The article demonstrates how attempts to decentre the human often reconstitute new forms of authority in attempts to decentre the human and examines the possibility of surpassing standard anthropocentric approaches in AI while maintaining a critical philosophical engagement with the structurally necessary yet precarious character of organizing principles.
Abstract
This article examines the legacies of antihumanism within the context of artificial intelligence (AI) research. In response to the ethical risks inherent to the proliferation of quasi-autonomous computational agents, the AI industry, legislative bodies and academia often advocate for a “human-centred” approach that would align AI with human values, desires and goals, ostensibly to make these technologies more transparent and trustworthy. The rhetoric of human-centred AI reveals many of the conceptual limitations that antihumanism had already identified in the foundationalist and subjectivist assumptions of Western philosophy. This article considers some of these challenging limitations while also problematizing antihumanism itself. Through Derrida’s notion of “centre” and an analysis of alignment methodologies, the article demonstrates how attempts to decentre the human often reconstitute new forms of authority. It then examines the possibility of surpassing standard anthropocentric approaches in AI while maintaining a critical philosophical engagement with the structurally necessary yet precarious character of organizing principles.
In order to live well in an AI-based society, designing technically ethical systems, in the spirit of consequentialism, is not enough; rather, it is essential to cultivate citizens who, as AI users, are endowed with virtues and, first and foremost, the virtue of prudence.
Josep Del-Hierro-Dies, J. Sánchez-Cañizares· Scientia et Fides· 0 citations
It is argued that anthropology requires a new conceptual framework for understanding the contemporary social life of artificial intelligence (AI), and "the magic of AI" is proposed as an analytical concept that shifts attention from AI's technical capacities to the beliefs, uncertainties, and sociotechnical imaginaries through which it acquires authority and efficacy.
M. Baas, Roanne van Voorst· Anthropological Theory· 2 citations
The concept of “alienated intelligence” is introduced to critically examine contemporary cultural perceptions of artificial intelligence to argue that certain visions of AI function as cultural projections of human cognitive capacities that become externalized, idealized, and reified in technological systems.
The paper argues that practical imitation may bypass this barrier by relying on belief and perceived equivalence rather than authentic internalization rather than authentic internalization, and may help ensure that AI remains an auxiliary tool rather than becoming a governing influence over human thought and action.
It is argued that this understanding of human-GAI engagement, as explained through epistemological beliefs, lays the foundation for alternative approaches to teaching and assessment, student interactions, professional development, and AI governance and policy, while noting that the framework remains an exploratory heuristic requiring empirical validation.
S. Strydom· Journal of Applied Learning...· 0 citations
Contemporary AI systems are increasingly designed to reduce uncertainty, ambiguity, and cognitive burden. This article argues that such systems do not merely expand human capacities but progressively externalize forms of judgment and existential burden that Christian traditions have historically understood as necessary conditions for the cultivation of moral agency. Drawing on the theological anthropologies of Augustine, Søren Kierkegaard, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the article develops a theological-anthropological critique of what it terms optimization culture: the normative logic through which the reduction of friction and existential difficulty becomes a dominant telos of technological design. Contemporary articulations of this logic are examined through the work of Jacques Ellul, Byung-Chul Han, Peter Thiel, Balaji Srinivasan, and William Davies. The article argues that AI systems shaped by this logic risk progressively externalizing the practices of disciplined attention, existential responsibility, and costly judgment through which mature moral agency has historically been cultivated. In response, it proposes a formative anthropology of technology as a framework for evaluating AI not only according to functional criteria such as safety or efficiency, but according to the kinds of human beings such systems actively help to form.
Åke Elden· Studies in Christian Ethics· 0 citations