Blurring Posthuman Identities: The New Version of Humanity Offered by Bicentennial Man

The aim of this paper is to analyse the 1999 film version of Isaac Asimov ’s “The Bicentennial Man ” (1976), a film that reflects the changing status of the dichotomy human/non-human in our culture. The idea of blurring the human body boundaries has become one of the most repeated and successful subject matters of the science-fiction genre, a subject especially attractive in a time that some critics have defined as “post-human ”. Starting from Norbert Wiener theories we will see different approaches to the idea of the cyborg and the “post-human ”, which will help us to understand the changing relationship between machine, robot and cyborg in Bicentennial Man (1999). We will analyse in which ways the film answers the question: what does it mean to be human in a posthuman world? El propósito de este artículo es analizar la versión cinematográfica de 1999 de la historia corta “The Bicentennial Man ”(1976) escrita por Isaac Asimov. Se trata de una película que refleja la cambiante posición de la dicotomía humano/ no humano en nuestra cultura. La idea de las fronteras poco nítidas del cuerpo humano se ha convertido en uno de los temas más repetidos y exitosos del género de la ciencia ficción, un tema especialmente atractivo en una época que algunos críticos han denominado “posthumana ”. Comenzando por las teorías de Norbert Wiener veremos diferentes aproximaciones a la idea del cyborg y de lo posthumano, lo que nos ayudará a comprender la cambiante relación entre máquina, robot y cyborg en Bicentennial Man (1999). Analizaremos de qué modo la película responde a la pregunta: qué significa ser humano en un mundo “posthumano ”

Naturalizing Dasein. Aporias of the Neo-Heideggerian Approach in Cognitive Science

ABSTRACT: This paper deals with the neo-Heideggerian approach in cognitive science as espoused by Michael Wheeler in his Reconstructing the Cognitive World: The Next Step (2005). According to Wheeler, this next step amounts to incorporating Heideggerian insights bearing on online intelligence: the kind of intelligence which is exhibited by human agents in embedded, embodied coping. However, this phenomenological reception implies also stripping Heideggerian phenomenology of its overt antinaturalistic and transcendental tendencies. The approach is indeed ‘neo-Heideggerian ’ inasmuch as tantamount to a naturalization of phenomenological themes. I attempt to put this naturalizing aspiration to the test, and show that the approach remains ‘Heideggerian ’ only superficially

Philosophical foundations for digital ethics and AI Ethics: a dignitarian approach

AI Ethics is a burgeoning and relatively new field that has emerged in response to growing concerns about the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on human individuals and their social institutions. In turn, AI ethics is a part of the broader field of digital ethics, which addresses similar concerns generated by the development and deployment of new digital technologies. Here, we tackle the important worry that digital ethics in general, and AI ethics in particular, lack adequate philosophical foundations. In direct response to that worry, we formulate and rationally justify some basic concepts and principles for digital ethics/AI ethics, all drawn from a broadly Kantian theory of human dignity. Our argument, which is designed to be relatively compact and easily accessible, is presented in ten distinct steps: (1) what "digital ethics" and "AI ethics" mean, (2) refuting the dignity-skeptic, (3) the metaphysics of human dignity, (4) human happiness or flourishing, true human needs, and human dignity, (5) our moral obligations with respect to all human real persons, (6) what a natural automaton or natural machine is, (7) why human real persons are not natural automata/natural machines: because consciousness is a form of life, (8) our moral obligations with respect to the design and use of artificial automata or artificial machines, aka computers, and digital technology more generally, (9) what privacy is, why invasions of digital privacy are morally impermissible, whereas consensual entrances into digital privacy are either morally permissible or even obligatory, and finally (10) dignitarian morality versus legality, and digital ethics/AI ethics. We conclude by asserting our strongly-held belief that a well-founded and generally-accepted dignitarian digital ethics/AI ethics is of global existential importance for humanity