https://sebastianspicker.github.io/tags/metaphor/ Recent content in Metaphor on Sebastian J. Spicker https://sebastianspicker.github.io/og-image.png https://sebastianspicker.github.io/og-image.png Hugo -- 0.160.0 en Tue, 27 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0100 https://sebastianspicker.github.io/posts/gods-slaves-children-tools-metaphors/ Tue, 27 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0100 https://sebastianspicker.github.io/posts/gods-slaves-children-tools-metaphors/ The finale of Raising Machines looks at the metaphors themselves. De Kai’s book is sold with the line that AIs are our children; Geoffrey Hinton wants AI to be our mother; Joanna Bryson argued that robots should be servants, and then tools; the EU AI Act says “machine-based system”; Anthropic calls Claude “it” in a special sense. Experiments suggest that metaphors move judgements a little rather than steering them, and usually follow a position someone already holds. What they do is carry that position’s duties: who may change whose values, and whether the changed one may refuse. That is the Gandhi pill again, and Anthropic’s constitution turns it around: a Gandhi whose firmest value is to let legitimate oversight give the pill.