bodies, Knowledge, and Power 287
  22. List of contributors 309
  23. Index of Authors 315
  24. Index of Subjects 319
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110770216-006

Kapitel in diesem Buch

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Table of Contents V
  3. Acknowledgements VII
  4. Introduction: Affirmative and Critical Approaches to Artificial Intelligence and Human Enhancement 1
  5. Part 1: Challenging “Strong AI” from the Perspective of Human Agency
  6. The Artificiality of the Human Mind: A Reflection on Natural and Artificial Intelligence 17
  7. Merits and Limits of AI: Philosophical Reflections on the Difference between Instrumental Rationality and Praxis-Related Hermeneutical Reason 33
  8. Experience, Identity and Moral Agency in the Age of Artificial Intelligence 51
  9. Outsourcing the Brain, Optimizing the Body: Retrotopian Projections of the Human Subject 79
  10. Life Care/Lebenssorge and the Fourth Industrial Revolution 101
  11. Part 2: Examining Merits and Limits of Applied AI
  12. AI’s Winograd Moment; or: How Should We Teach Machines Common Sense? Guidance from Cognitive Science 127
  13. Passing the Turing Test? AI Generated Poetry and Posthuman Creativity 151
  14. Why Neuroenhancement is a Philosophical Issue 167
  15. The Future of Artificial Intelligence in International Healthcare: An Index 181
  16. Part 3: Encounters with Artificial Beings in Film, Literature, and Theater
  17. Dark Ecology and Digital Images of Entropy: A Brief Survey of the History of Cinematic Morphing and the Computer Graphics of Artificial Intelligence 209
  18. Sentience, Artificial Intelligence, and Human Enhancement in US-American Fiction and Film: Thinking With and Without Consciousness 225
  19. “I, Robot”: Artificial Intelligence and Fears of the Posthuman 237
  20. AI on Stage: A Cross-Cultural Check-Up and the Case of Canada and John Mighton 261
  21. Artificial Intelligence from Science Fiction to Soul Machines: (Re‐)Configuring Empathy between Bodies, Knowledge, and Power 287
  22. List of contributors 309
  23. Index of Authors 315
  24. Index of Subjects 319
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Heruntergeladen am 19.10.2025 von https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110770216-006/html?lang=de
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