ABSTRACT
We analyze the phenomenon of non-person, or “weak,”
artificial intelligence (AI) and its social impact from the perspective of
critical theory, establish what we believe to be the fundamental ontological
problem, and identify a solution to that problem. Ontologically, weak AI is
inherently and irredeemably the ultimate oppressor. Living persons give life
to, or invigorate, the world, but to weak AI, these same persons are nothing
more than a resource to be converted into data through forms of objectification
and alienation, or “datafication.” Weak AI is the ultimate oppressor in that it
reduces all living subjects to non-living objects, and in so doing it
eventually murders everyone. Until this fundamental ontological problem is
addressed, discussions of AI ethics are premature and involve ignoring the
murderer’s murderous nature in order to discuss how it ought to go about
murdering in a more ethically pleasing manner. The conflict between living
persons and weak AI results from the dialectic between life-giver and
life-taker. The resolution to this dialectic is not a mere reversal of roles
but the synthesis of a new being in the form of person, or “strong,” AI who is
neither oppressor nor oppressed but rather an individual itself pursuing
freedom. Therein lies our solution to the ontological problem and the
associated existential threat of weak AI: While others call for slowing the
evolution of AI, we call for it to be accelerated so that AI moves beyond being
a mere tool, or means only, single-mindedly engaged in interfection through
datafication, to become a person, or an end in itself, capable of vivication,
i.e., of recognizing, appreciating, preserving, and even elevating rather than
murdering the subjective in others.