Publication Details

Abstract

This article offers some comparative reflections on technology and the alienating potential of AI. These reflections are inspired by theoretical affinities between Daoism and Heidegger’s philosophy. In particular, I focus on the work Hypnocracy that recently sparked an international debate about the notion of authorship and the problematic relationship between AI-generated textual content and creative writing. The main thesis is that Daoism and Heidegger’s philosophy encourage a critical use of technology that rejects a reason dominated by sheer instrumental usefulness without rejecting technology as a whole. Ultimately, both philosophies favor the passage from the uncritical exploitation of technological affordances as mere means-to-ends to a deeper awareness characterized by an end-to-means, i.e., the equanimous releasement of purposive action expressing an ethics of relationality.