Humanization of Objects and Objectification of Humans. Vilém Flusser’s Philosophy of Apparatus and AI
This article examines two major trends in human civilization, namely the humanization of objects and the objectification of humans, through the media philosophy of Vilém Flusser. Here, objects broadly refer to all human-made items, but primarily indicate means of production (tools, machines, apparatus) in a narrower sense. Specifically, this article traces the historical tendency of objects increasingly resembling the human body and brain since the advent of humanity, and conversely, humans progressively resembling the objects they create. Among these tendencies, it particularly analyzes in detail the trends of the artificial intelligence era driven by apparatus: the intelligentization of objects and the robotization of humans. As specific examples for this analysis, the article presents photographic apparatus as the first apparatus, and apparatus-humans (photographers and spectators, all of us). Through this, the article aims to uncover the fundamental meanings of recently emerging academic paradigms such as artificial intelligence and robot, and reveal the deep-seated causes underlying contemporary human robotization.