Abstract
The chapter first retakes the findings of Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker on the continuous decrease of violence in the course of human history. Against all feelings of the daily increase of violence, we are thus confronted with the question ‘what is it that we have done well and that could be fostered further, considering that we live in the most peaceful period of human history?’ And furthermore: ‘how can we adequately respond to the hyper-complex global problems that our intelligence seems to be ever less capable to do?’ From this starting point, the chapter presents the rapid development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its potential to contribute to peace—after an extensive discussion of different forms of AI, as well as its positive and potential negative effects. Terms like technological singularity, post- and transhuman development have so far been only little received in Peace Studies. This chapter discusses them, relates them to the concept of transrational peaces and connects to a mysticism understood as radical realism. Systemic constellations are described in their consubstantiality to AI and in their potential to foster peace. The text concludes with a perspective on introducing AI as teaching subject in Peace Studies, because ultimately transrational peaces, elicitive conflict transformation, systemic constellations and AI lead towards the same: to love as the concept-free, transrational and irresistible essence of reality.
Translation from the German by Adham Hamed.
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Notes
- 1.
Violence in this case refers to the physiological but also the psychological destruction of life through war and murder. During the stone age, which ended around 4000 B.C., the probability of dying a violent death ranged between ten and twenty percent. Until today, this global average has decreased continuously to as little as 0.7 percent. Amongst all states, Denmark currently records the lowest such probability of only 0.027 percent (Pinker 2011).
- 2.
For further reading about the details of Pinker’s ongoing research see Pinker (2014, 2015). The author summarizes that,
[d]espite the headlines, and with circumscribed exceptions, the world has continued its retreat from violence. We need invoke no mysterious arc of justice or end of history to explain it. As modernity widens our circle of cooperation, we come to recognize the futility of violence and apply our collective ingenuity to reducing it. Though a few narcissistic despots and atavistic zealots stand athwart this current, history does not appear to be on their side. (Pinker 2015)
The great meaning of feminist liberation through education, the right to self-determination, and its impact on the decrease of violence is extensively recognized in Pinker’s work.
- 3.
English version by the translator: “Es wäre ein erwachsener Anfang, sich zunächst eine grundlegende Perplexität einzugestehen. Wir bewegen uns derzeit alle auf schwankendem Grund. Das erfordert eine besondere Wachheit und Gelenkigkeit, gerade in Bezug auf eigene Überzeugungen. Es erfordert die Bereitschaft, Unrecht zu haben.”
- 4.
Morris engages extensively with his quite controversial thesis of “productive” and “unproductive wars”, which I cannot discuss further in the framework of this chapter.
- 5.
I have elsewhere (Mahr 2016) extensively discussed the question of the assumed necessity of war and the possibility for solutions of international conflicts beyond war, including a pax technologica.
- 6.
The number of possible positions on the Go-Field is higher than the alleged number of atoms in the known universe.
- 7.
For further reading see the book series “Beyond Humanism: Trans- and Posthumanism” (Peter Lang Verlagsgruppe 2017).
- 8.
English version by the translator: “Die eigentliche Gefahr ist nicht eine KI, die bösartig wird, sondern eine KI, die extrem kompetent ist, aber vollkommen gleichgültig gegenüber den Menschen.”
- 9.
The movie Ex Machina (2015) shows scenarios about the boundaries between humans and anthropoids.
- 10.
Severe concerns against the unrestrained development of technology have been raised and proposals for a responsible ethics of technology have been made. In 2015, an open letter was formulated by AI scholars, which since then has also been endorsed by a large number of well known scientists and public figures, including Stephen Hawking and Noam Chomsky (Future of Life Institute 2017).
- 11.
Once during the fourth game AlphaGo indeed committed a fundamental mistake and lost the game for a final score of 5:1 as mentioned above.
- 12.
English version by the translator: “Wenn wir uns also vor menschenfeindlicher Technik fürchten, dann deshalb, weil wir uns vor uns selbst fürchten”.
- 13.
I would like to add: the consistent working within the here and now is the only real reality (Mahr 2016). And I believe that AI works exclusively within the here and now, presuming it is trained in a manner that allows it to distinguish criteria of the here and now from past and future criteria. This would imply a clear differentiation between criteria of linear and non-linear time, which is timelessness. Why should a “strong AI” be incapable of such a differentiation?
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Mahr, A. (2018). Transrational Peaces and Pax Technologica: On Artificial Intelligence, Peace Studies and Systemic Constellation Work. In: Echavarría Alvarez, J., Ingruber, D., Koppensteiner, N. (eds) Transrational Resonances . Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70616-0_8
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