The Human Condition in An Algorithmized World: A Critique through the Lens of 20th-Century Jewish Thinkers and the Concepts of Rationality, Alterity and History

Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems are increasingly deployed in all domains of our lives. While their use can provide substantial benefits, they also entail significant risks – and ethics has been put forward as the key solution to counter these risks. Yet the manner in which ethics is typically relied on in this context is woefully deficient. At best, ethics is given the role of orienting problematic technology towards ‘acceptable’ uses, thereby legitimizing AI’s widespread adoption, which is taken for granted. At worst, ethics is instrumentalized as a quality-label to stimulate AI’s deployment, as part of a broader doctrine of ‘progress’. Current ethics discourse hence appears unable to provide a more fundamental critique of the way in which the algorithmized world is profoundly impacting our existence. This is because it starts from within a technological paradigm that does not fundamentally question AI’s place and progression in society. In this paper, I therefore argue that, if ethics is to shed light on – and to offer a more fundamental critique of – the human condition in an algorithmized world, without being bound to today’s technological paradigm, it requires a meta-technological perspective that puts ethics first. To pursue this aim, I propose to ground our approach in the fact that our existence in the world is necessarily intersubjective and relational, and use the lens of intersubjectivity to examine AI’s impact on the human condition. To narrow the scope of my analysis, I focus on AI’s impact on three interrelated domains of our existence: (1) our way of thinking or rationality, (2) our way of engaging with others or alterity and (3) our way of experiencing time or history. In my analysis, I draw on the work of 20th-century Jewish thinkers, such as Franz Rosenzweig, Emmanuel Levinas and Hannah Arendt, given the importance they ascribe to relationality and its role in countering totalitarian thinking which, as I argue, can also arise through the systemic irresponsible use of AI. After introducing my research inquiry (Chapter 1) and providing a brief definition of AI (Chapter 2), I seek to answer three questions: First, what does the algorithmized world look like, and what is its underpinning societal paradigm (Chapter 3)? Second, how does current AI ethics discourse approach AI’s risks, and how does it fall short of delivering a more fundamental critique of AI’s impact on the human condition (Chapter 4)? Third, how does AI’s ubiquity affect the human condition, and particularly our experience of rationality, alterity and history (Chapter 5)? Based on my research findings, I conclude that the totalizing use of AI systems – and the way it impacts our way of thinking, our way of engaging with others and our way of experiencing time – can give rise to significant concerns, as it may be used in a way that opposes our ability to live a meaningful life by engaging in intersubjective human relationships. To close this paper, I postulate several avenues that should be explored to counter the concerns identified (Chapter 6). * Researcher, KU Leuven Faculty of Law, Tiensestraat 41, 3000 Leuven, nathalie.smuha@kuleuven.be. I wish to express my gratitude to Roger Vergauwen and Luc Anckaert for their invaluable support in the context of this research, which I conducted during my Philosophy degree (MA) at the KU Leuven Institute of Philosophy.