Humanism in the Age of Artificial Intelligence: Facing the New Algorithmic Reality

Abstract

Artificial intelligence must not be understood as the defeat of humanism, but rather as one of its most demanding historical tests. Every great technology has first appeared as a source of unease before becoming a civilisational practice: the printing press destabilised the authority of knowledge; the telephone transformed presence; the internet altered collective memory; artificial intelligence now reshapes the relationship between language, knowledge, decision-making and power. The fear it arouses is not irrational: it expresses the legitimate suspicion that the human being may be reduced to data, profile, performance or prediction. Yet such fear must not harden into rejection. This article argues that contemporary humanism must be renewed as an algorithmic humanism of responsibility: a philosophical, legal and political doctrine that defends the dignity of the person while also recognising artificial intelligence as a productive advance of our age. Against both naive technocracy and nostalgic humanism, it proposes a thesis of critical integration: AI can expand human capabilities, provided that it remains subordinate to dignity, freedom, justice, democratic deliberation and the rule of law.