Text originally written for the Quo Vadis Institute's Thought of the Week,
5 APRIL 2024 | by Verena Schnitzhofer
Philosophers, theologians, physicians, artists – the human being has always been the subject of much interdisciplinary debate. It has been analysed and researched for centuries, but are human beings currently not starting to be ignored?
Artificial Intelligence is currently on everyone’s lips, or should I rather say ‘on everyone’s computer keys’? Digitalisation comes from the Latin digitus (finger) and originally denoted the attempt to cast things in ‘digits’ or ‘numbers’. The image of the finger immediately reminds me of Michelangelo Buonarroti’s ceiling painting in the Sistine Chapel: God’s finger ‘breathes’ life into Adam, as it were. God does not yet fully touch the proto-human Adam but comes very close to him. It is an oft reproduced image. Why does Michelangelo choose a finger here and not the breath of God, emanating from the mouth?
In the Old Testament book of Genesis (In the beginning), God created everything through his spoken word: he spoke, and it became. In the Gospel of John, the Word (or, in Greek, Logos) became flesh in Jesus Christ – and dwelt among us. It is fascinating that the depiction of new life, of humanisation, changed in the course of history. Similar to what happened in Genesis 1, where we see that speech created material form, the Word became flesh. A similar move from word, story or speech to written form grew in history and was made possible by simple technologies like the stylus: spoken word could be captures and visualized. The cuneiform script on clay tablets from the 4th century BC is one of the earliest examples of this.
Today, in addition to the digitalization, there is also an increased use of writing, be it of a different kind: algorithms determine our everyday lives more than we think. In our thoroughly (literally) digitalized world, every challenging experience, every material-bodily friction is eliminated. Qualities and physical resistances can only exist as differentials of an equation one is trying to solve, the meaning of which is governed by the translatability of everything to the realm of numbers. (Transhumanism, 2023, p. 96, quote translated from German) Thomas Sören Hoffmann is convinced that an ‘exponential acceleration’ is inherent in the current digitalisation, which can have little to do with true, authentic human life. But doesn’t humanity have to be more than his/her data set or his/her genome?
Well, what distinguishes Homo Sapiens from Artificial Intelligence in terms of habitus?
A shared meal speaks volumes: colourful flowers adorn the wooden table covered with a white tablecloth. You can hear cutlery clattering on ceramics, loud laughter and people enjoying their meal. If machines were sitting here, what would be the topic of conversation? Would you hear something? Probably not. If you take the thought further, they actually just need electricity, sufficient storage capacity, and perhaps a cool server (yes, we humans need a cool head, so maybe we are similar!). It would certainly be exciting to communicate with humans and AI at a hybrid table, but have you ever experienced hospitality (philoxenia, from philos/friend and xenos/stranger) from a robot (roboxenia)? Well, what isn’t may still be…
Further inspiring reading:
Thomas Sören Hoffmann T. S., Human Enhancement, Transhumanism, and other Stubborn Denials of Life, p.89-98, In: Transhumanismus, IMABE (Hg.), In: Imago Hominis, Zeitschrift für Medizinische Anthropologie und Bioethik, 30:2, Wien 2023 (in German).
Featured image: Kindel Media | Pexels