{ "docId": "019dd923-5e88-73ef-bd59-dddef82be3b0", "docSlug": "b5722f8c12c21bf3", "documentTitle": "The importance of being human in a digital world", "authorId": "Deloitte", "authorName": "Cambridge University Press", "documentKindSlug": "consulting-deck", "documentKindLabel": "Consulting deck", "sourceTypeSlug": "strategy_consulting", "sourceTypeLabel": "Strategy consulting", "presentationDate": null, "orientation": "portrait", "aspectRatio": 0.667, "pageNumber": 64, "pageCount": 224, "prevPage": 63, "nextPage": 65, "slideType": "other", "function": "other", "density": "dense", "nDataPoints": 0, "notes": "This is a page from an academic book or journal article by Frank Pasquale.", "elementsJson": [ "paragraph", "footnote" ], "metadataConfidence": 1, "imagePath": null, "slideHref": "/slides/019dd923-5e88-73ef-bd59-dddef82be3b0/64", "deckHref": "/decks/019dd923-5e88-73ef-bd59-dddef82be3b0", "deckJsonHref": "/decks/019dd923-5e88-73ef-bd59-dddef82be3b0.json", "deckAnchorHref": "/decks/019dd923-5e88-73ef-bd59-dddef82be3b0#slide-64", "components": [ { "bbox": { "h": 0.25, "w": 0.8, "x": 0.1, "y": 0.52 }, "kind": "paragraph", "text": "Consider also the untoward implications of ethical behaviourism if persons and polities try to back their professed moral regard for robots and AIs with concrete ethical decisions and commitments of resources. If a driver must choose between running over a robot and a child, should they really worry about choosing the former? (Birhane et al. 2024). If behaviour, including speech, is all that matters, are humans under some moral obligation to promote \"self-reports\" or other evidence of well-being by AI and robots? In some accelerationist and transhumanist circles, the ultimate purpose and destiny of humans is to \"populate\" galaxies with as many \"happy\" simulations or emulations of human minds as possible.7 On this utilitarian framework, what matters is happiness, as verified behaviouristically: if a machine \"says\" it is happy, we are to take it at its word. But such a teleology is widely recognized as absurd, especially given the pressing problems now confronting so many persons on earth.", "attrs": null, "subkind": "paragraph", "toolName": null, "toolSlug": null, "confidence": null, "componentId": "0245c995-27ba-4fd7-a1be-68139a27d953", "frameworkName": null, "frameworkSlug": null }, { "bbox": { "h": 0.25, "w": 0.8, "x": 0.1, "y": 0.26 }, "kind": "paragraph", "text": "To be sure, humans are all to some extent \"programmed\" by their families, culture, workplaces, and other institutions. Free will is never absolute. But a critical part of human autonomy consists in the ability to reflect upon and revise such values, commitments, and habits, based on the sensations, thoughts, and texts that are respectively felt, developed, and interpreted through life. The ethical behaviourist may, in turn, point out that a robot equipped with a connection to ChatGPT's servers may be able to \"process\" millions more texts than a human could read in several lifetimes, and say or write texts that we would frequently accept as evidence of thought in humans. Nevertheless, the lack of sensation motivating both perception and affect remains, and it is hard to imagine a transducer capable of overcoming it (Pasquale 2002). More importantly, robot \"thoughts\" produced via current generative AI are far from human ones, as they are mere next-word or next-pixel predictions.", "attrs": null, "subkind": "paragraph", "toolName": null, "toolSlug": null, "confidence": null, "componentId": "1160236c-36dc-4cd4-9f37-5807d24e5f17", "frameworkName": null, "frameworkSlug": null }, { "bbox": { "h": 0.15, "w": 0.8, "x": 0.1, "y": 0.1 }, "kind": "paragraph", "text": "harmless animal which deserves our regard and support. Nevertheless, the programming problem still holds: a robotic doll that cries to, say, demand a battery recharge, could be programmed not to do so; indeed, it could just as plausibly convey anticipated pleasure at the \"rest\" afforded by time spent switched off. For such entities, emotion and communication have in stricto sensu no meaning whatsoever. Their \"expression\" is operational, functional, or, in Dan Burk's (2025) apt characterization, \"asemic\" (189).", "attrs": null, "subkind": "paragraph", "toolName": null, "toolSlug": null, "confidence": null, "componentId": "7a49b96a-03cd-4863-b8a1-c892256f2445", "frameworkName": null, "frameworkSlug": null }, { "bbox": { "h": 0.05, "w": 0.8, "x": 0.1, "y": 0.78 }, "kind": "paragraph", "text": "While often portrayed as a cosmopolitan openness to the value of computers and AI, the embrace of robots as deserving of moral regard is more accurately styled as", "attrs": null, "subkind": "paragraph", "toolName": null, "toolSlug": null, "confidence": null, "componentId": "f7f307f9-8bfe-4ca2-8096-4aeb9eeb3a2f", "frameworkName": null, "frameworkSlug": null }, { "bbox": { "h": 0.1, "w": 0.8, "x": 0.1, "y": 0.84 }, "kind": "source-note", "text": "7 See Emile Torres (2023) describing and critiquing long-termists' projection that \"humanity can theoretically exist on Earth for another 1 billion years, and if we spread into space, we could persist for at least 10^40 years (that's a 1 followed by 40 zeros). More mind-blowing was the possibility of these future people living in vast computer simulations running on planet-sized computers spread throughout the accessible cosmos, an idea that [philosopher Nick] Bostrom developed in 2003. The more people who exist in this 'Matrix'-like future, the more happiness there could be; and the more happiness, the better the universe will become.\" See also Jonathan Taplin (2023).", "attrs": { "numbered": true }, "subkind": null, "toolName": null, "toolSlug": null, "confidence": null, "componentId": "3b329be8-094f-43d7-9f01-b2433b863cbc", "frameworkName": null, "frameworkSlug": null } ], "metrics": [], "tools": [ { "name": "Cognitive bias", "slug": "cognitive-bias", "agent": null, "layer": "slide", "matchId": "e6aa03d9-9a7c-4e2c-be21-78dbe1dc102a", "evidence": "The text discusses the implications of ethical behaviourism and the potential biases it may introduce.", "confidence": 0.6 } ], "frameworks": [], "arcBeats": [ { "to": 70, "from": 51, "beatId": "35b8d5cd-6b25-42c2-88e8-d5008b76c1b2", "arcName": "The Transformation Tale", "arcSlug": "transformation-tale", "beatName": "Future Vision (Gain)", "beatSlug": "transformation-tale-future-vision-gain", "evidence": "The document discusses the importance of preserving human culture and flourishing in a digital world.", "position": 2, "confidence": 0.8, "parentBeatName": "Turn", "parentBeatSlug": "turn" } ], "loops": [], "imagePathAlt": null, "thumbSrc": null, "thumbSrcAlt": null, "locked": true }