Cognitive Linguistics in the Year 2024

Beskrivning

Presentation: Anthropomorphic Brains or Embodied Math? Normative implications of how artificial intelligence is conceptualised

Drawing from the field of conceptual metaphors (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980; 1999) as an analytical tool in law (Winter, 2003; Wojtczak, 2017) directed at the conceptual implications of new technologies (Larsson, 2017), this paper focuses on normative implications of how “artificial intelligence” (AI) is conceptualised. Contemporary discourses of AI governance are indicated by a multitude of ethics guidelines (Jobin et al., 2019; Larsson, 2020) and a recently adopted AI Act in the EU. The basic notion for this analysis is that regulatory and other normative efforts depend on how AI is understood, with its annotated risks, fears – and remedies.

Firstly, focusing on three interrelated metaphoric ways of how AI commonly has been understood – as anthropomorphic, individualistic-rational and non-embodied intelligent agents (cf. Russel & Norvig, 2003) – the analysis points to normative consequences of this. Secondly, this paper will propose three interrelated and alternative modes of how to conceptually understand the underlying set of computational technologies – as material-embodied (Cf. Crawford, 2021), computation-intense/non-intelligent (Floridi, 2023), and technosymbiotic (Hayles, 2023) – and speculate on what implications this could have for normative discourses.

Arguably, the regulatory approach for the EU AI Act is caught in unsolvable challenge of pinning down a definition of “AI” (Larsson, 2021), partly because the concept has been on the move since its inception in 1956, tends to be used as a “near-future” position that is depending on an “intelligence” concept that can be used in at least 70 different ways (Legg & Hutter, 2008). Linked, however, seem the alluring anthropomorphic agency conceptualisation spur normative discourses on “human-AI alignment”, but also envisioned “artificial general intelligence” and even “superintelligence”.

At the same time, and on the contrary, Luciano Floridi, the philosopher, reminds us that AI’s opportunities and risks are best understood as a divorce (not a marriage) between agency and intelligence (cf. 2023). Kate Crawford reminds us of the material side of AI, which tends to be obscured by the slim smartness of conversational speakers and more, in terms of anything from the intensely energy-consuming data infrastructures to the mining of rare earth metals, noisy assembly lines and transportation of goods and subsequent waste throughout our planet. Lastly, and drawing from feminist theory on AI (D’Ignazio & Klein, 2023) and human robot interaction (Winkle et al., 2023), the paper scrutinises normative implications of a more interactive, “technosymbiotic” (in the words of N Katherine Hayles, 2023) approach to AI.

References
Crawford, K. (2021) Atlas of AI. Yale University Press.
D'Ignazio, C., & Klein, L. F. (2023). Data feminism. MIT press.
Floridi, L. (2023). The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence: principles, challenges, and opportunities. Oxford University Press.
Hayles, NK (2023) “Technosymbiosis: Figuring (Out) Our Relations to AI”. In: Browne, J., Cave, S., Drage, E. & Mcinerney, K. (Eds.) Feminist AI. Critical Perspectives on Data, Algorithms and Intelligent Machines. Oxford University Press.
Jobin, A., Ienca, M., & Vayena, E. (2019). The global landscape of AI ethics guidelines. Nature machine intelligence, 1(9), 389-399.
Lakoff, G., and M. Johnson (1980) Metaphors We Live By. University of Chicago Press.
Lakoff, G., and M. Johnson. (1999) Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought. New York: Basic Books.
Larsson, S. (2020). On the governance of artificial intelligence through ethics guidelines. Asian Journal of Law and Society, 7(3), 437-451.
Larsson, S. (2021). “AI in the EU: Ethical Guidelines as a Governance Tool”. In: Bakardjieva Engelbrekt et al (Eds.) The European Union and the technology shift, Springer. 85-111.
Larsson., S (2017) Conceptions in the Code. How Metaphors Explain Legal Challenges in Digital Times. Oxford University Press.
Legg, S., & Hutter, M. (2007) “A Collection of Definitions of Intelligence.” In Goertzel, B. & Wang, P (Eds.), Advances in Artificial General Intelligence: Concepts, Architectures and Algorithms (pp. 17–24), Proceedings of the AGI Workshop 2006 (Vol. 157), IOS Press.
Russell, S., & Norvig, P. (2003). Artificial intelligence: a modern approach. Prentice Hall ISBN: 0137903952.
Winkle, K., McMillan, D., Arnelid, M., Harrison, K., Balaam, M., Johnson, E., & Leite, I. (2023). Feminist human-robot interaction: Disentangling power, principles and practice for better, more ethical HRI. In Proceedings of the 2023 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (pp. 72-82).
Winter, S. L. A (2001) Clearing in the Forest: Law, Life, and Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Wojtczak, S. (2017) The Metaphorical Engine of Legal Reasoning and Legal Interpretation. Warzaw: Wydawnictwo C.H. Beck.

Period	2024 sep. 18
Typ av evenemang	Konferens
Plats	Katowice, PolenVisa på karta
Omfattning	Internationell