UC Santa Cruz

This text examines implicit metaphysical assumptions that influence the discourse of artificial intelligence by shaping key underlying concepts such as intelligence, agency, rationality, thought, mechanism, process and number. I consider the impact of these assumptions on the frameworks and methods of the field, as well as their relevance to debates concerning the ethics of research in AI. In this context, I evaluate the consequences of Jacques Derrida’s critique of metaphysics, examining its implications for conceptual models of artificial intelligence that continue to depend on the foundational ideas his critique puts into question.The first part, “Mind Against Mechanism,” deals generally with the idea of intelligence and the figure of the thinking machine. I argue that Beneficial AI, a prominent research program within machine ethics, relies on a misguided theory of intelligence that combines misconceptions about evolutionary biology with inappropriate analogies to nuclear energy, and mobilizes longstanding anxieties about the viability of traditional beliefs regarding individual autonomy and agency. My analysis corroborates Timnit Gebru’s call for a holistic approach to Ethical AI that incorporates a more diverse group of scientists into the design process. I add to this that scientists are not enough—serious engagement is needed with a wider range of scholarly work beyond the sciences. The second part of this manuscript, “Number Beyond the Algorithm,” considers the provenance of premises that inform the way we conceive of the limits of computation. I show that the adoption of the set as the founding element of the real number system follows from a concept of number that elevates presence over process (i.e., cardinality over sequence). This preference for presence aligns with the culturally- specific beliefs of a small group of European mathematicians, particularly with regard to the nature of number and infinity. Yet, the resulting definitions continue to inform contemporary characterizations of the relationship between mathematics and computa- tion by contributing to the conviction that the objects of mathematics (and the world they correspond to) vastly exceed what machines can compute.