Due to the rapid expansion of digitization technological processes, and to the combination of the potential of AI with that of robotics, machine autonomy is perceived as an increasingly precise “copy” of human autonomy, which is bound, potentially, to equal if not to exceed the original “model”. Underpinning this vision, which raises a whole series of concerns, including ethical ones, is the mimetic paradigm that structures the current construction of autonomous machines and feeds often simplistic analogizations with human autonomy. This chapter aims to explore this mimetic paradigm distinguishing two levels of analysis: a “perceptual-projective” level and an “effective” level. As to the first, I review the elements that facilitate machines being perceived as autonomous agents by human users and thereby prompt anthropomorphic projections; as to the second, I evaluate the technical architectures of these machines and the aspects of human autonomy that they concretely replicate. I finally argue that the autonomy of AI systems replicates aspects of human operational autonomy related to automatisms and, in this sense, achieves something more akin to the self-management of an organism than to the self-governance of a human will.
Autonomous Like Us? Machinic Copies and Human Models in the Age of AI
Anzalone, M
2026-01-01
Abstract
Due to the rapid expansion of digitization technological processes, and to the combination of the potential of AI with that of robotics, machine autonomy is perceived as an increasingly precise “copy” of human autonomy, which is bound, potentially, to equal if not to exceed the original “model”. Underpinning this vision, which raises a whole series of concerns, including ethical ones, is the mimetic paradigm that structures the current construction of autonomous machines and feeds often simplistic analogizations with human autonomy. This chapter aims to explore this mimetic paradigm distinguishing two levels of analysis: a “perceptual-projective” level and an “effective” level. As to the first, I review the elements that facilitate machines being perceived as autonomous agents by human users and thereby prompt anthropomorphic projections; as to the second, I evaluate the technical architectures of these machines and the aspects of human autonomy that they concretely replicate. I finally argue that the autonomy of AI systems replicates aspects of human operational autonomy related to automatisms and, in this sense, achieves something more akin to the self-management of an organism than to the self-governance of a human will.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
