Algoethics and Algocracy: accessibility to Knowledge to be aware and not delegate an antronomist [part 2]
As I write, in Italy, the Privacy Guarantor has frozen ChatGPT ordering to regulate the acquisition of data on Italian territory within 20 days (and OpenAI is proving to be supportive of collaboration), but the point is another, I don’t know how many readers have asked the question relating to the paywalled effects relating to MidJourney, DALL-E, ChatGPT, or what if Knowledge was only accessible to some categories rather than others? I am sure, trivially, that not all AI enthusiasts have had the opportunity to experience the real power and applicability of AI after the trial period. The smartest ones had a very pleasant extension of the trial, but what about the rest?
Whoever had the right not only paid but at this moment has probably been voted by the network as an “expert” by omitting a second word below, namely, “user”
This emphasis of mine is to be understood as a natural consequence of the meaning attributed to the word technology. Not wanting to be overly didactic, I invite the reader to observe this reasoning. Let’s start with the second part of the word logos which even before meaning reason, thought, or language takes on the meaning of “collect”, put together and is in relation to the first part of the word the tech, that is, knowing how to do possessing the concept of something, but not directly linked to its production or the poiesis, in that case, we have already entered the definition of Aristotelian art as productive behaviour. In most cases, those who are experimenting with AI have become the main diffuser of partial knowledge of the medium, as they are not directly involved in the IT structuring and therefore of the datasets with respect to which the neural network has been trained (it stands as production aspects). There are no experts in the strict sense, only skilled users and this is what has always happened since the software made its appearance in the working and then private lives of each of us. It was with the integration of programming languages into production processes that the will of the designer, his cultural domain, began to emerge in the practice and to restore, perhaps, dignity to some downgraded to monkey roles — the AEC sector is totally afflicted by this condition because it is linked, so to speak, to a productivist logic. Therefore, since technology is a high value of production-oriented knowledge, the “image-producing AI experts” to which I am referring are in practice attributable to user technicians who will most likely earn new positions in design studios/firms with a curriculum enriched by the voice prompt engineer.
This has exposed Society to moral and then ethical nature issues
First of all because through the conveyance of these tools an uncommon moral has been highlighted or a set of cultural values not totally shared unanimously, these days are the fake images of
heads of state and even of the Pope in clothes not exactly suited to them, but it is also true that DeepFakes have been circulating on the net for years, and consequently the ethics that should supervise morality are unable to keep up through rules or norms capable of giving the system behavioural framework. The point starts from the moral, so much so that, for example, the project was started at MITMoral Machine[mfn]Source,https://www.moralmachine.net/[/mfn] a platform to gather a human perspective on moral decisions made by artificial intelligence built into self-driving cars, so-called moral dilemmas. However, being a technical user is not a guarantee of ethical-moral compliance with one’s own processing (we are not talking about NSFW filters), first of all, because in most cases one is not directly incorporated in the discretization processes of the training datasets, but above all because, except for StabilityAI, other companies of which OpenAI in primis have not disclosed the knowledge datasets with which they trained DALL-E and above all ChatGPT as this information is covered by trade secret. On the other hand, the question is delicate because we are no longer faced with software that requires particular skills, and in any case no longer confined to specific sectors of human action, but rather with products that I like to define metatools, i.e. infrastructures capable of generating new tools without limits of fields of application.
