Three Limitations of Algorithmic Reason: Steering the Human Mind in the Twenty First Century

• Autor(a) principal: Castro, P.
• Data de Publicação: 2021
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10451/50897
• topic: artificial intelligence; algorithmic reason; cultural steering; human mind steering; cybernetic loop; computational propaganda; AI Ethics

Artificial Intelligence has pervaded contemporary societies in almost every way as an externalized, fragmented, and optimized form of rationality. I call this externalized mode of thought “algorithmic rationality” and to the ideology favoring it, “algorithmic reason”. Although algorithmic reason original goal was to facilitate the arising of a highly participative and global Culture, fitting all citizens in a dynamic democratic society, History has it that AI technology would be ceased by consumer logic and computational propaganda. I discuss the economical, epistemological, and political implementation of algorithmic reason, introducing three cases. I argue that such implementation comprises a cybernetic loop, involving a centralized AI and its instrumentalized users. Commenting upon the ubiquity of such loop, I introduce three limitations of algorithmic reason. The first two are of a computational nature. The third owes its presence to a cybernetic loop, producing a steering effect on the human mind and promoting a cultural flattening effect. This, I conclude, may result in the impoverish of creativity, critical thought, and intellectual curiosity.