Uploaded October 2024 | Updated September 2026, 1 day ago
The current narrow or weak form of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is, by itself, a data analysis tool that does nothing more or less than its programming instructs it to do. AI excels at sensing its environment and acting to maximize the likelihood of achieving its goals. However, it has no values or goals of its own, it simply follows the values and pursues the goals provided to it by its programmers. Artificial Wisdom (AW) has the potential to make AI a better tool and perhaps, eventually, more than a tool, but at least for now, AW must also be programmed and therefore similarly reflects only the wisdom of its programmers. Unlike intelligence, wisdom has a normative aspect, particularly with regard to whether and how a goal ought to be pursued, and no amount of descriptive data, by itself, can determine what ought to be done. It is not enough to recognize that AI must provide social benefit, align with our values, and, more generally, perform wisely without understanding that what constitutes social benefit, values, and wisdom is not universal but rather varies for different worldviews. Without a conscious effort to incorporate the wisdom of other cultures, AW will continue to reflect one, narrow worldview. Different cultures have different notions of wisdom, and AW would benefit greatly from incorporating elements of non-Western worldviews, particularly the metaphysically inclusive worldviews of Indigenous peoples who are also stakeholders in the development and application of AI. For example, incorporating aspects of the Navajo life way of hozho and Native Hawaiian ethic, pono into AW could greatly enhance the usefulness of overall benefit from applications of AI. Hozho introduces the values and goals of harmony, balance, interrelatedness, and connectedness. Pono similarly introduces “right conduct” or righteousness of action, and thereby has the potential to elevate AI beyond the technoscientific foundation of the Western scientific worldview which has created so many of our past and present problems.
The current narrow or weak form of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is, by itself, a data analysis tool that does nothing more or less than its programming instructs it to do. AI excels at sensing its environment and acting to maximize the likelihood of achieving its goals. However, it has no values or goals of its own, it simply follows the values and pursues the goals provided to it by its programmers. Artificial Wisdom (AW) has the potential to make AI a better tool and perhaps, eventually, more than a tool, but at least for now, AW must also be programmed and therefore similarly reflects only the wisdom of its programmers. Unlike intelligence, wisdom has a normative aspect, particularly with regard to whether and how a goal ought to be pursued, and no amount of descriptive data, by itself, can determine what ought to be done. It is not enough to recognize that AI must provide social benefit, align with our values, and, more generally, perform wisely without understanding that what constitutes social benefit, values, and wisdom is not universal but rather varies for different worldviews. Without a conscious effort to incorporate the wisdom of other cultures, AW will continue to reflect one, narrow worldview. Different cultures have different notions of wisdom, and AW would benefit greatly from incorporating elements of non-Western worldviews, particularly the metaphysically inclusive worldviews of Indigenous peoples who are also stakeholders in the development and application of AI. For example, incorporating aspects of the Navajo life way of hozho and Native Hawaiian ethic, pono into AW could greatly enhance the usefulness of overall benefit from applications of AI. Hozho introduces the values and goals of harmony, balance, interrelatedness, and connectedness. Pono similarly introduces “right conduct” or righteousness of action, and thereby has the potential to elevate AI beyond the technoscientific foundation of the Western scientific worldview which has created so many of our past and present problems.
