Flusser on Artificial Intelligence
This article unfolds along five thematic constellations where Flusser’s thought enters dialogue with contemporary developments in artificial intelligence. It begins by contrasting his conception of the apparatus with Alan Turing’s model of simulation. It then turns to Flusser’s notion of variational creation and its relevance to the generative logic of AI systems. The third section engages with his idea of the black box (a system accessible at only two points, input and output) in relation to the opacity of machine learning models. The fourth addresses the epistemological problem of learning from scratch, drawing on experimental research by Gašper Beguš. The final section reflects on mediated communication across species, bringing together Vampyroteuthis infernalis and recent AI-based studies of whale vocalization. Together, these reflections offer a philosophical framework for thinking through the epistemic, technical, and ethical stakes of AI—one that resists both anthropocentric assumptions and computational reductionism.