Beyond Technocentrism: Kantian Humanism and the Ethics of AI Substitution

Abstract

This article develops Kantian humanism, a normative orientation inspired by Kant’s developmental account of reason, to assess AI substitution of human cognitive practices. AI can intensify technocentrism: the tendency to treat output-relative performance as a sufficient standard for judging cognitive activity. When institutionalized, human cognitive practices may appear dispensable once machines can reproduce their outputs. Drawing on Kant, I defend the formative value of these practices, the repeated exercise of which shapes human character. Output equivalence should not therefore be taken to entail normative substitutability. Four diagnostic questions are adduced to distinguish acceptable augmentation from objectionable substitution.