Synthetic temporalities – phenomenological perspectives on epistemic agency, time, and AI

Abstract This paper will explore the kind of insights that the phenomenological tradition and its various conceptualisations of the temporalities of agency might have to offer for thinking about our increasingly complex relationship to AI technologies. The phenomenological tradition conceptualises both human agency and our relationship to knowledge – from the kinds of epistemic practices that we engage in, to the various conditions that might enable or constrain those practices – in terms of our relationship to time. For phenomenologists, the ways in which we generate, navigate, and inhabit temporal structures are fundamental to our sense-making and decision-making processes. Given the increasing integration of various kinds of AI technologies into our lives, we might ask then how these technologies could and should impact the temporal dynamics of agency. This paper will focus on three types of what I call ‘temporal hazards’ generated by these impacts: delegation, stagnation, and fragmentation. These refer to tendencies or behaviours that involve ways of navigating time which in some manner undermine, constrain, or distort the development, exercise, or recognition of epistemic agency. Temporal delegation, stagnation, and fragmentation all precede the rise of generative AI, but are arguably amplified by the increasing integration of AI technologies into our lives.