Realist Responses to Post-Human Society: Ex Machina

Ismael Al-Amoudi, Jamie Morgan, Ismael Al-Amoudi, Jamie Morgan

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781351233682
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

This volume is the first of a trilogy which investigates, from a broadly realist perspective, the place, and challenges, of the human in contemporary social orders. The authors, all members of the Centre for Social Ontology, ask what is specific about humanity's nature and worth, and what are their main challenges in contemporary societies?

Examining the ways in which recent advances in technology threaten to blur and displace the boundaries constitutive of our shared humanity, Realist Responses to Post-Human Society: Ex Machina explores the philosophical and ethical questions raised by these developments, and discusses the dangers posed by the combination of transhumanism with post-humanist social theories and antihumanist practices, institutions and ideologies.

1 Introduction

Post-humanism in morphogenic societies

Ismael Al-Amoudi and Jamie Morgan

In the movie Ex Machina, the spectator witnesses a strange test happening behind closed doors and secured walls. In a secret facility, a bright young programmer is tasked to perform a Turing test on a charming female robot, one also wired to receive pain and pleasure, including sexual. But the Turing test is organised with a twist: since the tester knows all too well that he is testing a robot, the question he is asked is whether he sincerely believes that the robot is a person. As the story unfolds, a romantic relationship between tester and testee seems to emerge. But when the movie ends, the spectator is left wondering whether the robot was all along just a calculating machine with exceptional imitation skills, or whether it/she is a person who developed psychopathy and fractured social reflexivity because of the way she had been treated in the facility.

Part of the movie’s appeal stems from the actors’ remarkable performances, but the story is also plausible because the world in which it is set is remarkably close to ours, and also because the grim story resonates with widely disseminated paranoid fantasies about the nature, worth and limits of our shared humanity. Indeed, social and cultural challenges to human nature have provided a popular topic for science-fiction novelists, popular science writers, philosophers, bio-ethicists and, increasingly, policy-makers.

To our knowledge, however, there are few systematic and significant studies conducted by social-scientists. Social sciences’ absence is problematic for several reasons. First, it leaves the assessment of specific post-human developments open to fantasy. Without rigorous and systematic studies, transhumanist, antihumanist or posthumanist developments are relegated to the fait-divers section of social studies and generate responses that are either anaemic or hot-blooded. Second, without a rigorous social theoretical discussion, anti/post/trans-humanism leaves us, when examining its dehumanising tendencies, with shifting ontological and ethical compasses. Third, we must understand why decent persons engage in, or simply tolerate, so many of the dehumanising practices and institutions brought by transhumanism. In the absence of substantive studies informed by the social sciences, it remains difficult to be more specific than the vague and trivial claim that ‘post-human developments are not necessarily good or bad in all circumstances’. In sum, we need a transdisciplinary social-scientific study of antihumanism, transhumanism and posthumanism that examines our times’ challenges to humanity in theory and in practice.

The present volume is the first of a trilogy which investigates, from a broadly realist perspective, the place, and challenges, of the human in contemporary social orders. Our project is broadly organised around three sets of questions, each set central to one of the volumes. In this volume we ask what is specific about humanity’s nature and worth, and what are their main challenges in contemporary societies? In the second volume we shall ask what are the meso-level institutions and organisations that play a significant role in fostering, transforming or degrading our common humanity? In the third volume we shall ask, with due caution, what are the possible futures of humanity in morphogenic societies?

Sociological context: the significance of living in morphogenic societies

Our book has been written by a collective of writers who are all members of the Centre for Social Ontology (hereafter CSO). It is both a starting point for the CSO’s latest project on Post-Human Society and in very important ways a sequel to our completed five-volume series on Social Morphogenesis. Post-humanism is at play in morphogenic societies, and this has important implications for our current project.

Through the Social Morphogenesis project, we have explored, theorised and clarified a number of key features characteristic of contemporary social orders. Looking back over a selection from this previous work provides some useful context. Firstly, in many though not all areas of social life, mechanisms generating social transformation tend to overwhelm mechanisms that maintain social stasis to the point that it makes sense to speak, albeit tentatively, of morphogenic societies. Our argument is not that we live in situations of pure morphogenesis, devoid of any morphostatic mechanisms. Contra Bauman’s vision of Liquid Modernity, the situation we depict is rather one of morphogenesis unbound in the sense that morphogenetic mechanisms are increasingly widespread without ever suppressing entirely morphostatic ones (this, of course, would violate the potentials expressible via M/M processes).¹

Secondly, such social morphogenesis unbound creates unprecedented problems regarding inter alia social normativity (Al-Amoudi 2014; 2016), the accelerated death of social forms (Al-Amoudi & Latsis 2015), the possibility of relational steering (Donati 2013; 2016), conflictual international relations (Wight 2014; 2016), impoverished digital activism (Carrigan 2016; 2017) and pervasive anormative regulation (Archer 2016).

