A Critical Understanding of Artificial Intelligence: A Phenomenological Foundation

Chapter 1 introduces the problem of artificial intelligence (AI) as a human doppelgänger. The logic of artificial intelligence is the control algorithm, dominated by the tradition of two-value logic. We sketch out the consequences of such algorithmic performance, which have had deleterious effects on the ecological landscape in the broad sense of the term. We also report the findings of an interdisciplinary report from Stanford University on the successes and failures of AI. The chapter ends with a discussion of the key findings of an interdisciplinary conference, sketching out the correlates of understanding. These can best be summarized by answering the questions: How do we determine if a system understands? Does a lack of understanding make AI systems susceptible to adversarial examples, and to what degree do systems need to understand in order to be able to explain their decisions and predictions? By what mechanisms do humans extract meaning from data or experience?

This chapter provides the reader with the background necessary to understanding the phenomenological perspective as it will be applied to artificial intelligence in the chapters that follow. In doing so, we explain phenomenology’s approach to empirical facts and logical reasoning, among other topics. We explain the key importance of awareness as a starting point for phenomenological understanding, as well as the key role that the “thing” plays in this philosophy. The importance of language to awareness is described, and the concept of signification is addressed in relation to the creation of meaning. This brings the discussion around the importance of applying a concept of embodiment as well as that of the linguistic field. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of how these concepts relate to the theme of artificial intelligence and its relationship to the lived world.

This chapter follows up on the central role of understanding in terms of the need to understand methodologically and in practical life in order to achieve AI with concrete limits. We cast this within the framework of communicative competence, which requires both understanding as well as the reciprocal relationship of the part–whole. Communicative competence sets out a criterion for our investigation and identifies a key human experience—“How did we get into this situation?” —which requires understanding, distancing from the situation, surveying the situation historically, and trying to anticipate where we go next. This critical understanding and/or critical reflexivity is needed, which is thoroughly phenomenological. 

 Chapter 4 further investigates the importance of time, and human awareness of it, as that relates to artificial intelligence, apprehending time from a perspective that emphasizes its similarities to any other “thing”. The chapter begins with a discussion of the importance of a paradigm that prioritizes rational thought structures. Thus, the discussion turns to questions of the "now" point, field awareness, and the nature of causality, based on the philosophizing of Edmund Husserl. The issues of intentionality and representationalism are addressed in relation to artificial intelligence as well as to the self, the other, and social understanding in general.

No doubt, instrumental reason seems to be well-suited to creating progress in all areas, and it is regarded as beneficial to various peoples globally. But a question of its attractiveness, despite all the negative consequences for the environment, rapid transportation that can spread any virus, or displace people due to lost jobs, is not answered. Resultantly, we must open another dimension of awareness which is as ancient as human understanding of the world and the way we relate to it. In this chapter, we address the ways in which magical structures (in the Gebserian sense) pervade modern rational thought and serve as a basis for artificial intelligence. The contemporary importance of the concept of identity is addressed, and its logic is disclosed as it plays a fundamental role in forming the background of the magic of reason, which we suggest is a needed correction to the idea of “instrumental reason”. The magical aspects of modern society and metaphysics are explained with examples taken from Christianity, the imagery popular among the Nazi movement, and even modern sporting events. These concepts are then applied to the current movement towards globalization. 

Scientific practice, both in the broad sense and in the specific case of computer science, cannot demonstrate how the constituted logic of a given consistent system translates into an empirically constructed system without the assumption of other conditions which may also be logically constituted through modes of praxis that are already technically available. Computer science is premised on a technically laden life-world and, indeed, on an interpretation of the entire environment as accessible to technical management. In this sense, there is a pre-understanding that allows a given population to regard both science and computer science as “value free”. Yet, it is precisely the technologically interpreted environment that is imbedded in valuations. In this chapter, we explicate: (a) the principles that establish scientific objectivity on the basis of the objectivity of logics; (b) how those logics are connected to the resources of the environment; (c) how the environment itself is technical and valuative; and (d) how a particular modern value context pervades the technical, logical, and scientific enterprises.

