I’m Your Man, but Do We Have a Common Sense (Gemeinsinn) to live Together Harmoniously?

L. Yong, K. V. Azarov

Abstract


Kant is unique in Western philosophy because he was interested in non-human intelligence. In this paper, a Kantian philosophical concept of common sense (Gemeinsinn) will be adopted to analyse a German sci-fi, romcom movie I’m Your Man (Ich bin dein Mensch, 2021) that tells a twisted story between a middle-aged, single female researcher Alma and a humanoid robot Tom, who is specifically customized as Alma’s ideal life partner, during a three-week real-life experiment. Based on the Kantian term, “Gemeinsinn”, or “sensus communis” in the traditional Latin notion, as well as the impossible point of view of “wholly other” articulated by Kant, we would like to hypothesize how to engage a form of legit communication between human beings and conscious AI (sentient). In particular, in a modern society that will be increasingly comprised of human beings and accompanying conscious AIs illustrated in I’m Your Man, whether a necessary condition of the agreement of others as a sensus communis (common sense) as a moral prerequisite pre-exists to enable any ethical and aesthetic judgments prior to an eligible communication between the two kinds of conscious beings evolving into a more intimate relationship. Furthermore, the purpose of such a communication is to more effectively connect human beings, or to simply create for their substitutes? If aesthetic taste is not enough for human relations, a commodity like Tom as a conscious AI, which is designed to replace a human being, will lead humans to a catastrophe on a personal and social scale, or might guarantee more sustainable and everlasting benefits not only for the mankind but also for a society of coexistent human beings and conscious AIs (sentients)?

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References


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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.31312/978-5-6053157-5-9-5-50

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