Overall Analysis/Where to Now?

Looking at Bisclavret and the miniature from Topographia Hiberniae by Gerald of Wales together, it is clear that the philosophy of what it means to be human, to have a soul, has been a part of our collective consciousness for a long time. Both Bisclavret and the miniature suggest that having a human soul (which would be required for the wolf to receive a blessing from a priest) has less to do with how others perceive us, and more to do with our individual goodness. Though the wolves no longer have a human form, they are ‘gifted’ humanity by the priest. But is this question of 'humanness' even relevant in an age when few believe in supernatural creatures? Today, very few people believe in werewolves. However, the ongoing debate of what constitutes humanity has not disappeared, only taken a different form. Instead of monsters and werewolves and curses, we have artificial intelligence to grapple with. In his article “Human Rights and Artificial Intelligence: An Urgently Needed Agenda,” Mathias Risse, a professor at Harvard University, discusses the idea of consciousness by pointing out our desire to see ourselves as something more than just simple biology: “One question is if there is more to the mind than the brain. Whatever else it is, the brain is also a complex algorithm. But is the brain fully described thereby, or does that fail to recognize what makes humans distinct, namely, consciousness? Consciousness is the qualitative experience of being somebody or something, it’s “what-it-is-like-to-be-that”-ness, as one might say.” (Risse 3). Much like the priest who gave the last rites to a wolf, will we deny artificial intelligence the same rights we enjoy, if we have given them a consciousness? Some will argue that it does not matter how intelligent a machine becomes, it will never be human. Others will say that our humanity rests in our biological being, in that special something that gave us life in the first place. We tend to see humanness as a sort of award to be given to creatures who have reached our ‘level’ or self-awareness, or as Risse puts it, “Inviolability of human life is the central idea behind human rights, an underlying implicit assumption being the hierarchical superiority of humankind to other forms of life meriting less protection.” (Risse 4). We continue to struggle today with the idea of a soul, and how much our physical form, our clothes, or our outward appearances matter. Much in the same way that the Bisclavret proved himself worthy of humanity through his integrity, will we allow artificial intelligence to prove itself human through its intellectual abilities?