Uncovering the temporal reflex of the Internet of Things within the organizational environment affirms the transformational mode of our technological life-world. We live in an atemporal reflex, which involves more than the combination of past, present, and future, and more than the mere interconnectivity of a series of nodes, but it is a self-pacing system, creating some possibilities which are unintended consequences. The unintended consequences can be anticipated in what may be foreseen as a type of foresight of what can be next. Such fore-knowledge allows risk mitigation at all levels of society: organizational, interpersonal, cultural, and, of course, civilizational. Temporal reflexivity is the link or hinge of human-machine co-operation and complementarity.

Chapter 8 aims to fully address the question: What is the mode of awareness which frames the building of the pragmatic world, and what are its “passive” transcendental conditions? As such, the discussion turns to the issues of the signitive cosmos of space-time-movement, the practical domain, and the abstract versus the concrete. The concepts of significance and understanding are brought to bear on a discussion that relates perception and praxis to kinesthesis and embodiment, requiring an exposition of the logic of analogy. This leads to an explanation of the importance of the vital-kinesthetic, which has, up until now, been obscured by the primacy of Cartesian dualism in Western thinking. The dualism appears between the postulation of a “mind” as a thinking subject, and a body as a material mechanism, which functions as a reaction to specific stimuli. There is no self-initiating movement, which would explore the environment, have orientations or even any sense of what is forward or backward, up or down, left or right. Yet, our kinesthetic body understands all these orientations, and in fact, they become the coordinates of our practical world.

Starting from the premise that formal-mathematical modes of awareness are “discourses”, this chapter traces the connections between postmodernism, the rise of the instrumentalist mode of thinking that has enabled the creation of artificial intelligence, and the attack on the notion of identity, the combination of which tends to strip away the humanity from the modern “subject”, which is apprehended as “selfcreating” from this perspective. It then describes how nations and cultures are sucked into the all-encompassing technologization trap through the promise of better living through technology, reinforced by the trends of globalization, even if that means accepting the poison pill of dehumanization on an individual level. What follows is a discussion of “traditional” cultures which reject this ideology of self-creating subjects in favor of their traditional religious beliefs. We then discuss the value of transcendental subjectivity in opposition to both of the afore-mentioned ideologies, pointing to the ways that this mode of awareness embraces multiplicities and rejects the totalizing or encompassing mathematization of experience. The chapter concludes with an exposition of the importance of meaning-making—that is, the signitive—to all these modes of perception, and its actual foundation in transcendental subjectivity.

Contrasting the phenomenological perspective with that presented by Enlightenment thinking and its particular valuative structure, Chapter 10 delineates some of the often-overlooked, negative effects of artificial intelligence on the general populace. We review a variety of philosophical perspectives that treat the underpinnings of Enlightenment thinking, leading to a discussion of the legitimation crisis and its negative effects on democracy. The discussion then turns to a detailed discussion of the practical and theoretical implications of apprehending time from a phenomenological perspective as related to artificial intelligence. The final section of the chapter is devoted to a critique of artificial intelligence, highlighting the significance of instrumental reason and the notion of “progress”, and focusing on the discursive power inherent in inventions that leverage AI.

Chapter 11 entertains the tensions between the development of future artificial intelligence structures and the priorities of universal human rights, which necessitate the founding of a public domain. We return to our discussion of the effects of Enlightenment theorizing on the current situation, contrasting that with the possibilities afforded by taking a phenomenological approach to the concept of human rights. The limits of personal autonomy are discussed, and phenomenological concepts that were explicated earlier in work are applied to this question of human rights, which are discussed in conjunction with, as well as in opposition to, the effects of the globalizing logic that advocates for the unfettered application of computer logic to all aspects of life.

Embodiment distinguishes between two bodies, which are the body regarded as a physiological entity, and the phenomenal body, which is not just somebody, some particular physiological entity, but my or your body as it is experienced. It is understood as a phenomenal body. Nobody is an entity. Typically, one experiences one’s body and potential capacity for doing this and that. Moreover, the sense that I have my own body capacities is expressed in bodily confidence. It does not depend on understanding the physiological process involved in performing the action in question. The distinction between the objective and the phenomenal body is central to understanding the logical treatment of embodiment. Embodiment is not a concept that pertains to the body grasped as a physiological entity, but rather it pertains to the phenomenal body in the role played in oriented experience. Fundamental to embodiment is space/time/motion and its manifestation of circularity of AI research/AI researched.