Instinct, language, and artificial intelligence

Abstract

1. Keeping narratives at a distance. Our reflection on the epistemology and the ethics of computer science, and of artificial intelligence in particular, is contaminated with a recurring narrative: the creation of human-like living things by human beings. The names of these manufactured doubles proliferate through time: Galatea, the Golem, Frankenstein's creature, Pinocchio, Rossum's robots, HAL 9000... and so does the materials they are made of: ivory, clay, body-parts, wood... But the story remains basically the same with things inevitably going wrong. In the 20 th century, robots and computers made their appearances among those creatures without the core of the narrative being affected.