From: "matthew piscioneri" <mpiscioneri-AT-hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: HAB: Re: Linking Theory & Practice
Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 03:51:32 


Gary,

quick postscript to my earlier post:

>GD: It's not the case that "The ethical implications of AI research
>are rarely given serious academic attention"
>(http://www.ethics-of-technology.net/).

Yes, this statement has provoked other negative responses, and is the 
invention of my webmaster given over to greater hyperbole than myself I am 
afraid. It is time to remedy the situation :-)

>Analytical philosophy of mind
>often seems to be about nothing else.

Are you referring to Dennett et al here? The sort of brain-in-vat thought 
experiments whilst familiar to the main focus of our site's contributions 
remained tied to either philosophical issues to do with consciousness or 
personal identity.

Most of our contributors focus on either the robot takeover scenario or when 
is an AI device to be considered a moral agent. This second focus admittedly 
is useful for illuminating the issues to do with human moral agency, but 
still remains a little distant from most analytical philosophy of mind. 
Similarly:

>The postmodernist critique of cyborgian dreams is an industry.

Again I don't believe the main thrust of these postmodernist critiques of 
cyborgian dreams is ethical. Postmodernism? Ethics? Surely TOO foundational 
;-) If there is a closer precedent to the debate we are trying to foster on 
our site, then it may belong to the field of Heideggerian studies actually. 
But given my extremely limited knowledge of Heidegger, its a guess.

What some of the far flung ( and admittedly crystal gazing) debate on AI 
raises for me in the context of Habermas - especially the robot-takeover 
focus - is the issue of a commitment to the reproduction of the human 
species. If this commitment gets sidestepped, what of the weight JH  gives 
to CA in the processes of this reproduction? It's a commitment some 
radical/deep ecologists have little problem in moving beyond although it's 
not my personal postion.

Best Regards,

MattP
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