Intelligence as a human life form

Abstract

This text aims to counter the anxieties generated by the recent emergence of AI and the criticisms leveled at it, demanding its moralization. It does so by demonstrating that AI is neither new nor is it true intelligence but rather a tool, akin to many others that have long been serving human intelligence and its objectives. In what follows, I offer a broader reflection on technology that aims to contextualize the novelty and singularity attributed to AI within the history of technological developments. My ultimate goal is to relativize the novelty of AI, seeking to alleviate the moral anxieties it currently elicits and encouraging a more normal, optimistic view of it. The first step in understanding AI is indeed to realize that its novelty is only relative, and that AI has many ancestors that, upon closer examination, turn out to be closely related.