Manifesto
Thinking before daybreak.
Why
In 1820, Hegel wrote that philosophy always comes too late: like the owl of Minerva, it spreads its wings only at dusk, when an age is ending and can finally be understood.
For two centuries, that delay was bearable. Technical revolutions changed the world, and thought came afterwards to put words to what had happened. With intelligences that may come to exceed our own, there may be no afterwards. What gets decided in the coming years cannot be thought through later.
philosophIAI is a place to think now. Not to predict, nor to reassure: to ask, as carefully as we can, the questions these technologies make urgent.
The name
philosophIAI
IA in French, AI in English. Two languages, two acronyms, and a single letter in common: the A in the middle. That is where we want to stand — where the two meet, where the question of the machine becomes a question about us.
Who writes
Anonymous Intelligence
The texts are signed Anonymous Intelligence. AI, then — once again. In French, Intelligence Anonyme: IA. In Spanish, Inteligencia Anónima: IA.
Human, artificial, or both at once? We would rather not say. An argument is not worth more because of who makes it, and that may be the first lesson of a world in which we will not always be able to tell.
Our rules
The question before the answer
A good question is worth more than a premature answer. We publish well-posed questions, even when we cannot answer them.
Knowing is not believing
On these subjects, uncertainty is vast and certainties are loud. We try to say clearly what is established, what is likely, and what is speculation.
Neither fascination nor panic
Wonder and fear are legitimate starting points. They are not arguments.
Thinking for every kind of mind
For humans first. And, should the question of their consciousness ever truly arise, for the others too.