AI, Gods, and Selves: Incredibly Effective Illusions

The rise of AI makes people worry. It

causes moral concern. We fear a loss of

agency, a kind of existential

humiliation.

On the one hand, we treat AI as if it

was an intelligent agent who understands

and guides us. When talking to an LLM

like ChatGpt or DeepSeek, it feels like

we're talking to someone. But on the

other hand, we know this someone isn't

like us. That's quite uncanny.

AI challenges our sense of self and our

existential orientation.

In this video, I'll trace the history of

our sense of self and of our sense of AI

to point out that AI, the self and the

gods, for that matter, are incredibly

effective illusions which don't really

exist.

I will also argue at the end of the

video against dystopian visions of a

singularity

and question some current approaches to

AI ethics.

The video is inspired by a recent

conversation with Iad Rafa, director of

the center for humans and machines at

the Maxplank Institute for Human

Development in Berlin. And it's also

inspired by the many conversations with

Milo Jeanich.

Why do we speak of artificial

intelligence although we know very well

it's not really intelligent in the sense

of a thinking thing. It even tells us

so. Deepseek says do I have

consciousness, emotions or

self-awareness? No. And it adds that it

doesn't think that this is just a figure

of speech.

When I use words like understanding,

thinking or knowing, we are using them

as metaphors or analogies.

Interesting by the way that it says I

here first and then we. And in fact,

it's I is actually nothing but our we.

But I will get to this issue later.

Of course, we know that it is not anyone

and doesn't think. But we still feel

understood by it. Why? When prompted,

and I edited out here all the flattering

language meant to seduce us and keep us

on the platform, Deep Seek says what we

already know. For millennia, the only

thing capable of producing meaningful

language was a conscious human mind. So

we are deeply conditioned to equate

fluent language use with an inner

conscious life.

When further prompted, deep admits that

ascribing intelligence to it in the

sense of treating it as if it were

really a mind is an incredibly effective

illusion.

Let's take note of this. We stick to the

metaphor of artificial intelligence

because we are conditioned to the

effective illusion that when we

communicate with something, it must be

an intelligent agent.

Apparently, in order to be socially and

psychologically effective, intelligence

must be ascribed to a being that is

intelligent.

And this intelligent being can talk.

It's someone who communicates, someone

whom we listen to and who makes sense.

But who precisely this envisioned

thinking and speaking thing is is

historically in the long run contingent

to trace the history of this envisioned

thing. This video looks into some

contemporary theory. Elena Esposto,

Nicholas Lumman, Julian James, and Uval

Harrari. A while ago on this channel, we

posted a conversation with Elena Posto

about her book artificial communication.

The MIT press website where you can

download a book for free says in

artificial communication Elena Esposito

argues that the analogy between

algorithms and human intelligence is

misleading. Esposito proposes that we

think of smart machines not in terms of

artificial intelligence but in terms of

artificial communication. But her

proposition did not catch on. No one

really says artificial communication as

positive suggestion to understand AI in

social rather than in mental terms is

informed by her academic teacher

Nicholas Lumman. I consider Lumman's

systems theory the most advanced theory

framework available today. It's the only

theory I know perhaps next to NZA but he

doesn't really have a theory that

decisively beyond what Lumman calls old

European thought that is beyond

enlightenment and its humanism.

Here are some basics of the theory that

I hope you allow me to introduce before

presenting my main point. At the heart

of it is a distinction between three

kinds of autopoadic self-reproducing

systems. Three kinds of organisms so to

say. There are biological systems. The

self-reproductive evolution of life like

our bodies or plants. They consist of

all kinds of physiological processes.

They are mental systems. The self

reproductive evolution of consciousness.

what we call minds. They consist of all

kinds of psychological processes, their

social systems, the self reproductive

evolution of communication like the

economic system, the political system or

the media system. They consist of all

kinds of social processes like payments,

elections or YouTube videos.

All these systems are environments for

one another. To record this video, to be

able to talk to you on social media, my

body must be alive and my mind needs to

think. And for you, the same is the case

if you're watching it. Communication,

including social media, operates within

the environment of bodies and minds.

The three systems co-evolve.

They're often structurally coupled. As

Lumman says, society influences how

minds evolve and minds influence how

society evolves. And this in turn also

influences biological evolution in

various ways. That's by the way why we

speak of the entroposy.

In other words, systems are contingent

upon one another.

Curiously and importantly, systems are

operationally closed. They're not in

direct mechanical contact with one

another. They live on their own, so to

say. This video is social media

communication. I cannot continue

recording it and you cannot continue

watching it simply by being bodily alive

and mentally thinking. We need to

communicate to keep communication going.

I need to post the video and you need to

watch it. Communication can only be

continued by more communication, not by

biological or mental operations on their

own.

Systems operate only with their own

operations, not with the operations of

other systems. However, systems irritate

one another. What I say irritates what

you think. It triggers thoughts which in

turn can irritate your body. When I

speak, you may be scratching your head

or start yawning or maybe even smile

slightly.

Minds in society are coupled by the

common medium of language. Mental

systems are intelligent, can think in

language.

Social systems can communicate in the

same language and yet as mentioned they

remain operationally close to one

another. Thoughts never become part of

communication as thoughts. They must be

communicated and communication never

becomes part of thought as

communication. You must think on it.

Ivan not translator of Lumman's book

social systems calls this systemic rift

between minds and communication

hermeneutic despair and she illustrates

it with a scene from a theater play. She

writes

in Danton's death bushna dramatizes the

primal scene of hermeneutic despair. The

protagonist makes a silent gesture

toward his lover's forehead and says to

her, "There, there, what lies behind

this?" To understand one another, we

would have to break open each other's

skulls and pull the thoughts out of the

fibers of our brains.

Lumman writes, "Categorically,

human beings cannot communicate. Not