Case Study
Sympathetic Mirrors (working title) connects the work of 18th-century philosopher and revolutionary Sophie de Grouchy with later thinkers. It is likely to manifest as a series of mixed media image/text poems and vignettes – assemblages of found, original, and synthetic matter, including AI output. After being buried by history, de Grouchy’s work has recently been excavated by Dr. Kathleen McCrudden Illert and Dr. Sandrine Bergèrs. Subsequently, Dr Cameron J. Buckner in his (2023) book, From Deep Learning to Rational Machines links her ideas to the evolution of deep learning architectures. Furthermore, de Grouchy’s response to Adam Smith’s (2022 [1777]) Theory of Moral Sentiments seems to prefigure Freud’s pleasure principle, Bowlby’s attachment theory, Ettinger’s I/non-I matrixial relation, and Blaffer Hrdy’s alloparents. Moreover, de Grouchy's emphasis on the relational nature of human development and moral reasoning lend themselves to exploration mediated through a 21st-century materialist lens, as both she and it challenge traditional humanist notions of the autonomous individual and instead emphasise the interconnectedness of beings and systems.
Despite Buckner’s relatively narrow European focus, his argument that technologists take heed of de Grouchy’s writing when considering how and why to implement a rational machine’s ‘moral compass’ is compelling. He reminds developers "...proceeding in the top-heavy, solipsistic tradition can have serious costs: by creating agents with social and moral reasoning systems that are not grounded in affective underpinnings, we create a hollow simulacrum of sociality which, similar to the grounding problems faced by GOFAI [good old-fashioned AI] in other areas of inquiry, is more akin to the reasoning of psychopaths" (2023; 311). Elsewhere he also says, “where we call DNNs [deep neural networks] black boxes, it may be better to describe them as unflattering mirrors, uncomfortably reflecting some of our own foibles that we might be reluctant to confront” (Ibid; 89). Juxtaposing these two thoughts leads to the following questions: are we creating a hollow simulacrum of sociality for humans themselves? And if so, why? And what can we do to address that reality? Sympathetic Mirrors aims to explore the puzzles Buckner’s inclusion of de Grouchy raises. Why are we trying to create automatons in our image at all? What are the potential costs and benefits of allowing AI systems to develop their own moral faculties rather than imposing pre-programmed ethical constraints? Who designs the ethical constraints and on what basis? And in light of de Grouchy's and Buckner's ideas, how should the debate around AI be framed so it focuses more on the development of ethical reasoning and empathy in society as a whole?
Sympathetic Mirrors is unlikely to provide definitive answers to any of the above questions, yet more will undoubtedly arise. It does, however, seek to enrich the discourse around AI by introducing historical philosophical nuance, thereby challenging the reductive binary narratives that often dominate social media and popular culture's portrayal of contemporary technology’s dynamism. As well as drawing on de Grouchy and Buckner, further entanglements may emerge by comparing the works of Achille Mbembe (negative messianism and our devices), Sarah Balffer Hrdy (alloparents), Rosie Braidotti (posthumanism), Katerina Kolozova (the in-human), Thomas Metzinger (neuroscience) and Richard Wrangham (behaviour) amongst possible others. Finally, influenced by Braidotti’s carnal empiricism and placenta politics, related concepts and speculations will be explored diffractively, not only through the narratives provided by the academics listed but also through my experience as a mother who has brought three human children into today’s hyper-technological world.
Achille Mbembe: ‘Negative Messianism in the Age of Animism’ (2017). Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyHUJYfk_os (Accessed: 24 May 2022).
Berges, S. (2023) Sophie de Grouchy. Available at: https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2023/entries/sophie-de-grouchy/ (Accessed: 2 July 2024).
Braidotti, R. (2022) Posthuman feminism. Cambridge: Polity.
Buckner, C.J. (2023) From Deep Learning to Rational Machines: What the History of Philosophy Can Teach Us about the Future of Artificial Intelligence. Oxford University Press. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197653302.001.0001.
Hrdy, S.B. (2009) Mothers and others: the evolutionary origins of mutual understanding. Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Kolozova, K. (2019) ‘Subjectivity without physicality: machine, body and the signifying automaton’, Subjectivity, 12(1), pp. 49–64. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41286-018-0056-z.
Metzinger, T. (2009) The ego tunnel: the science of the mind and the myth of the self. New York: Basic Books.
Parisi, L. (2004) Abstract sex: philosophy, bio-technology and the mutations of desire. London ; New York: Continuum (Transversals).
Parisi, L. (2017) Instrumentality, or the Time of Inhuman Thinking, Technosphere Magazine. Available at: https://technosphere-magazine.hkw.de/p/Instrumentality-or-the-Time-of-Inhuman-Thinking-5UvwaECXmmYev25GrmEBhX (Accessed: 29 April 2022).
Psychopathic Cultures and Toxic Empires. 2nd Revised edition (2022). Glasgow: Books Noir Ltd.
Smith, A. (2022) The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Giten. The Project Gutenberg. Available at: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/67363 (Accessed: 8 July 2024).
‘Sophie de Grouchy: The most interesting French Revolutionary you’ve never heard of by Dr. Kathleen McCrudden Illert’ (2022). Available at: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-french-history-podcast/id1446181140?i=1000555253112 (Accessed: 8 July 2024).
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