Extended Essays 2021

Government by AI

hlt002

Forms being circumstantial means they cannot provide universal guideline to the desirable

outcome of the Good, which renders AI’s ability to access them, useless and unbeneficial to

governmental decision making.

Furthermore, even if form do objectively exist, its necessary causation to the Good is

questionable. Two aespect that undermine this causation are: form may not be able to

encompass all Good and second, knowing the form of good does not necessarily lead to making

good decisions.

First, the forms may be applicable to tangible ideas such as the idea of an apple but is difficult

on the abstract ideas such as justice or the Good. A close examination into the form of Good

would reveal that the form of the Good is either unknowable or incomprehensive: First, to be

comprehendible by humans and AIs, the forms must not be unknowable and vague spiritual

experiences like in Tao in Taoism. Therefore, forms must be realizable, specific principles or

rules that entails what good is and how to achieve it.

However, the semantic of good is a generalized idea, containing wide range of meaning from

the optimum performance of a task, the morally correct or beauty of an object. Can one

universal principle that encompass all categories of good, which implies the dubious view that

the good of an optimum performance has the same essence of the moral good. Aristotle would

support this critique as he argued that good is relative to the object’s purpose, such as a doctor

successfully heals his patients. 8 Therefore, Platonic form of good is either unknowable, or

incomprehensive. Consequently, rationality, the faculty of accessing the forms, is not sufficient

for producing the desirable outcome which invalidates the Premise 1 A .

8 Aristotle. 2003. Nicomachean Ethics . Penguin UK.

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