All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace

Reflections on the “humanity of the gaps” and techno-humanism

Welcome to Ever Not Quite—essays about technology and humanism.

I began the line of thought that grew into this essay modestly, by wondering about our expressions of enthusiasm for technological innovation—for new things and gadgets generally. Why do such feats of engineering elicit, for instance, the reflexive use of the word “cool” so readily and so reliably? But that isn’t what this essay is about; from there, I began to speculate about the implications of taking seriously the idea that technological capabilities have no inherent limitations—that perhaps just about everything is, at least in theory, technologically possible. It surely matters whether we believe this to be true or not—and if we do, what does that suggest about what we think we’re doing with technology, and what its history and future represent? 

I had intended for this post to be a short reflection on these themes and observations, but soon it became clear that I had wandered into some serious issues, and I decided to accept the opportunity to linger and explore them in greater depth. I began to consider the idea of what has been called the “humanity of the gaps”, that is, as machines become capable of more and more, we begin to define ourselves by contrast with them, locating our humanity in our ability to do what no machine can yet do. We frequently encounter attempts to quell fears about human obsolescence which urge that a more automated world, in which machines have taken over much or all of what is currently human labor, presents unprecedented opportunities for us to discover something new and profound about our own humanity. According to some versions of this view, whatever machines become capable of doing, this can only present us with opportunities to embrace our humanity all the more completely, and to develop more fully into our true nature: no machine can ever do everything we can do, so each advance only serves to elevate our unique abilities. I worry that these expressions of optimism suffer from two major shortcomings: first, the deeply unimaginative assumption that machines will never be capable of matching or surpassing human skills, and second, the implicitly utilitarian understanding of human purpose which reduces us to our functions and presses us into competition with machines in the first place. 

I conclude with a few thoughts about techno-humanism, a perspective which manages to avoid some of these difficulties, but which tends, in the process, to deliver us over to the contingencies of technological change and implicitly encourages a posture of acquiescence to its pressures. As always, what follows is a consideration of these issues as I have come to understand them—characterizations are incomplete, proposals are exploratory, and conclusions are tentative.