Therefore, in my humble opinion, the professional calibre of AI-based AEC productions will have the two Aristotelian causalities as a discriminating factor, i.e. efficiency and purpose/function, expression of technological knowledge (not merely technical) capable of expanding sectoral opportunities, but still dealing with software products/material. I’m referring to the ability to train neural networks and create datasets ad-hoc
Apart from my opinion on the future production of the AI-powered AEC industry, the moral dilemmas and the ethical question, as mentioned at the beginning, many religions are particularly involved in this global discussion, as it should be, however, the hypothesis of Don Luca Peyron[mfn]After graduating in Law from the University of Turin, he subsequently obtained the qualification as an industrial property consultant and carries out his professional activity as an Italian and European attorney at the Office for the Harmonization of the Internal Market of the European Union. He has collaborated with the International Association for the Protection of Intellectual Property (AIPPI) and is the chair of Industrial Law at the University of Turin, being one of the first in Italy to deal with issues relating to the relationship between industrial law and the Internet. In 2014 he obtained a licentiate in Pastoral Theology at the Salesian Pontifical University (source Wikipedia).[/mfn] of the Salesian Pontifical University, coins a new term, or rather the professional role that of antronomo (antronomist). Below is the specification as reported on the Apostolato Digitale website[mfn]Source,http://www.antronomo.it/ [/mfn]:
The antronomist is the one who in a process of creating a product or service linked to digital transformation and emerging technologies places the human as the norm. This figure is placed, within a process of co-generation of thought and planning, upstream of these processes, supporting those who have precise technical skills related to this product or service — physicist, computer scientist, mathematician, engineer — bringing their own skills related to other areas, mostly of a humanistic nature such as psychology, anthropology or health sciences and engaging in dialogue.
If on the one hand, some concepts can be shared, on the other hand transforming ethics, which should be in the public domain and the basis of every production, in the prerogative of a few followers of one corporation rather than another, I personally believe it can further strengthen that process of substitution and not of permutation which I mentioned in Part 1, accelerating the disruptive dynamics of the digital age and contributing to the diffusion of disabling professions. Again nothing new, or rather the 1977 text by the Austrian writer, historian, pedagogue and philosopher Ivan Illich, titled precisely Disabling Professions. Here is a passage that I personally believe makes Illich an almost postmodern prophet:
[…] let us not confuse the public use of factual expert knowledge with the corporate exercise of normative judgment by a profession. When a craftsman, such as a gunmaker, was called to court as an expert to reveal the secrets of his trade to the jury[…] He visibly demonstrated his limited and circumscribed competence and allowed the jury to decide for themselves from which barrel could have come from the bullet. Today, most experts play a different role. The dominant practitioner provides the jury or legislator with his own global opinion and that of fellow initiates, rather than self-limiting factual evidence and specific abilities. Armed with an aura of divine authority, he calls for a suspension of the hearsay rule and inevitably undermines the rule of law. Thus we see how democratic power is subverted by an undisputed assumption of totalizing professionalism
Such dynamics have touched us very closely during the Covid-19 period with virologists all over the place (many in Italy have been transferred to national politics); the ascendancy of the BIM-ers is still strong, who if on the one hand have systematized some building management issues, on the other hand, have monopolized the engineering-architectural job-market, levelling it, I would say flattening it in the direction of monkey-roles — I want to be clearer and not misunderstood. BIM-ers have strong hard knowledge, but if you think carefully, the sparks of innovations have been born in recent years from a transversal and above all computational approaches.
Could the advancement of the Digital Twin concept be attributed in part to the highly effective BIM philosophy, which can be shared? And does the concept of a Digital Twin, in turn, sow the seed of equivalence between physical and digital existence, as seen in the Metaverse?
Maybe I’m wrong, or maybe not, but
this is probably why the computational approach in the AEC field remains a strong expression of the cultural domain of the human mind which constantly tends to detach itself (does it likely due to the constant exercise of abstraction?) from passive automatisms which imprison thought in the cultural spaces defined by all-encompassing professionalism
In other words, what can be derived from the thought of the Austrian philosopher?
First, certain professions or experts could not become dominant or have a disabling impact on society unless people already feel a sense of lack or need for what these professionals offer. Drying the concept further, people are more likely to rely on experts or professionals when they feel they need their services or expertise, and this reliance on experts can become disabling if people become overly dependent on them — kind of the real fear. of the spread of AI. Overall, it is important in this historical moment to understand the needs and motivations of people who underlie the search for professional skills precisely to avoid the potential negative impacts of technocratic professional dominance.
