Premium
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE'S NEW FRONTIER: ARTIFICIAL COMPANIONS AND THE FOURTH REVOLUTION
Author(s) -
FLORIDI LUCIANO
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
metaphilosophy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.475
H-Index - 35
eISSN - 1467-9973
pISSN - 0026-1068
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9973.2008.00573.x
Subject(s) - humanity , darwin (adl) , rest (music) , epistemology , philosophy , computer science , physics , theology , software engineering , acoustics
In this article I argue that the best way to understand the information turn is in terms of a fourth revolution in the long process of reassessing humanity's fundamental nature and role in the universe. We are not immobile, at the centre of the universe (Copernicus); we are not unnaturally distinct and different from the rest of the animal world (Darwin); and we are far from being entirely transparent to ourselves (Freud). We are now slowly accepting the idea that we might be informational organisms among many agents (Turing), inforgs not so dramatically different from clever, engineered artefacts, but sharing with them a global environment that is ultimately made of information, the infosphere.