The Intelligence of Machines

Abstract

This article elucidates the meaning of intelligence in machines. It employs hermeneutic-phenomenology and cybernetics. Its point of departure is Melanie Mitchell’s Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans (2019). It (1) reviews the different types of machine intelligence (MI) Mitchell describes and the understanding of intelligence she suggests is common among MI researchers and developers, (2) hermeneutic-phenomenologically exhibits the intelligence of Da-sein (t/here-being, human being as such), (3) discerns the intelligence of machines cybernetically in contrast to the intelligence of Da-sein rendered hermeneutic-phenomenologically, and (4) assesses the MI industry’s goal of producing ‘general human-level’ intelligence in machines.