A New AI Lexicon: Human

Who is human, what is a machine, and who gets to decide where the boundaries lie?¹ In the field of AI research, who is included and who is excluded in the category of the human? The answer depends on whose knowledges, practices, and modes of living inform your analysis. The field of AI has been shaped significantly by its co-evolution with humanism and the ways that it is entangled with Western Enlightenment thinking, which assert that science and technology -- not, for example, art, religion and mysticism -- are the unquestioned drivers of innovation, linear human progress, and modernity. From the embedding of computing into the human body (e.g., Elon Musk's Neuralink) to the current obsession with (big) data-driven modeling to the media frenzy around Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin rocket launch -- this basic assumption is found in businesses, universities, and public policy.