ntemporary posthumanism comes in two bitter-sweet flavours: speculative and critical. For speculative posthumanists “post-human” implies a relation of historical succession. They hold that descendants of current humans could cease to be human as a consequence of some process of technical change, such as an AI apocalypse (Vinge 1993 – see Roden 2010; 2012). Critical posthumanists, by contrast, dismiss these concerns, claiming that the Western humanist view that people are the only significant moral agents is already past saving. Humans should not run scared of Bad Borgs and immortal uploads because, as the title of Katherine Hayles’ seminal work of cultural history suggests, we are already posthuman (Hayles 1999).
Various reasons are cited
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Our machines are disturbingly lively, and we ourselves frighteningly inert (Haraway …show more content…
For Speculative posthumanists, it is a matter of historical succession and contend that the descendents of the current human race will at some point cease to be humans, owing to some technical singularity. While Critical Posthumanists dismiss all the concerns, instead cotending that the Western Humanist view of people as moral agents has already gone. They think that humans should not be afraid of the upcoming events, such as brain uploading and or cyborgs, as Katherine Hayles’ work on cultural history suggests that we are already posthuman. (Hayles 1999).
Rosi Braidotti’s recent work The Posthuman gives us a timely and accessible formulation of such an ethics. Braidotti acknowledges the levelling of nonhuman and human agency implied by the new cognitive and life sciences. However, she is impatient with a disabling political neutrality that can follow from junking human agency as the arbiter of the right and the good. She argues that a posthuman ethics and politics need to retain the idea of political subjectivity capable of constructing new forms of ethical community and experimenting with new modes of being:
In my view, a focus on subjectivity is necessary because this notion enables us to string together issues that are currently scattered across a number of domains. For instance, issues such as norms and values, forms of community bonding and social belonging as well as questions of political
Throughout the Holocaust, the Jews were continuously dehumanized by the Nazis. However, these actions may not have only impacted the Jews, but they may have had the unintended effect of dehumanizing the Nazis as well. What does this say about humanity? Elie Wiesel and Art Spiegelman both acknowledge this commentary in their books, Night and Maus. The authors demonstrate that true dehumanization reveals that the nature of humanity is not quite as structured as one might think.
In Sylvia Wynter’s essay, “Unsettling the Coloniality of Being/Power/Truth/Freedom: Towards the Human, After Man, and Its Overrepresentation”, she speaks about western modernity that begins with the experience of western modernity as Coloniality. Wynter is responding to western modernity from a Caribbean aspect solely focusing on Jamaica. Throughout Wynter’s essay, there seemed to be an underlining question that occurred, which was “How were they able to gain world dominance and raise population?” In this essay, Wynter tells her readers explicitly what her argument is which is my quote above. She states, “Our present struggles with respect to race, class, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, struggles over the environmental, global warming, severe climate change, the sharply unequal distribution of the earth resources – these are all differing facets of the central ethnoclass Man vs. Human struggle.” I found her argument very intriguing because there were several of layers to her work. I wish we were all seen as one and not by the color of our skin nor or sexual orientation.
... in 21th century, and it might already dominate humans’ life. Jastrow predicted computer will be part of human society in the future, and Levy’s real life examples matched Jastrow’s prediction. The computer intelligence that Jastrow mentioned was about imitated human brain and reasoning mechanism. However, according to Levy, computer intelligence nowadays is about developing AI’s own reasoning pattern and handling complicated task from data sets and algorithms, which is nothing like human. From Levy’s view on today’s version of AI technology, Jastrow’s prediction about AI evolution is not going to happen. As computer intelligence does not aim to recreate a human brain, the whole idea of computer substitutes human does not exist. Also, Levy said it is irrelevant to fear AI may control human, as people in today’s society cannot live without computer intelligence.
Today’s world is full of robots that vacuum the floor and cars that talk to their drivers. People can ask their phones to send a text or play a song and a cheerful voice will oblige. Machines are taking over more and more tasks that are traditionally left to people, such as cleaning, navigating, and even scheduling meetings. In a world where technology is becoming increasingly human, questions arise about whether machines will eventually replace humankind altogether. In Ray Bradbury’s short stories, “The Veldt” and “August 2026,” he presents themes that technology will not only further replace the jobs of humans, but it will also outlast humankind as a whole. Although this is a plausible future, computers just cannot do certain human jobs.
What is posthumanism? As the name might imply the concept of posthumanism is essentially the next step, so to speak, in the human nature. A transcendence, of shorts, of mankind. This could take various forms, be it from feasible and current ways such as genetically engineered food, prosthetics due to injury to far-off and futuristic concepts such as cyborg technologies (prosthetics for the purpose of body or mind enhancement rather than appliance to amputees), digital preservation of our conscience (even after death) and even the achievement of parapsychology concepts such as telekinesis, mind reading etc.
Since antiquity the human mind has been intrigued by artificial intelligence hence, such rapid growth of computer science has raised many issues concerning the isolation of the human mind.
