Eudemonia of a machine

Abstract

AbstractHenry Ford once said, “For most purposes, a man with a machine is better than a man without a machine.” To this, engineers today propose an addendum – “and a man that is a machine is best of all” – which they have made their goal. The world over, engineers are working to make the ultimate machine, “the holy grail of artificial intelligence,” a conscious humanoid. On the one hand, such a “machine” will be capable of relieving us of all our burdens. On the other hand, in so doing, will we not have “birthed,” as it were, a new class of slaves? In this essay I seek to summarize the various arguments made in this debate, bring to bear moral positions from the philosophy of technology, philosophy of law and philosophy of religion, as well as demonstrate the moral impropriety of such an endeavor from each of the classic moral approaches (i.e., Virtue Ethics, Consequentialism, Kantian Deontology). Finally, given that the debate centers around what is the “good life” for human or humanoid, I expand upon Aristotle’s Eudemonia and Maimonides’ Summum Bonum to argue that life is precious in its affordance to allow conscious beings, human or humanoid, to aspire to the best life possible.