Hume’s empiricism versus Kant’s critical philosophy (in the times of artificial intelligence and the attention economy)

Kaluža, Jernej (author)

The article exposes how one of the most fundamental oppositions in the history of modern philosophy – the opposition between Hume’s empiricism and Kant’s critical philosophy – is embedded in the current debate on the impact of artificial intelligence (in particular, the algorithmic selection of content) on human society. Hume’s empiricism – with its deduction of subjectivity based on a process of habituation – corresponds to the functioning of recommending algorithms, while Kant’s idea of autonomous subjectivity corresponds to the ideals underlying today’s ethical attempts towards the regulation of artificial intelligence. According to such ethics, the use of empirical data can endanger humans; whereby our attention can be easily caught by sensationalist content and our autonomy replaced by the agency of machinic intelligence. However, as argued in the present article, such ethical positioning also reproduces the gap between the empirical reality and normative principles, which is why transcendental (Kantian) ethics should be supplemented with Hume’s immanent and practical reasoning.

• Language: English
• Keywords: habit, recommendation algorithms, attention economy
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FDV - Faculty of Social Sciences
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2023
• Number of pages: Str. 67-82
• Numbering: Vol. 23, no. 2
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-151635
• UDC: 1Hume D.:004.89
• ISSN on article: 2063-4552
• DOI: 10.22503/inftars.XXIII.2023.2.4
• COBISS.SI-ID: 168289027
• Publication date in RUL: 13.10.2023

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Információs társadalom. társadalomtudományi folyóirat
• Shortened title: Inf. társad.
• Publisher: Infonia Alapítvány
• ISSN: 2063-4552
• COBISS.SI-ID: 168267011

Licences

• License: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
• Description: The most restrictive Creative Commons license. This only allows people to download and share the work for no commercial gain and for no other purposes.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: Hume, David, 1711-1776, Kant, Immanuel, 1724-1804, filozofija, empirizem, umetna inteligenca, računalniški algoritmi

Projects

• Funder: ARRS - Slovenian Research Agency
• Project number: P5-0051
• Name: Množični mediji, javna sfera in družbene spremembe