The Obsolescence of the Human, Günther Anders
First published in German in 1956, the philosopher Günther Anders’ The Obsolescence of the Human appears in English at an opportune time. Anders offers a more penetrating analysis of our relation to technology than anything currently being written about artificial intelligence. Several of his conceptual coinages deserve a place in those discussions. One is “Promethean shame”: the strange feeling of inadequacy to our own inventions; another is “cozification,” an inverted alienation in which what should be radically alien presents itself to us as familiar (think here of the ingratiating flattery to which chatbots subject users). Unlike many tech critics, Anders is no nostalgist: He insists that “artificiality is the nature of human beings,” and that what is needed is for philosophical thought to become adequate to its new forms.—GS
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