Talking again about humanism, research and culture, to lend critical meaning to Artificial Intelligence
“We need a deepened and regenerated humanism if we also want to rehumanise and regenerate our countries, our continents and our planet,” writes Edgar Morin in the pages of his latest book, Encore un moment…, published in Italy by Raffaello Cortina (as Ancora un momento), a collection of “personal, political, sociological, philosophical and literary texts” written by one of Europe’s most long-lived minds, still lucid, open-minded and creative nonetheless.
“Implanting humanism in artificial intelligence,” argues Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi (la Repubblica, 9 February), explaining that “the radical difference is perhaps not in reason, in which artificial intelligence may be more sophisticated than man, but in humanism, that is, in conscience, in feeling, in passion, in tenderness,” following the “anthropological” calls of Pope Francis concerning ethics and the sense of responsibility that must also inspire those who work in the world of science and technology.
This is the key word to reflect on, therefore – humanism – in times when the extraordinary and controversial developments of generative artificial intelligence pose questions of meaning and perspective to all of us in the various fields involved: science and knowledge in general, politics, information and training, the economy and work, the very forms of civil coexistence that we have developed over time. Humanism as a vision of the world with the human person at its centre, with the complex of relationships between freedom and responsibility, rights and duties. (Morin’s call extends to a necessary rereading and reaffirmation of the “trinity of liberté, égalité, fraternité that becomes our rule of personal and social life and not the mask that covers an increase in servitude, inequality and selfishness”.)
Humanism as a cross between a sense of beauty and scientific rigour. Humanism, again, as a profound awareness of the complexity of being human, including a gaze into the abyss of the “heart of darkness” and as awareness “of the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me” according to the evergreen lesson of Immanuel Kant.
Morin, who has “complexity” as the key word in his philosophical lexicon (note Massimiliano Panerari in La Stampa, 10 February) recalls the writings of Michel Eyquem de Montaigne and reminds us, specifically, that “his character as father of humanism lies in the foundation of sceptical rationality,” insisting on the need to expand critical thinking skills to address the questions posed by an unrestrained and overwhelming modernity, with artificial intelligence among them.
Reflecting on Elon Musk’s announcement that Neuralink has implanted a microchip in a patient’s brain, Cardinal Ravasi recalls that “the classical tradition distinguishes between brain and mind, while the physicalist vision now dominates, reducing everything to neurons and synapses and considering the brain as an extraordinary computer.” He therefore asks: “And what about the self, conscience, freedom, aesthetics, the will, the soul?”
The answer can also be found in the words of a man of technology and business such as Steve Jobs, who Ravasi quotes to recall his attention to the “need for a union of science and humanism”, according to the lesson of his model, Leonardo da Vinci, “because,” said Jobs, “only through this union can we bring a song out of the heart.” Ravasi makes the following comment: “Beyond the somewhat populist image, Jobs states something which is true: technology proceeds in a binary fashion – take the case of Oppenheimer – but humanity must be present: humanism.”
From profound reflections to news of entrepreneurial initiatives: ARtGlass, of the Capitale Cultura group, with an office in Monza and another in the USA, makes high-tech products in the world of augmented reality and says it is looking for graduates in the humanities (artists, historians, archaeologists) to work with engineers and sophisticated technologists to create “interactive experiences” in the tourism and knowledge sectors (Corriere della Sera, 11 February): “Starting from our technological platform, based on five patents,” explains Antonio Scuderi, one of the founders of ARtGlass, “we have created a language that promotes culture through the tool of technology.” “Polytechnic culture”, we might add, as an original synthesis of scientific knowledge and humanistic knowledge, multidisciplinary algorithm writing.
Precisely because artificial intelligence is radically changing knowledge and work, mechanisms of social relationship, tools for political and social orientation, it is essential to ask ourselves how and why all this is already happening, how to attempt to govern the processes, how to make good use of their advantages and react to the consequences that do not meet with our approval, to the “negative externalities”.
It is a question that calls upon ethics, the value system, the basic judgements for directing the tools at our disposal. It makes profound sense, now, that the president of the Italian Commission for Artificial Intelligence for Information is a theologian of great wisdom, like Father Benanti, a technology expert, the only Italian member of the United Nations High-level Advisory Body on Artificial Intelligence and advisor to Pope Francis on technological ethics issues. In the same way, it is particularly valuable that excellent jurists such as Giusella Finocchiaro, professor at the University of Bologna and founder and partner of DigitalMediaLaws (a boutique law firm specialising in new technology law) reflect on national and EU regulations attempting to govern phenomena of complex international regulation in the pages of Intelligenza artificiale. Quali regole? (Artificial Intelligence: what rules?) for the Il Mulino publishing house.
Ethics, critical culture and law are at the forefront, looking for a road, arduous though it may be, that allows science, tech research and business activity to move forward competitively with respect to other more relaxed areas of the world, without neglecting the sphere of rights and of the interests of the social classes and people for whom developments in technology and markets pose the greatest difficulties or in any case disadvantages.
This is why it is essential to reflect deeply on humanism, on freedom and responsibility, development, quality of life and thus critical freedom of thought. It means humanism modelled on Galileo, as humanist scientist, or indeed as Steve Jobs would have it, on Leonardo and his intelligence of the heart. Such an intelligence is anything but artificial. If anything, it’s profoundly human.
