Intelligent Technology and Threats to Human Subjectivity

The article examines the impact of contemporary intellectual technologies on human subjectivity through the lens of 20th-century philosophical reflection. It explores the transformation of the relationship between humans and technology in a context where technological systems transcend the traditional understanding of technology as merely an extension of human capabilities. Drawing on the conceptual framework of the philosophy of technology (M. Heidegger, J. Ortega y Gasset, J. Ellul, H. Marcuse), the author identifies three key aspects of this transformation. First, the article considers the process by which various facets of human activity – cognitive processes, emotional reactions, social relationships, and creativity – are transformed into “standing-reserve” (Bestand) for technological systems. Second, it analyzes the phenomenon of the erosion of practices that reproduce and develop human experience, as evidenced by the standardization of cognitive processes, the emergence of intellectual dependency, and cultural homogenization. Third, it investigates the problem of technological determinism, which, in the context of intellectual technologies, takes on the character of not merely an external constraint but an active construction of human subjectivity, agency. Special attention is given to the mechanisms through which intellectual technologies transform processes of identity formation, decision-making, and social interaction. Furthermore, the article considers the intersubjective interaction between humans and intellectual technology, emphasizing that an imbalance in this relationship may lead to the erosion of human subjectivity. In closing, the article advocates for the development of new approaches to the legal regulation of intellectual technologies to preserve the balance between technological advancement and the maintenance of human autonomy. The author concludes that the relationship between humans and intellectual technologies has become a central issue in contemporary philosophical anthropology: preserving human subjectivity in the era of artificial intelligence will require a critical rethinking and partial transformation of traditional conceptions of human nature, values, and the normative foundations of human activity.

1. Ahmad S.F., Han H., Alam M.M., Rehmat M., Irshad M., Arraño-Muñoz M., & Ariza-Montes A. (2023) Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Human Loss in Decision Making, Laziness and Safety in Education. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications. Vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 1–14.

2. Amoore L. (2020) Cloud Ethics: Algorithms and the Attributes of Ourselves and Others. Durham: Duke University Press.

3. Beer D. (2016) Metric Power. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK.

4. Budanov V.G. (2023) Anthroposocial Challenges of Artificial Intelligence Expansion. Proceedings of the Institute of Psychology of Russian Academy of Sciences. Vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 23–31 (in Russian).

5. Budanov V.G. (2024) Technosubject and Anthroposocial Challenges of Human–Artificial Intelligence Interaction: Synergy, Demarcation, New Rationality, and Risks. Russian Journal of Philosophical Sciences = Filosofskie nauki. Vol. 67, no. 3, pp. 27–52 (in Russian).

6. Carr N. (2014) The Glass Cage: How Our Computers Are Changing Us. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.

7. Cheney-Lippold J. (2011) A New Algorithmic Identity: Soft Biopolitics and the Modulation of Control. Theory, Culture & Society. Vol. 28, no. 6, pp. 164–181.

8. Couldry N. & Mejias U.A. (2019) The Costs of Connection: How Data Is Colonizing Human Life and Appropriating It for Capitalism. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

9. Davydov A.P. (2023) Individualism and Collectivism as a Subject of Social-Philosophical Analysis (Reflections on the Eve of the Scientific Conference “Individualization and Collectivism in Contemporary Russian Society”). Russian Journal of Philosophical Sciences = Filosofskie nauki. Vol. 66, no. 4, pp. 140–159 (in Russian).

10. Ellul J. (1964) The Technological Society. New York: Vintage Books.

11. Ellul J. (1980) The Technological System. New York: Continuum Publishing.

12. Floridi L. (2019) The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

13. Goodfellow P. (2024) The Distributed Authorship of Art in the Age of AI. Arts. Vol. 13, no. 5, article 149.

14. Heidegger M. (1986) The Question Concerning Technology (V.V. Bikhin, Trans.). In: Gurevich P.S. (Comp.) The New Technocratic Wave in the West (pp. 45–67). Moscow: Progress (Russian translation).

15. Hughes J. (2001) The Deskilling of Teaching and the Case for Intelligent Tutoring Systems. Journal of Ethics and Emerging Technologies. Vol. 31, no. 2, pp. 1–16.

16. Illouz E. (2007) Cold Intimacies: The Making of Emotional Capitalism. Cambridge: Polity.

17. Illouz E. (2018) Emotions as Commodities: Capitalism, Consumption and Authenticity. London: Routledge.

18. Jin D.Y. (2020) Artificial Intelligence in Cultural Production: Critical Perspectives on Digital Platforms. London: Routledge.

19. Kapp E. (1877) Grundlinien einer Philosophie der Technik. Zur Entstehungsgeschichte der Cultur aus neuen Gesichtspunkten. Braunschweig: Georg Westermann (in German).

20. Kazaryan A.Yu. (2023) Artificial Intelligence in the Processes of Education and Training, Positive and Negative Sides. Mezhdunarodnyy zhurnal gumanitarnykh i estestvennykh nauk. No. 11-2, pp. 214–216 (in Russian).

21. Marcuse H. (1994) One-Dimensional Man (A. Yudin, Trans.). Moscow: REFL-book (Russian translation).

22. Mejias U.A. & Couldry N. (2019) Datafication. Internet Policy Review. Vol. 8, no. 4, pp. 1–10.

23. Miller A.I. (2019) The Artist in the Machine: The World of AI-Powered Creativity. Cambridge: MIT Press.

24. Nieborg D.B. & Poell T. (2018) The Platformization of Cultural Production: Theorizing the Contingent Cultural Commodity. New Media & Society. Vol. 20, no. 11, pp. 4275–4292.

25. Noble S.U. (2018) Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism. New York: NYU Press.

26. Ortega y Gasset J. (2000) Reflections on Technology. In: Ortega y Gasset J. Selected Works (pp. 164–227). Moscow: Infra-M; Ves’ mir (Russian translation).

27. Perrotta C. & Williamson B. (2016) The Social Life of Learning Analytics: Cluster Analysis and the ‘Performance’ of Algorithmic Education. Learning, Media and Technology. Vol. 43, no. 1, pp. 3–16.

28. Rosa H. (2013) Social Acceleration: A New Theory of Modernity. New York: Columbia University Press.

29. Simon H.A. (1971) Designing Organizations for an Information-Rich World. In: Greenberger M. (Ed.) Computers, Communications, and the Public Interest (pp. 37–72). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press.

30. Soldatova G.U. & Voiskunsky A.E. (2021) Socio-Cognitive Concept of Digital Socialization: A New Ecosystem and Social Evolution of the Psyche. Psychology. Journal of the Higher School of Economics. Vol. 18, no. 3, pp. 431–450 (in Russian).

31. Striphas T. (2015) Algorithmic Culture. European Journal of Cultural Studies. Vol. 18, no. 4–5, pp. 395–412.

32. van Dijck J., Poell T., & de Waal M. (2018) The Platform Society: Public Values in a Connective World. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

33. Veale T. & Cardoso F.A. (Eds.) (2019) Computational Creativity: The Philosophy and Engineering of Autonomously Creative Systems. Cham: Springer.

34. Williams J. (2018) Stand Out of Our Light: Freedom and Resistance in the Attention Economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

35. Yeung K. (2017) ‘Hypernudge’: Big Data as a Mode of Regulation by Design. Information, Communication & Society. Vol. 20, no. 1, pp. 118–136.

36. Zuboff S. (2019) The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. New York: Public Affairs.