Intelligenz im Zeitalter ihrer technischen Reproduzierbarkeit

The steady rise of generative AI raises the question of what impact the technical reproducibility of intelligence has on our thinking in general and our understanding of reason in particular. There are different opinions on the question whether AI can develop something like a humanoid consciousness and whether it represents an opportunity or a threat for the future. In this essay, I discuss this question with reference to the dialectic of (self-)consciousness as laid out by Hegel in his philosophy of mind and subjective spirit. I will examine the thesis that artificial intelligence represents the consequent further development of what Hegel called “verständiges Denken”. Building on Max Horkheimer’s critique of instrumental reason and Walter Benjamin’s concept of technological reproducibility of art, I will outline the commonalities and differences between natural and artificial intelligence, taking into account contemporary debates about the potential consciousness of AI or AGI. I will show that the dialectical ambiguity of the former continues in the latter and that emancipatory and totalitarian tendencies go hand in hand in both. In contrast to current approaches, which usually view AI from a subject-centered perspective of cognitive science or action theory, a systemic-dialectical concept of AI based on social interactivity can enable a critical position that does not play natural and artificial intelligence off against each other, but recognizes the emancipatory potential in both and helps to protect both from the danger of totalitarian thinking.