Another brick in the wall: Threats to our autonomy as sense-makers when dealing with machine learning systems
Perspectiva Filosófica May 26, 2025 Camila de Paoli Leporace 2 citations
Autonomy, as defined by the enactive approach to cognition, is the capacity of living organisms to follow norms generated by their own activity, enabling sense-making and participatory sense-making with others. This essay argues that machine learning systems lack such autonomy, so when a human cognizer interacts with them, the encounter is unbalanced: the human's autonomy is threatened, the range of possible experiences is reduced, and the human is often unaware of the rules and risks involved. While the essay acknowledges opportunities offered by machine learning, it emphasizes the need to seek balance by drawing on human intersubjectivity and affectivity.