The Human Impact

 

The research question is whether artificial intelligence could or should be a substitute or an aid for human diagnosis of lung cancer.

This article implies profound changes in our conception of human nature. Developments in artificial intelligence and deep learning have the capacity to simulate an increasing number of human activities, traditionally attributed to man.

It presents a kind of contrast between nature and artificiality, and conformity with nature is the criterion of morality and the artificial is legitimized only as an aid to nature.

We argue that artificiality may precisely be the specific expression of human nature; it has made a powerful contribution to the progress of man.

This article maintains an intermediate position between two opposite fronts: scientism, which defends the unconditional value of artificial intelligence and its growth, and antiscience, which rejects the value of artificial intelligence considering it a powerful dehumanizing factor.

It ascribes artificial intelligence with the aim of improving the nature of man himself by directly intervening on his nature.

The neutrality of science was widely debated last century, especially in the fifties and sixties. Several scholars maintained that science must be objective and, therefore, free of any influence from “external” values, while other scholars upheld that science cannot and indeed must not remain neutral regarding such values. This article distinguishes two different aspects of science. Science is not only a system of knowledge, but also a complex system of human activities. Scientific activity responds to moral, social, political, economic, ecologic, and religious concerns that make up the global sense of any human activity.

Is it our true face that we see with super makeup, is it really the best athlete that is on enhancing drugs, is it real that you have a beautiful voice when it has been synthesized by a device?

This is the view of two contemporary cultural movements, namely, posthumanism and transhumanism.

Transhumanism as cultural movement aims at revolutionizing, empowering, and improving the human being, physically and intellectually, through science, technology, genetics, regenerative medicine, hibernation, robotics, etc… It proposes profound changes in the concept of the human being as it was conceived until now. The introduction of this concept can be credited to the biologist Julian Huxley, and Bostrom reconstructed the possible remotest roots of posthumanism in 2003.

Its leaders and followers represent heterogeneous contents and interests with the common denominator of a mechanistic view of human existence according to which man is obliged to continue his evolution as if he were a machine or a device that must be continuously updated. They seek to make the appropriate technology available to everyone to transform the human condition and improve their capabilities.

According to Transhumanism, we can legitimately reform ourselves and our nature in accordance with human values and personal aspirations (Pearce 2015). The philosophical claim is the liberation of man from biology: this inevitably pushes humans to ask what it means to be “human,” what is nature, and what is culture.

Working for a better human future is a great stimulus to human moral conscience, not by enhancing human nature with technological interventions, but by discovering the richness and roots of human dignity in interiority as individuals and members of the great human brotherhood.

[1] F. Fukuyama, “Transhumanism,” Foreign Policy, vol. 144, pp. 42-43, 2004.

[2] N. Bostrom, 4e Transhumanist FAQ, World Transhumanist Association, Los Angeles, CA, USA, 2nd edition, 2003, https://www.nickbostrom.com/views/transhumanist.pdf.

[3] F. González-Melado, “Transhumanism: the ideology that comes to us,” Pax et Emerita, vol. 6, no. 6, pp. 205–228, 2010.

[4] J. Habermas, 4e Future of Human Nature, Polity Press, Cambridge, UK, 1st edition, 2003.

[5] P. Sloterdijk, Standards for the Human Park; A Response to the Letter on Humanism, Ediciones Siruela, Madrid, Spain, 1^st edition, 2000.

[6] D. Pearce, “The hedonistic imperative,” 2nd edition, 2015, https://www.hedweb.com/hedonist.htm.

[7] S. E. Postigo, “Transumanesimo e postumano: principi teorici e implicazioni bioetiche,” Medicina e Morale, vol. 2, no. 58, pp. 267–282, 2009.