Abstract:The understanding of “human nature” is always framed in the relationship between “man and the other”. The other, as a variable, constitutes our cognitive reference to the essence of human beings. The emergence of artificial intelligence as a new “other” has led to a methodological change in the way of understanding human essence. However, artificial intelligence is not the other in the general sense, but has the potential to serve as the best cognitive reference to human essence. Artificial Intelligence is inherently related to humans, rather than simply the amplification and extension of the human mind. At the same time, artificial intelligence is the most complex creation that humans can create, and in a specific sense, it can serve as a completed form of human beings. Therefore, with artificial intelligence as a reference, our understanding of human essence can achieve a methodological change from “human anatomy” to “anatomy of artificial intelligence”. This change does not deny that the prescriptive understanding of human essence is gained by contrasting man with animals, but it emphasizes that we should redefine the relationship between humans and animals,and consider individuals as a unique species in nature, namely the human animal, in contrast to artificial intelligence. This contrast indicates that I am a human being, a human animal in essence, and the essential difference between human animals and artificial intelligence and other animals is that human animals not only understand meaning, but also can assign meaning to the meaningless universe. In essence,human beings are the only known meaning-assigners in the universe.
王世鹏. 人工智能哲学视域中“人的本质”观念变革[J]. 华中师范大学学报(人文社会科学版), 2024, 63(1): 53-60.
Wang Shipeng. Changes in the Concept of “Human Essence” in the Philosophical Perspective of Artificial Intelligence. journal1, 2024, 63(1): 53-60.