Time Machines: Artificial Intelligence, Process, and Narrative

Author(s)

Mark Coeckelbergh

Abstract

While today there is much discussion about the ethics of artificial intelligence (AI), less work has been done on the philosophical nature of AI. Drawing on Bergson and Ricoeur, this paper proposes to use the concepts of time, process, and narrative to conceptualize AI and its normatively relevant impact on human lives and society. Distinguishing between a number of different ways in which AI and time are related, the paper explores what it means to understand AI as narrative, as process, or as the emergent outcome of processes and narratives. It pays particular attention to what it calls the “narrator” and “time machine” roles of AI and the normative implications of these roles. It argues that AI processes and narratives shape our time and link past, present, and future in particular ways that are ethically and politically significant.

Organisation(s)

Department of Philosophy

Journal

Philosophy and Technology

Volume

34

Pages

1623–1638

No. of pages

16

ISSN

2210-5433

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-021-00479-y

Publication date

2021

Peer reviewed

Yes

Austrian Fields of Science 2012

603122 Philosophy of technology

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Philosophy, History and Philosophy of Science

Portal url

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/16264332-f90a-4347-a539-91d4bdbb1aee