carvalhais

[carvalhais]

The presence of a semantic relation cannot be causally detected at either end — neither at the signifying object or event (term, word, representation, data structure, thought, etc.) nor at the signified entity (reference, denotation, or represented entity or state of affairs). You cannot tell what a representation represents, for example, by local measurement or detection. No physical detector, located at an object, can determine whether that object is the object of a description or directed thought. While “being referred to or represented” is a perfectly real property (which often matters a great deal), no wave of discriminable energy travels along the arrow of intentional directedness; it is not a signal that any physical instrument can pick up. Creatures on Andromeda could be thinking about us right now, without there being any way for us to know or find out; similarly, you can refer to the sun without eight seconds having to pass before the sun is referred to. Nor can reference (aboutness) be blocked by physical barriers. I can think about Alpha Centauri even if you lock me in a lead vault. If, in that vault, I suppose that Reno is east of Los Angeles, I can still be wrong. Brian Cantwell Smith. 2019. The Promise of Artificial Intelligence: Reckoning and Judgment. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

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In fact intelligence only is intelligence under interpretation. “Being intelligent” is not a description of uninterpreted causal behavior or mechanical configuration. Brian Cantwell Smith. 2019. The Promise of Artificial Intelligence: Reckoning and Judgment. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

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These questions target the future. To address them, we need a grip on the past. Brian Cantwell Smith. 2019. The Promise of Artificial Intelligence: Reckoning and Judgment. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

[carvalhais]

Three methodological preliminaries. First, as already indicated, it is imperative not to frame the debate in terms of human and machine. The problem is not just that those labels are vast, vague, and emotionally charged. More seriously, to avoid ideology and prejudice, we need independent evaluative criteria. To judge what kind(s) of intelligence current AIs have, what kind(s) we humans have, and what kinds are on offer for both machines and people, we need an understanding of “intelligence” and its “kinds” not circularly defined in terms of the entities to which we want to apply it. Brian Cantwell Smith. 2019. The Promise of Artificial Intelligence: Reckoning and Judgment. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

[carvalhais]

It will also allow for a more discerning analysis than the standard characterizations of first-wave AI as based on “handcrafted symbolic representations” and second-wave on “statistical pattern matching over large data sets.” Brian Cantwell Smith. 2019. The Promise of Artificial Intelligence: Reckoning and Judgment. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

[carvalhais]

To take stock of what is happening, we need to understand the ontological, epistemological, and existential assumptions on which each wave of AI has been based. Brian Cantwell Smith. 2019. The Promise of Artificial Intelligence: Reckoning and Judgment. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

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Neither deep learning, not other forms of second-wave AI, nor any proposals yet advanced for third-wave, will lead to genuine intelligence.  Brian Cantwell Smith. 2019. The Promise of Artificial Intelligence: Reckoning and Judgment. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

[carvalhais]

We worship the cult of the self, in which each is his own priest. This pressure to be authentic is alien to mass society. Mass society was dominated by mass media, but the age of digital media does not suppress the individual’s ability to speak. Quite the contrary, everyone now a producer and broadcaster. Everyone is producing themselves. We become intoxicated with the bewildering amount of communication that is produced. Byung-Chul Han. 2024. Vita Contemplativa. Cambridge: Polity Press.

[carvalhais]

Arendt’s notion of mass society cannot capture contemporary social developments. The importanve of the mass is in decline. There is a reason why some now talk of a ‘society of singularities’. There are constant invocations. of creativity and authenticity. Everyone thinks they are unique. Everyone has their own story to tell. Everyone is a performer of their self. The vita activa takes the form of a vita performativa. Byung-Chul Han. 2024. Vita Contemplativa. Cambridge: Polity Press.

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Fullness of being, that is, beauty, is found in the contemplative gaze. Byung-Chul Han. 2024. Vita Contemplativa. Cambridge: Polity Press.

[carvalhais]

The human being is an animal narrans, a narrating animal. But our lives are no longer determined by a reliable and binding narrative that provides meaning and orientation. We are very well informed, yet, in the absence of narrative, we are without orientation. Byung-Chul Han. 2024. Vita Contemplativa. Cambridge: Polity Press.

[carvalhais]

The digitalization and informatization of the world fragment time and make life radically transient. Being has a temporal aspect. It grows slowly and gradually. Today’s short-termism dismantles being. Byung-Chul Han. 2024. Vita Contemplativa. Cambridge: Polity Press.

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Time increasingly disintegrates and becomes a mere succession of point-like presences. It becomes additive. There is no narrative to give it structure, to make it stand still. Temporal architectures erode. Byung-Chul Han. 2024. Vita Contemplativa. Cambridge: Polity Press.

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Play and dance are entirely free of the in-order-to. Even ornaments do not serve the purpose of adorning something; they are not a ‘ware’ [Zeug]. Things, liberated from the in-order-to, become festive. They do not ‘function’ but shine and radiate. They emanate a contemplative calmness that enables a lingering. Byung-Chul Han. 2024. Vita Contemplativa. Cambridge: Polity Press.

[carvalhais]

A few years after the publication of Being and Time, Heidegger’s thought underwent a transition from acting to being. The pathos of acting gives way to a wonder about the world:… Byung-Chul Han. 2024. Vita Contemplativa. Cambridge: Polity Press.

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Heidegger0s Black Notebooks contain a very noteworthy remark: ‘Being is the aether in which mankind breathes; without this aether humans would descend to the level of mere beasts and even lower, and all human activity would be reduced to breeding like cattle.’ Byung-Chul Han. 2024. Vita Contemplativa. Cambridge: Polity Press.

[carvalhais]

Heidegger’s ‘reflection’ resists the universal availability that makes everything accessible, calculable, controllable, steerable, manageable and consumable. With digitalization, availability reaches new heights. By bringing about total producibility, digitalization suspends facticity itself. The digital regime does not acknowledge an unavailable ground of being. Its motto is: being is information. Information makes being fully available. When everything is readily available and consumable, contemplative attention is impossible. Byung-Chul Han. 2024. Vita Contemplativa. Cambridge: Polity Press.