“Death of Reason 2023” Water-based pigments and pastel on paper. Framed with black painted wood and with non-reflective glass 68.5 x 56cm.
When Neitzsche wrote “death of reason”* in 1881 he was criticising the Church for its rigid stance in forbidding question or doubt in its teachings; even making doubt a sin. Blind faith, he argued, allows no room for debate and is the end of rational thinking and enquiry and, subsequently, freedom. Today, 142 years later it is no longer the Church asking for our unquestioning
compliance but the people responsible for the (completely unregulated) development of superhuman AI, and all the problems that creating machines that surpass our intelligence would bring.
Stuart Russell in his book “Human Compatible” makes the convincing case that how we choose to control AI is “possibly the most important question facing humanity”.
*Friedrich Nietzsche, Daybreak. Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality