AI Wakening: Modernity and the Rise of an Artificial World

Modern logic and philosophy of science unsettle long-standing ontological privileges by re-centering analysis on operation, regulation, and organization rather than imitation or ends. This article asks how that modern turn enables a positive ontology of technical objects without importing life or mind as prior norms. Methodologically it offers a historical-conceptual reconstruction paired with a mechanism-level illustration (we take the example of the automatic telephone switching) to specify what “operational autonomy” entails. The argument shows how technical objects can be treated as norm-bearing and historically individuating through their functioning, while also identifying limits (Eurocentric corpus, risks of analogical transfer) and a forward program toward individuation, associated milieus, concretization, and ensemble/network levels. The contribution is to clarify the conceptual operators needed to exit instrumentality and to prepare the ontological grounding developed in the next paper.