Man and His Invention

This paper can be seen as divided into two parts. The irst part discusses Artiicial Intelligence research as part of modern science and technology, or “techno-science”, and tries to indicate that the paradigm of modern techno-science builds on a conception of knowledge as power. This topic is then discussed by help of examples and drawing the conclusion that Artiicial Intelligence, as a form of technology, poses a morally charged challenge to our self-understanding. It is also suggested that the contemporary techno-scientiic self-understanding is characterised by repression. The second part focuses on discussing and clarifying the conceptual relationship between humans and Artiicial Intelligence systems. While this topic invites a continued discussion on the topic of power, it also challenges us to engage in a conceptual investigation into concepts such as “autonomy” and “formalisation”. By way of such a conceptual clariication, a claim is made that while Artiicial Intelligence systems operate exclusively on formal aspects of the world and human “intelligence”, humans are characterised by, and formalisation presupposes, what will be called “a-formal” features of life. This a-formal aspect will be characterised as essentially grounded in morals, leading to the claim that understanding the relationship between man and machine — and why this relationship is so often distorted — requires acknowledging the topic as simultaneously both a conceptual as well as a moral issue.