What is digital humanism — and what does it mean in times of generative AI?

To clarify this question, we must first define what we mean by humanism. Humanist thinking and, to some extent, humanist practice in society and politics have existed since antiquity — and not only in Europe. Socrates and philosophising in his spirit are among the European roots of humanist thought. Socratic thinking assumes that people can think for themselves, regardless of origin, gender or formal education. Socraticism is the humanistic variant of early European enlightenment, and its opponent is sophistry, for which there is no truth and no knowledge and for which arguments and theories only serve the purpose of one’s interests. A radical Enlightenment that questions everything ends in anti-humanism, naturalism and nihilism. There are also ancient forms of humanistic thought and practice in other cultures — in East Asia, in the form of Confucianism; in South Asia, in the form of Buddhism. However, it would go too far to go into this here.

What all humanistic thinking has in common across different cultures and times is the trust in people’s ability to reason, which points the way out of self-inflicted immaturity (Immanuel Kant). For people to form their judgements and shape their lives on their own responsibility, they must develop their cognitive and ethical potential. Humanism emphasises the self-development of people as individuals and humanity as a collective.

In the 19th century, a new humanist impulse initially emanated from Prussia and then spread rapidly across the German-speaking countries, Central and Southern Europe and later across the whole world. This focussed entirely on education in schools, universities, and life practice. In my terminology, the education of the personality should enable every human to shape their own life meaningfully in respectful interaction with others: to become the author of their own life. This idea of life authorship must be specified philosophically (Nida-Rümelin 2016). The human ability to be affected by reasons plays an important role here, both in judgement and in action, as well as in emotional attitudes. We are deliberating beings; this is the specifically human ability that distinguishes us from other creatures, while we share feelings, such as fear or joy, and sensations, such as pleasure or pain, with many species.

The digital transformation poses a double challenge to the humanistic self-image of man and the normative foundations of democracy and law. On the one hand, digital entities (computers, software systems, AI-controlled robots, chatbots, generative artificial intelligence, etc.) are ascribed an actor status as if ChatGPT really understands our questions as if it acts. On the one hand, because digital entities (computers, software systems, AI-driven robots, chatbots, generative artificial intelligence, etc.) are attributed the status of an agent, as if ChatGPT really understood our questions, as if it were an instance endowed with considerable knowledge of the world, which advises us and clarifies our questions, benevolently and cooperatively (Nida-Rümelin/Weidenfeld 2023), or when the Australian national science agency Csiro sets out to ‘make technology empathetic’ (Csiro n.d.), thus falling into the trap of animism, i.e. giving soul to inanimate objects (Nida-Rümelin/Weidenfeld 2022).

Conversely, if, in the digital age, we tend to see ourselves as digital machines (digital ‘neural’ networks), then the mystifying AI animism tips over into an anthropological mechanism and our humanistic self-image would have to be abandoned. Genuine deliberation, which is open-ended, would then not exist, and personal responsibility for one’s own practice would be obsolete, as responsibility presupposes a certain degree of self-determination (Nida-Rümelin 2005).

The ethical and political implications have given this approach of digital humanism its momentum in recent years: Under the conditions of digital transformation, how can we ensure that human authorship and responsibility are strengthened and not weakened?[1] How can the ethical dimension be considered as early as the software development stage?[2] What are the implications for the development of computer science at universities?[3] What scientific, cultural, social and economic aspects arise from digital humanism?[4]

---