This thought suggests that humans are, by nature and without political intervention, peaceable, cooperative, and selfless (2002, p. 6). Pinker explains that this belief underlies much of politics, the hope for cultural improvement, and a peaceable vision of future society (2002, p. 26). However, this belief effects not just proactive policy, but also inspires fear by invoking the slippery-slope argument of innatist theories, arguing that they are grounds for all the social ills we fear (racism, socio-economic prejudice) (Pinker, 2002, p. 28). The Ghost in the Machine provides the last piece in Pinker’s framework: the theory that the body and mind are distinct from one another, the mind acting independently from the body and providing an indivisible meta awareness and guidance to the human being (2002, p. 9). This thought seems to be supported by a creationist viewpoint, as it alludes to a being similar to a puppeteer that forms and initially animates the mind of living beings in their beginning (Pinker, 2002, p. 29). Pinker points out early on that one key inconsistency is individuals’ efforts to improve society (2002, p. 28). Improvements made to society by products of that society seems to be a circular logic and ineffective approach to the perfecting process (Pinker, 2002, p. 28). Indeed, how do we know what would ameliorate society? But according to this way of thinking the ghost, the mind as a separate entity, guides this process (Pinker, 2002, p.
In The Matrix, technology dominates society. The push to automate and link the world is a perpetual theme of modern society. As technology rapidly advances, implementation of computer-driven robotic devices and software programming has inundated the world and changed human perspective. There is a cost to pay when redefining the population with AI technology. This cost is identified in Barlett and Byer’s, “Back To The Future: The Humanistic Matrix” “The Matrix metaphorizes our willingness to fantasize that the ‘freedom’ rhetoric of e-capitalism accurately reflects our
Imagine that you are able to teleport to the not too distant future. In this world you discover that disease and poverty are no longer causes for human suffering, world hunger has become eliminated from society, and space travel is as easy as snapping your fingers. Cryonics, nanotechnology, cloning, genetic enhancement, artificial intelligence, and brain chips are all common technologies at a doctor’s office. You gasp as a friendly sounding electronic voice cries out, “Welcome to the future Natural!” You are unsure of whether being called a Natural is an insult or not, so you feign a half-hearted hello at the posthuman in front of you. Getting over the initial shock you ask the posthuman, “Who are you?” The posthuman gives an electronic sounding chuckle and shakes his head. He replies, “I am a Posthuman, and you Natural, are in Utopia. Welcome.”
Margaret Boden’s “Artificial Intelligence: Cannibal or Missionary” is a credible primary source article rebutting common concerns of artificial intelligence. Boden uses strong logic to combat against the thought of artificial intelligence making humans less special and artificial intelligence causing people to be dehumanized. Boden concludes that dehumanization and people finding themselves less special from AI are false and that other concerns include people overlying on AI.
some powerful engine, show signs of life and stir with an uneasy. half-vital motion of the body. Frightful must it be, for supremely frightful would. be the effect of any human endeavor to mock the stupendous mechanism. of the Creator of the world.’
The holocaust attested that morality is adaptable in severe conditions. Traditional morality stopped to be contained by the barbed wires of the concentration camps. Inside the camps, prisoners were not dealt like humans and thus adapted animal-like behavior needed to survive. The “ordinary moral world” (86) Primo Levi refers in his autobiographical novel Se questo è un uomo (If This Is a Man or Survival in Auschwitz), stops to exist; the meanings and applications of words such as “good,” “evil,” “just,” and “unjust” begin to merge and the differences between these opposites turn vague. Continued existence in Auschwitz demanded abolition of one’s self-respect and human dignity. Vulnerability to unending dehumanization certainly directs one to be dehumanized, thrusting one to resort on mental, physical, and social adaptation to be able to preserve one’s life and personality. It is in this adaptation that the line distinguishing right and wrong starts to deform.
Humanity is threatened by the overwhelming growth of science and technology. People are expanding their knowledge through observation and experiment, oblivious to the consequences that result from improper motive. Isaac Asimov—author of The Life and Times of Multivac—uses the science of numbers, or mathematics, as a solution to the fear that arises in a world controlled by a human-like machine. What human beings are afraid of is losing the very word that separates them from everything else in the world—human, and they will do whatever they can to keep that title to themselves.
The Human Condition provides a great insight to politics and life today. It successfully evaluates different activities and their importance and prevalence in past times as well as present day, highlighting the differences and importance of each activity. While Hannah Arendt identifies action as being most human and most meaningful, she still manages to acknowledges the benefits and necessities that go along with the other two activities, labor and work.
From the first imaginative thought to manipulate nature to the development of complex astronomical concepts of space exploration, man continues to this day to innovate and invent products or methods that improve and enhance humankind. Though it has taken 150 million years to reach the present day, the intellectual journey was not gradual in a linear sense. If one were to plot significant events occurring throughout human existence, Mankind’s ability to construct new ideas follows a logarithmic path, and is rapidly approaching an asymptote, or technological singularity. This singularity event has scientists both supporting and rejecting the concept of an imaginative plateau; the largest topic discussed is Artificial Intelligence (A.I.). When this technological singularity is reached, it is hypothesized that man’s greatest creation, an artificial sapient being, will supersede human brain capacity.