This is a very nice article framing the discussion of machine intelligence within the context of the debate between David Hume and Immanuel Kant. Reason, said Hume, is and ought to be a slave of the passions. This includes (I would add) for Hume a moral sense, which is not (but should have been) discussed in this article. Kant, by contrast, argues that reason is the source of our freedom, giving us the means to determine which of those passions (goals, wants, ideals) are rational and consistent with the world and society within it. The AI argument that intelligence is no more that optimization, argues author Sasha Mudd, aligns with Hume's view, but this leaves us passive clients of machine intelligence. "What if we become so accustomed to being predicted, nudged, ranked and served that we lose confidence in the older, harder activity of asking what ends deserve our allegiance in the first place?" I don't agree, but I appreciate the crystal clear and accurate summations of Hume and Kant's respective philosophies, and the argument Mudd has build on them. Via Fredrik Graver.
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