Anthropocene, Care, and AI

On the Process of the Technological Re-signification of the World

Abstract

This article focuses on the historical awareness prompted by the Anthropocene and the ontological “shock” it has delivered, constituting a new “narcissistic wound” for humanity. By exposing our vulnerability in the face of nature, the Anthropocene unveils our position as the “privileged being” responsible for a technological domination of nature – one which we have, in the meantime, lost control over. This domination stems from the technological determination of our intentionality, which has fostered an instrumental interpretation of nature as a mere “standing reserve” (Bestand). Drawing on the approaches to the Anthropocene developed by Clive Hamilton and Vincent Blok, I argue that our relationship with technology – from the Industrial Revolution to the rise of artificial intelligence – constitutes the principal ontological determinant of our current mode of being-in-the-world and of the underlying relation to nature. In this regard, I contend that a simplistic ecomodernist approach, which regards AI as a “solution” to the problems posed by the Anthropocene, tends to reduce these problems to mere algorithmic processes – thereby distancing us even further from the relation of care (Sorge) towards nature that we ought to strive to recover and sustain. I argue that the application of AI technologies to solve the climate crisis needs to be guided by an ontologically grounded ethical responsibility, capable of guaranteeing the integrity of the relationship that human beings owe to nature.