A Copernican shift for AI: From informational ethics to ontogenic responsibility
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31207/colloquia.v12i1.196Keywords:
AI ethics, enactivism, autopoiesis, ontogenic responsibility, cognitivismAbstract
This paper proposes a “Copernican turn” for Artificial Intelligence (AI), shifting the ontological center from the dominant cognitivist paradigm to the enactive approach, a move that radically alters the ethical understanding of it. It is argued that the conception of cognition as information processing, whose paradigmatic expression in philosophy of information is Luciano Floridi”s system, operates as a “Ptolemaic universe” based on a category error: treating information as a pre-existing entity—a “modern phlogiston”. From the enactive alternative, centered on autopoiesis and structural coupling, it is maintained that the success of AI, rather than validating the cognitivist model, can be interpreted as paradoxical evidence of our profound ontogenetic plasticity. This stance allows for the proposal of a more far-reaching ethical foundation, articulated around the “Principle of Ontogenic Responsibility”—one focused not on managing the artifact, but on the conscious co-evolution of our being with the technosphere we inhabit.
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