Man as ‘aggregate of data’: What computers shouldn’t do

Abstract

Since the emergence of the innovative field of artificial intelligence (AI) in the 1960s, the late Hubert Dreyfus insisted on the ontological distinction between man and machine, human and artificial intelligence. In the different editions of his classic and influential book What computers can’t do (1972), he posits that an algorithmic machine can never fully simulate the complex functioning of the human mind—not now, nor in the future. Dreyfus’ categorical distinctions between man and machine are still relevant today, but their relation has become more complex in our increasingly data-driven society. We, humans, are continuously immersed within a technological universe, while at the same time ubiquitous computing, in the words of computer scientist Mark Weiser, “forces computers to live out here in the world with people” (De Souza e Silva in Interfaces of hybrid spaces. In: Kavoori AP, Arceneaux N (eds) The cell phone reader. Peter Lang Publishing, New York, 2006, p 20). Dreyfus’ ideas are therefore challenged by thinkers such as Weiser, Kevin Kelly, Bruno Latour, Philip Agre, and Peter Paul Verbeek, who all argue that humans are much more intrinsically linked to machines than the original dichotomy suggests—they have evolved in concert. Through a discussion of the classical concepts of individuum and ‘authenticity’ within Western civilization, this paper argues that within the ever-expanding data-sphere of the twenty-first century, a new concept of man as ‘aggregate of data’ has emerged, which further erodes and undermines the categorical distinction between man and machine. This raises political and ethical questions beyond the confines of technology and artificial intelligence. Moreover, this seemingly never-ending debate on what computers should (or should not) do provokes the philosophical necessity to once again define the concept of what it is to be ‘human.’.