Benue State University, Makurdi

The Connection between Humanism and Artificial Intelligence: Interpreting Turing's Ideals for Humanity

Fatai Asodun, PhD

Abstract

When Alan Turing laid down the philosophical groundwork for the vision of Artificial Intelligence (AI) through his Turing Test (TT), many did not envisage how profound its effects would be in reshaping human technological history. Turing's vision is that a time would come when machines will be appropriately programmed to compete favourably with humans in intelligence test. Due to the test's attractions, many AI scholars and researchers simply adopted this vision for their discipline. To this end, the history of AI to date is that of a rigorous drive to build machines that exhibit human-like intelligence-driven behaviours. AI's success in this regard has been monumental to the extent that machines have started replacing humans in many endeavours. Unexpectedly, this partly started accounting for job loss and other AI-driven vices. Gradually, AI's success story begins to be punctuated with anti-human consequences. The question now is whether Turing's vision for AI is not antithetical to the fundamental principles of humanism that emphasise the exploration of human rational capacity for actualising human wellbeing, progress and happiness. Adopting the method of reductive analysis, this paper examines the TT and its perceived vision for AI vis-a-vis AI successes and its effect on humanity to critical scrutiny. On the ground of its findings, the paper argues that if Turing's vision for AI is properly understood it would be seen to imply a great vision for the development of humanity itself.

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