Thirdly, attentiveness to morphogenesis unbound has allowed us to rethink contemporary history in order to provide an account of how we have arrived where we are now. Archer (2014) traces the origins of contemporary morphogenesis unbound to the synergy at play in 1990s Silicon Valley. Social agents operating in situational logics of diffusion (e.g. Universities, Scientific agencies) have entered into synergetic relations with social agents operating in situational logics of accumulation (e.g. startup companies, blue chips, financial investors of all guises). The situation of contingent complementarity at play between these two types of actors creates novel configurations in which cultural and structural developments provide each with proliferating possibilities from which actors may select and initiate subsequent cycles of social and cultural morphogenesis. Thus, Archer argues, morphogenesis unbound has replaced the former balance of morphogenesis and morphostasis characteristic of twentieth-century societies. Porpora’s (2014) socio-historical analysis is highly congruent with Archer’s, but also highlights a wider array of social and cultural transformations that are conducive to morphogenic societies. Namely, unleashed capitalism, pervasive information systems, unstable world inter-state dynamics and abrupt transformations of the environment and ecosystems.

These broad accounts of morphogenic society’s advent are accepted but also refined by Maccarini’s insight that ‘all is not lost in the fire of change’ (Maccarini 2015), and that while we witness unprecedented social ‘vortices’, we should not, however, lose sight of Late Modernity’s relatively stable social ‘enclaves’. The latter are, for example, explored by Porpora (2015) who identifies significant morphostatic effects, maintained by specific interlocks of agency, culture and structure, in the domains of ecological policy, healthcare in the USA and global poverty.

Fourth, the coexistence of morphostatic and morphogenetic mechanisms should not surprise us. Morphogenic society is characterised by a dominance, rather than replacement, of morphogenic mechanisms over morphostatic ones. There still exist stable social forms, but these are scarcer than before, which in turn makes them more powerful (Al-Amoudi 2014). The basic social form of the limited liability corporation provides a case in point, which Lawson (2015) argues, is at once one of the most powerful generative mechanisms in today’s societies, a legal fiction and a community that escapes moral control, since directors delegate moral responsibility to shareholders and vice versa.

Finally, the Morphogenic Society project attempted realistic solutions to the obstacles to human flourishing brought by social morphogenesis unbound. Looking at the dire state of international relations between sovereign countries, Wight (2017) has argued convincingly for the formation of a World State, mediated by regional organisations such as the EU. Such a novel political entity would both hold a global monopoly over the legitimate use of violence and would facilitate international collaborations on global problems that necessitate internationally coordinated actions. Responding to the problematic dominance of multinational corporations, Morgan and Sun (2017) suggest that any workable solution must be based on concern for our higher interests as members of the human species (rather than as members of some narrower community). Lawson, for his part, (2015) contemplates the creation of legal fictions able to counter-balance the domination of corporations. More precisely, he envisages the creation of a new legal status for non-human beings. Such a legal status would allow their human defenders to take legal action (backed by the threat of legitimate state violence) on behalf of razed forests, suffering animals, polluted rivers and so on. In the last volume of the series, Lawson adds another, realistically utopian, suggestion: in the face of neo-liberalism’s large-scale erosion of social solidarity, solidarity might perhaps be safeguarded at the very local scale by ‘eudemonic bubbles’. That is, organisations governed by a shared concern for the well-being of each of its members according to the (Marxist) principle ‘from each according to her or his abilities, to each according to her or his needs, in the pursuit of generalised flourishing in our differences’. Examples of such eudemonic bubbles already exist and might be more common than appreciated, they include ‘certain monastic communities, possibly some retreats, and even various study groups’ (Lawson 2017: 242).

Taking a lead from Archer’s (2012) discussion of the problems posed by contextual discontinuity for those persons inclined towards communicative or fractured reflexivity, Al-Amoudi (2017) calls for the creation, and mandation by law, of two types of organisations without which morphogenic societies fail to satisfy the basic philosophical requirements laid by justice theorists such as Rawls, Nussbaum and Sen. On the one hand, organisations that foster people’s ability for political reflexivity, i.e. their ability to understand and contribute to political decisions leading to a fair and workable modus vivendi; and, on the other hand, organisations that foster people’s autonomous and meta-reflexivity so as to allow them to evaluate and pursue their own conception of the good life in ever-shifting social configurations.

Vindicating humanity in morphogenic societies

As the previous section indicates, the Morphogenic Society project was throughout concerned with humanity’s place, worth and challenges. The focus of the analysis, however, was social mechanisms and configurations, rather than more specifically agents’ humanity, which remained mainly in the background. Our current project reverses this and places an examination of human agency in the foreground. As a result, the literature with which we engage is different. While the Morphogenic Society project was nourished by critical discussions of liquid modernity (Bauman 2012), Luhmanian social theory and neo-liberal (lib-lab) ideology, the present project engages with various brands of anti-humanism, post-humanism and trans-humanism as well as with debates surrounding the extent and possibility of artificial intelligence.

