Digital Normativity: A challenge for human subjectivization and free will
This addresses a philosophical and ethical problem for society regarding the impact of AI on human autonomy, but it is incremental as it builds on existing critiques of technology and normativity.
The paper examines the tension between AI-driven digital normativity and human autonomy, arguing that AI's role in decision-making may undermine human free will and subjectivization, necessitating ethical reflection beyond social acceptability.
Over the past decade, artificial intelligence has demonstrated its efficiency in many different applications and a huge number of algorithms have become central and ubiquitous in our life. Their growing interest is essentially based on their capability to synthesize and process large amounts of data, and to help humans making decisions in a world of increasing complexity. Yet, the effectiveness of algorithms in bringing more and more relevant recommendations to humans may start to compete with human-alone decisions based on values other than pure efficacy. Here, we examine this tension in light of the emergence of several forms of digital normativity, and analyze how this normative role of AI may influence the ability of humans to remain subject of their life. The advent of AI technology imposes a need to achieve a balance between concrete material progress and progress of the mind to avoid any form of servitude. It has become essential that an ethical reflection accompany the current developments of intelligent algorithms beyond the sole question of their social acceptability. Such reflection should be anchored where AI technologies are being developed as well as in educational programs where their implications can be explained.