Measure and impose

Artificial intelligence aims to “solve the riddle of intelligence,” the key to which lies in the secret logic of the mind or the deep physiology of the brain, so the conventional wisdom goes. Philosopher of science Matteo Pasquinelli disagrees with this theory and builds his own, based on the history of labor automation, the race for productivity, and society’s desire to constantly evaluate human life. Tracing the history of AI—from the first calculator prototype in the late 18th century to modern machine learning, image recognition, and surveillance algorithms—the author shows why AI has no chance of becoming a malevolent “superintelligence.”