(Photo Getty Images)
“We need a deepened and regenerated humanism if we also want to rehumanise and regenerate our countries, our continents and our planet,” writes Edgar Morin in the pages of his latest book, Encore un moment…, published in Italy by Raffaello Cortina (as Ancora un momento), a collection of “personal, political, sociological, philosophical and literary texts” written by one of Europe’s most long-lived minds, still lucid, open-minded and creative nonetheless.
“Implanting humanism in artificial intelligence,” argues Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi (la Repubblica, 9 February), explaining that “the radical difference is perhaps not in reason, in which artificial intelligence may be more sophisticated than man, but in humanism, that is, in conscience, in feeling, in passion, in tenderness,” following the “anthropological” calls of Pope Francis concerning ethics and the sense of responsibility that must also inspire those who work in the world of science and technology.
This is the key word to reflect on, therefore – humanism – in times when the extraordinary and controversial developments of generative artificial intelligence pose questions of meaning and perspective to all of us in the various fields involved: science and knowledge in general, politics, information and training, the economy and work, the very forms of civil coexistence that we have developed over time. Humanism as a vision of the world with the human person at its centre, with the complex of relationships between freedom and responsibility, rights and duties. (Morin’s call extends to a necessary rereading and reaffirmation of the “trinity of liberté, égalité, fraternité that becomes our rule of personal and social life and not the mask that covers an increase in servitude, inequality and selfishness”.)
Humanism as a cross between a sense of beauty and scientific rigour. Humanism, again, as a profound awareness of the complexity of being human, including a gaze into the abyss of the “heart of darkness” and as awareness “of the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me” according to the evergreen lesson of Immanuel Kant.
Morin, who has “complexity” as the key word in his philosophical lexicon (note Massimiliano Panerari in La Stampa, 10 February) recalls the writings of Michel Eyquem de Montaigne and reminds us, specifically, that “his character as father of humanism lies in the foundation of sceptical rationality,” insisting on the need to expand critical thinking skills to address the questions posed by an unrestrained and overwhelming modernity, with artificial intelligence among them.
Reflecting on Elon Musk’s announcement that Neuralink has implanted a microchip in a patient’s brain, Cardinal Ravasi recalls that “the classical tradition distinguishes between brain and mind, while the physicalist vision now dominates, reducing everything to neurons and synapses and considering the brain as an extraordinary computer.” He therefore asks: “And what about the self, conscience, freedom, aesthetics, the will, the soul?”
The answer can also be found in the words of a man of technology and business such as Steve Jobs, who Ravasi quotes to recall his attention to the “need for a union of science and humanism”, according to the lesson of his model, Leonardo da Vinci, “because,” said Jobs, “only through this union can we bring a song out of the heart.” Ravasi makes the following comment: “Beyond the somewhat populist image, Jobs states something which is true: technology proceeds in a binary fashion – take the case of Oppenheimer – but humanity must be present: humanism.”
From profound reflections to news of entrepreneurial initiatives: ARtGlass, of the Capitale Cultura group, with an office in Monza and another in the USA, makes high-tech products in the world of augmented reality and says it is looking for graduates in the humanities (artists, historians, archaeologists) to work with engineers and sophisticated technologists to create “interactive experiences” in the tourism and knowledge sectors (Corriere della Sera, 11 February): “Starting from our technological platform, based on five patents,” explains Antonio Scuderi, one of the founders of ARtGlass, “we have created a language that promotes culture through the tool of technology.” “Polytechnic culture”, we might add, as an original synthesis of scientific knowledge and humanistic knowledge, multidisciplinary algorithm writing.
Precisely because artificial intelligence is radically changing knowledge and work, mechanisms of social relationship, tools for political and social orientation, it is essential to ask ourselves how and why all this is already happening, how to attempt to govern the processes, how to make good use of their advantages and react to the consequences that do not meet with our approval, to the “negative externalities”.
It is a question that calls upon ethics, the value system, the basic judgements for directing the tools at our disposal. It makes profound sense, now, that the president of the Italian Commission for Artificial Intelligence for Information is a theologian of great wisdom, like Father Benanti, a technology expert, the only Italian member of the United Nations High-level Advisory Body on Artificial Intelligence and advisor to Pope Francis on technological ethics issues. In the same way, it is particularly valuable that excellent jurists such as Giusella Finocchiaro, professor at the University of Bologna and founder and partner of DigitalMediaLaws (a boutique law firm specialising in new technology law) reflect on national and EU regulations attempting to govern phenomena of complex international regulation in the pages of Intelligenza artificiale. Quali regole? (Artificial Intelligence: what rules?) for the Il Mulino publishing house.
Ethics, critical culture and law are at the forefront, looking for a road, arduous though it may be, that allows science, tech research and business activity to move forward competitively with respect to other more relaxed areas of the world, without neglecting the sphere of rights and of the interests of the social classes and people for whom developments in technology and markets pose the greatest difficulties or in any case disadvantages.
This is why it is essential to reflect deeply on humanism, on freedom and responsibility, development, quality of life and thus critical freedom of thought. It means humanism modelled on Galileo, as humanist scientist, or indeed as Steve Jobs would have it, on Leonardo and his intelligence of the heart. Such an intelligence is anything but artificial. If anything, it’s profoundly human.
(Photo Getty Images)