Reclaiming the Human Self: The Necessity of Integrating Ethics in Generative AI Developmen

The rapid advancement of AI technology has significantly changed how we view human-technologyinteractions. As new generative AI technologies aim to replicate human cognitive functions such as decisionmaking, projection, memory, comparison, and abstraction, the concept of the self—which unites all thesefunctions—takes on a new dimension. Currently, the discourse guiding the development of these technologiesoften strips the human self of its ethical nuances and reduces it merely to the computational abilities of themind. This reductionist approach portrays humans in both cognitive and cultural terms in an overly simplisticmanner during the technology development phases. We believe this perspective overlooks the complexity ofthe human self and poses serious ethical challenges. We argue that integrating ethics that recognize theembodied and culturally embedded nature of the self into the development of generative AI technologies iscrucial to addressing this narrow view of the self. Our discussion will explore how the current discourse isshaped by this new understanding of the self and will highlight the features of the "reduced self." We will thendiscuss the theories of embodiment and the phenomenology of cognitive science for the integration of theethical self. We advocate for the role of ethics on two levels to counteract this reductionist view: the first levelinvolves the need for adopting a meta-ethical discussion in the development of AI and all emergingtechnologies to guide our efforts. The second level requires incorporating ethical considerations into thedevelopment and design processes of these technologies. We conclude that ethical interventions that considerthe embodied and culturally embedded self are essential to overcoming ethical issues such as discriminationand bias and also provide a strong methodological perspective for the interdisciplinary approach to AI ethics.