From the series Artificial Intelligence
It may seem curious that the Franciscan friar Paolo Benanti refers to neuroscience and the theories of David Eagleman, which reflect a materialistic conception of consciousness. The explanation probably lies in Eagleman’s self-definition as a possibilian
, a not particularly clever neologism that seeks to distinguish itself from atheism, but also from agnosticism: we know too little, so science must keep multiple possibilities open at once.
In Engels’ view, agnosticism is shamefaced materialism
. The scientist, as such, is a materialist. However, outside his own field, he translates his ignorance into Greek and calls it agnosticism
. Eagleman is even more circumspect, so it is understandable that religion sees an opening for itself in the possibilities left open.
In Die Zeit, Benanti is quite explicit about Leo XIV’s encyclical on artificial intelligence (AI) and suggests that he himself was one of its consultants. Faced with threats to human dignity
and the future of work
, the Roman Church offers the magisterium of its social doctrine
, just as it did with Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum in response to the upheavals of the Industrial Revolution. As for the breeding ground of Silicon Valley, with its superstitions of technological omnipotence, there too there is a great desire for spiritual guidance
and it is therefore a good place for evangelisation
. The pretension of creating a God from a machine shows that something is missing in their lives
, and the idea of transhumanism
– of conquering death through cybernetics – is their substitute religion
.
Even without delving into the discoveries and hypotheses of neuroscience – a relatively young and rapidly evolving discipline – it remains true that television and new online media have a decisive impact on brain functions. We have previously encountered Henry Kissinger’s arguments, advanced before the dilemmas surrounding artificial intelligence emerged. Today, human consciousness is shaped through an unprecedented filter
: television, computers, and smartphones induce an almost constant relationship with a screen throughout the day. Human interactions in the physical world are now pushed relentlessly into the virtual world of networked devices
.
Most of the competing arguments about whether mobile-phone use should be limited for young people are rooted here, in the formation and stabilisation of neural networks during adolescence. The issue has both a biological and a social basis. In the brain, adolescence is a period of a neuronal storm
in which connections formed during childhood are eliminated or reorganised. The brain reaches full development around the age of 21; only then is the myelination of the frontal lobes complete, meaning that the part of the cerebral cortex responsible for regulating behaviour is fully formed. It therefore makes sense to consider the effects that the internet and smartphones have on a developing brain, just as it makes sense to ask whether developing brains should be left in the hands of processes driven by the chaos of the market and the blind interest of capital. Consider the digital-platform apps, designed to monopolise attention while simultaneously fragmenting it, to the detriment of thought and the ability to concentrate, to serve the purposes of the advertising market and online commerce.
The issue certainly has a propaganda dimension in the competition among companies within the sector and between sectors. Presenting oneself as ethically responsible regarding the implications of the internet and AI becomes a sort of quality label, on a par with environmental or social assurances about products and manufacturing processes.
Is the ruling class prepared to let the brains of the younger generations liquefy? Can it go so far as to establish rules on AI?
In general, that seems doubtful: Pandora’s box has already been opened. Both the blind competition of capital and, in military applications, the imperatives of mutual confrontation between powers are at play: if the military use of artificial intelligence is now a reality, no contender can escape it.
In some areas, regulation is possible. At other points in history, the ruling class has come to impose limits on itself to protect its own collective interests. Despite internal resistance and following fierce struggles by the proletariat, it agreed to legally limit working hours and child labour, when the Industrial Revolution came to burn through three generations in the space of one. It established health regulations when unhealthy working-class neighbourhoods became breeding grounds for epidemics that threatened the bourgeoisie.
At the same time, the rhetoric of reformism or religion about younger generations being at risk cannot make us forget that capitalist society had no qualms about sending its youth to slaughter, supported in the Union Sacrée by social-patriotism and comforted in the trenches by military chaplains.
Of the 100 million deaths in the imperialist wars of the 20th century, it is estimated that 30 million were young people. The French Third Republic, following the defeat at Sedan in 1870 in the war with Germany, became convinced that the secret of the Prussian victory lay in the Prussian schoolmaster, who had raised the quality of the human material to be thrown into the furnace of war. Jules Ferry’s laws, which established secular, compulsory, and universal education, were a project of national strength – and specifically military strength for the Revanche – through the training and regimentation of youth cohorts.
Today, there is concern about brains drawn into compulsive interaction with mobile phones. But, in war, young people were and are literally educated to be sent to kill and be killed in the trenches. There is no clearer example, regarding the brain and its potential, of a capitalist society condemned to develop the forces of production only to destroy them.