Abstract
There may be a limit on our capacity to suppress anthropocentric tendencies toward non-human others. Normally, we do not reach this limit in our dealings with animals, the environment, etc. Thus, continued striving to overcome anthropocentrism when confronted with these non-human others may be justified. Anticipation of super artificial intelligence may force us to face this limit, denying us the ability to free ourselves completely of anthropocentrism. This could be for our own good.
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10 September 2024
A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-024-02030-x
Notes
“Intelligent machine,” as used here, refers to a reasonably sophisticated product of artificial intelligence (AI) or related disciplines. An intelligent machine may be prominently hardware, as with a robot or digital computer, or primarily software, as with a virtual agent or software-based system. An intelligent machine may stand alone or be embedded in another artifact. It may be silicon-based or not—as with products from the field of synthetic biology. Further, an intelligent machine, for purposes of this essay, could be a hybrid of two or more materials—a silicon-based digital computer interfaced with a neural circuit made from biological material, perhaps.
Although some may wish to stretch the meaning of “human being,” here I use “human” and “human being” to refer to a member of Homo sapiens.
The “human” qualifier is necessary if one imagines an intelligent machine designed not to regard humans as the only entities with intrinsic moral value.
For example, one could favor a particular non-human species over another species (human or non-human).
There are other versions of biocentrism besides Taylor’s version (Thompson 2017, pp. 80–81). Thompson also points out that Taylor’s biocentrism is individualistic, whereas holistic biocentrist theories are concerned with set(s) of living objects, such as species.
The “weak anthropocentric intrinsic value” of Hargrove (1992) is not the same thing as the “weak [ethical] anthropocentrism” of Thompson (2017). Hargrove observed that “anthropocentric” was being used incorrectly as a synonym for “instrumental” (pp. 183–184) His use of “weak anthropocentric” implies anthropocentric value that need not be instrumental—value could be intrinsic instead. As with Thompson’s use of “weak [ethical] anthropocentrism,” Hargrove allows intrinsic value for some non-humans. With Hargrove, however, it is not clear (to me) that human intrinsic value always beats non-human moral value, as with Thompson’s definition of “weak [ethical] anthropocentrism.”.
Thompson (2017) clarifies Hargrove’s nonanthropocentric intrinsic value by offering, as an example, the “good of its own” of a living organism. As an example of anthropocentric intrinsic value, Thompson observes how parents (non-instrumentally) value the life of a child for its own sake (pp. 82–83).
Hargrove’s (1992, p. 192) interest is in protecting caves.
See Gunkel (2012) for a similar view on the moral agency/moral patiency distinction.
By contrast, the “centrist approach” resides more in the analytic philosophy tradition (Gunkel 2007, p. 175).
A similar critique is found in Gunkel (2018b, chap. 3).
Prima facie this seems similar to a kind of position found in Plato’s Theaetetus (M. Ananth, personal communication, June 28, 2020).
Still, Lagerspetz (2007) believes that Sterba mistakenly “does not consider that there may be uses for ethical theory other than just their narrowly normative and practical employments” (p. 189). Further, Lagerspetz states that “…Sterba’s argument rests on the idea that the only interesting thing about the moral philosophies of Kant, Mill, or Aristotle is, as it were, light theory—to be used for a practical arbitration of whatever issues are being debated among academics or in the media” (p. 189).
In the novel, Boulle (1963) describes the ape-takeover (at least partially) in terms of human abdication. For example, one woman’s experience with her once-loyal, long-time gorilla servant goes like this: “I was too frightened. I could not go on living like this. I preferred to hand the place over to my gorilla. I left my own house.”.
The novel suggests that the ape population at the time of takeover could be approximately equal to the human population. It also suggests that the ape-takeover would be quick (e.g., on Soror, it seemed to take no more than a few years, if that long) and not too bloody (e.g., see previous footnote). However, in this hypothetical scenario, a utilitarian calculation might still be difficult. For example, if Ulysse executes his plan, humans would be in control and would still have talking, domesticated ape-servants. These would simply be less ambitious and more subservient. If Ulysse does not execute his plan, apes would be in control, but may not (initially) have talking, domesticated, subservient human-servants (e.g., due to the flight of humans out of populated areas). Similarly, if Ulysse does not execute his plan, many humans suddenly would be faced with the hardship of primitive conditions. However, some could also regain their previous vigor and initiative as they acclimate to these conditions. On the other hand, if Ulysse executes his plan, it is possible that now-subservient, talking, domesticated ape-servants would be trapped in a limbo-state between their previous freedom as wild animals (i.e., prior to their domestication) and a now-denied opportunity to develop full autonomy. No doubt there are other issues that would make utilitarian calculations difficult in this hypothetical scenario. For the purposes of my thought experiment, though, it does not seem any more unreasonable to suppose that a utilitarian calculation would not favor Ulysse’s plan versus favor it (or be indifferent to a choice between the two).
Bostrom (2014/2016) cautions that small sample sizes and other methodological issues do not permit drawing “strong conclusions” from these results (p. 25). Human-level intelligence (in a machine) is roughly equivalent to what some refer to as “strong AI” or “artificial general intelligence” (AGI). See Bostrom (2014/2016, p. 22) for a brief discussion. Note that in this context, it does not seem to be implied that a strong AI (or AGI) must be conscious. There also seems to be no distinction made between a strong AI that thinks and is intelligent versus one that merely simulates thinking and intelligence. A machine with human-level intelligence would exhibit at least as much intelligence as a typical human being in a broad number of domains. Concerning “superintelligence,” Bostrom considers several forms, which this could take, including super artificial intelligence (AI), cognitively enhanced humans, sophisticated brain–computer interfaces, etc. For this essay, I emphasize his discussion of super AI. “Intelligence” of a super AI would greatly surpass human intelligence in most domains.
The first day of the inaugural AAAI/ACM conference on Artificial Intelligence, Ethics, and Society, held in New Orleans, LA, USA, Feb. 1–3, 2018, focused largely on the “value alignment” problem. The systems under consideration were domain-specific decision-making systems trained on data from past human transactions. Machine learning techniques used to create such systems have shown a tendency to incorporate human bias (racial, gender, etc.) gleaned from the training data into the final decision-making systems intended to be deployed for use by society. “Value alignment” research aims at remedying this problem.
See Torrance (2008) for a related observation involving artificial agents and sentience.
Anthropomorphization is the human tendency to attribute human characteristics to non-humans. Although this tendency is anthropocentric, to the extent that it causes humans to extend moral consideration to non-humans, this tendency is nonanthropocentric in its effect.
Anthropocentrism constituting the “weak anthropocentric intrinsic value” of Hargrove (1992) may be an exception.
This seems in the same spirit as Bryson (2010), who argues “that it would… be wrong to build robots we owe personhood to.”.
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Acknowledgements
I wish to thank Indiana University South Bend for the Faculty Research Grant that supported this research. I especially want to thank Mahesh Ananth for many lively discussions and valuable suggestions on several drafts of this paper.
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This research was funded by an Indiana University South Bend Faculty Research Grant.
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Scheessele, M.R. The hard limit on human nonanthropocentrism. AI & Soc 37, 49–65 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-021-01182-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-021-01182-4