Artificial Intelligence (AI) is causing major disruptions, triggering waves of social, cultural, political, economic and environmental problems that risk undermining the very foundations of human society and the totality of the environment surrounding it. Two problems in particular stand out. The first one is that there is generally no vision of development behind the production of AI technologies, but rather individualistic political and economic strategies benefitting a few oligarchs and private companies. The second problem is that there is often little or no comprehension of the AI technologies that are being produced, resulting in several forms of distress and confusion cutting across culture, economics and politics. The argument advanced in this paper is that these two problems derive from one broader problem: the eclipse of reason. In order to unpack and explain this problem, the paper draws on the philosophy of Max Horkheimer and makes three distinct contributions. First, it develops a theoretical framework to illustrate the nature of the eclipse of reason and how it unfolds nowadays in the age of AI. Second, it expands Horkheimer’s philosophy, by taking into account and integrating matters of education, ideology and governance, which are crucial for understanding not simply how the eclipse of reason takes place, but also how it stays in place, thereby chronically clouding our capacity to comprehend AI and govern its deployment in a sustainable manner. Third and finally, the paper proposes a philosophically grounded roadmap for navigating the changes that are needed to reverse the eclipse of reason.
Federico Cugurullo (Mon,) studied this question.