Heideggerian AI and the Being of Robots

Abstract

Current Heideggerian AI (HAI) is the attempt to revise the fundamentals of Artificial Intelligence based on Heidegger’s philosophy. While the debate is much monopolized with questions regarding the role of representations, there is overall agreement that HAI should be conceived to foster development of AI techniques, on the assumption that Heidegger’s ontological analysis of humans (Dasein) should apply to artificial systems. We argue this is inconsistent with Heidegger’s philosophy, as it denies ontological meaning to categories such as robot and human, considered the same type of beings. The aim of this paper is to steer HAI towards the question of our pre-ontological notions of artificial systems, and robots in particular. We present a provisional ontological analysis that considers robots specific, non-human and non-animal beings, which we derive from the relationship between robots and work. Robots are those machines that perform human labour – because in practice they can only transform it, their being is one that cannot be fulfilled.