It is worth noting here that while there are connections between anti-humanism, transhumanism and artificial intelligence, it is also useful to distinguish them. Anti-humanism refers to a number of long-standing philosophical traditions that have sought to problematize, refute or dismiss reliance on the category of ‘human’ (see Soper 1986). Transhumanism refers instead to a long-standing historical development: the enhancement of human mental and physical capacities through bodily transformations. Transhuman practices are not novel, especially if we include martial and fitness training, surgical operations and such accessories as walking sticks and spectacles. What is perhaps specific to our times is the acceleration of such developments, which now include inter alia bio-engineering, intra-body chips and brain-controlled mechanical limbs. Equally significantly, contemporary trans-human advances raise difficult questions regarding the dignity of the human mind and body, issues of fairness between the enhanced and unenhanced, and about the final purposes of the race to enhancement. Finally, artificial intelligence refers to the production of non-human intelligent beings such as the (presumably) sentient robots at the centre of the movie Ex Machina. How we delimit the category of artificially intelligent entities depends of course on how we conceptualise intelligence. If intelligence is defined in terms of algorithmic computation, then AI already pervades everyday life as most smartphones can beat a World chess champion and as search engines can retrieve basic information more efficiently than the most zealous human librarian. However, as Morgan argues in the present volume (see below), computational power constitutes a misleading approximation of intelligence, and the latter deserves more careful ontological scrutiny than is routinely devoted by AI theorists.

Although we would expect that authors other than Morgan will discuss AI in the next two volumes, the present volume deals mainly with problems raised by anti-humanism and trans-humanism. It opens with three ontological reflexions by Archer, Porpora and Donati on the nature, specificity and worth of what makes us human. It continues with an extended exploration by Morgan of two key debates within the artificial intelligence literature that have influenced how we think about AI and the human. Our book ends with three sociological discussions of contemporary societal challenges to human worth.

Archer, Porpora and Donati have much in common as regards philosophical background. All three recognise the irreducible reality of human bodies, human agency and social relations; and all three ask both ‘what is it that makes us human?’ and ‘what is worthy about humanity?’ in contradistinction with what we know, and can imagine, about animals and machines. Finally, and most importantly, all three provide relational answers to ontological questions of specificity and axiological questions of worth.

The three aforementioned authors differ, however, in how they articulate their relational conceptions of what makes us human. Archer (present volume) discusses the relation between the human body, human personhood and human enhancement. Her thesis is that it is our ability to engage in relations based on reflexively elaborated concerns that provide a necessary and sufficient condition for human personhood. Biological embodiment is neither necessary nor sufficient, whereas first person reflexivity (Baker 2000) is necessary though insufficient to fully-fledged human personhood. On this basis, human enhancement is good whenever it is conducive to the realisation of inclusive concerns (e.g. prolonging meaningful life) and bad when it is conducive to the realisation of individualistic and/or competitive concerns that ultimately corrode our deeply relational personhood.

In similar vein to Archer (and Donati), Porpora (present volume) defends a relational conception of the human, though one that is inspired by Buber’s I and Thou rather than by The Relational Subject. Like Archer, but unlike Donati, Porpora is careful to distinguish personhood from humanity. It is because of our relational personhood, rather than any feature of our human bodies, that we are ontologically distinct from and axiologically ‘more valuable than a cat, a computer, or even (pace a query from John Latsis in our group) a magnificent painting.’ (Porpora, present volume, pp. 33–52). By the same token, it is also because of our relational personhood that we might, in principle, enter into I-Thou relationships with non-human entities such as a super-computer or extra-terrestrials, and recognise the worthiness of such non-human entities.

Donati (present volume) also provides a relational understanding of humanity’s specificity and worth, since he locates the value of humanity in our potential for relational steering. However, contrary to Archer and Porpora, Donati focuses on humanity rather than personhood, because he maintains that humanity is a reality that implies personhood but is not limited to that. He argues that personhood is always embodied. If human personhood designates the quality or condition of being an individual person, then the relationship that every human person can have with any other entity is necessarily dependent upon the specific and concrete relational complex of mind and body of that person, as the characters of the Ex Machina movie clearly show. Humanity lies in the fact that our relationality to our body, just as our relationality to others, presupposes a transcendence that is lacking in machines and in known non-human forms of life (and so there is an ‘enigma’ to address).

The second section of the volume addresses seminal debates (‘sophisticated origins’) that have influenced how the nature and limits of artificial intelligence are conceived, and by association how the human is also conceived. A tad uncommonly, the whole section is constituted by a single long essay authored by Morgan (present volume). The subject matter bears extended scrutiny. Two arguments have helped define the field: the Turing Test, which creates a test for artificial intelligence rooted in simulation able to persuade a human that it is human; and Se...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of illustrations
• List of contributors
• 1. Introduction: Post-humanism in morphogenic societies
• 2. Bodies, persons and human enhancement: Why these distinctions matter
• 3. Vulcans, Klingons, and humans: What does humanism encompass?
• 4. Transcending the human: Why, where, and how?
• 5. Yesterday’s tomorrow today: Turing, Searle and the contested significance of artificial intelligence
• 6. Trans-human (life-)time: Emergent biographies and the ‘deep change’ in personal reflexivity
• 7. The evisceration of the human under digital capitalism
• 8. Management and dehumanisation in late modernity
• Index