On artificial intelligence and natural stupidity
Giorgio Agamben, Quodlibet, October 12, 2025
“An age of barbarism is about to begin, the sciences will serve it!”. The age of barbarism is not yet over, and Nietzsche’s diagnosis is now punctually confirmed. The sciences are so intent on fulfilling and even anticipate any need of the age, that when it decided it lacked in the will or ability to think, it immediately provided it with a device dubbed “Artificial intelligence” (AI for short). The name is not transparent, because the problem with AI is not that it is artificial (thought, as inseparable from language, always implies an art, or part of an artifice), but that it places itself outside the mind of the subject who thinks or should think. In this it resembles Averroes’s separate intellect, which, according to the genius Andalusian philosopher, was unique for all people. For Averroes, the problem was consequently that of the relation between separate intellect and the single individual. If intelligence is separate from single individuals, how can they join it to think? Averroes’s answer is that single individuals commuinicated with the separate intellect through imagination, which remains individual. It is certainly a symptom of the barbarity of the age, as well as its utter lack of imagination, that this problem is not posed for artificial intelligence. If it were simply a tool, like mechanical calculators, the problem would not actually exist. If, however, one assumes, as in fact is the case, that AI, like Averroes’s separate intellect, thinks, then the problem of its relation with the thinking subject cannot be avoided. Bazlen once said that in our times intelligence has ended up in the hands of the stupid. It is then possible that the crucial problem of our times takes this form: how can a stupid — that is, a non-thinking — get into a relation with an intelligence that claims to think outside of him?
Giorgio Agamben, Quodlibet, October 12, 2025
“An age of barbarism is about to begin, the sciences will serve it!”. The age of barbarism is not yet over, and Nietzsche’s diagnosis is now punctually confirmed. The sciences are so intent on fulfilling and even anticipate any need of the age, that when it decided it lacked in the will or ability to think, it immediately provided it with a device dubbed “Artificial intelligence” (AI for short). The name is not transparent, because the problem with AI is not that it is artificial (thought, as inseparable from language, always implies an art, or part of an artifice), but that it places itself outside the mind of the subject who thinks or should think. In this it resembles Averroes’s separate intellect, which, according to the genius Andalusian philosopher, was unique for all people. For Averroes, the problem was consequently that of the relation between separate intellect and the single individual. If intelligence is separate from single individuals, how can they join it to think? Averroes’s answer is that single individuals commuinicated with the separate intellect through imagination, which remains individual. It is certainly a symptom of the barbarity of the age, as well as its utter lack of imagination, that this problem is not posed for artificial intelligence. If it were simply a tool, like mechanical calculators, the problem would not actually exist. If, however, one assumes, as in fact is the case, that AI, like Averroes’s separate intellect, thinks, then the problem of its relation with the thinking subject cannot be avoided. Bazlen once said that in our times intelligence has ended up in the hands of the stupid. It is then possible that the crucial problem of our times takes this form: how can a stupid — that is, a non-thinking — get into a relation with an intelligence that claims to think outside of him?
(English translation by I, Robot)
陈漫 (Chén Màn), Electronics components N°2, 2009. Photo © 陈漫. Courtesy of the artist. |
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