×
welcome covers

Your complimentary articles

You’ve read all of your complimentary articles for this month. To have complete access to the thousands of philosophy articles on this site, please


If you are a subscriber please sign in to your account.

To buy or renew a subscription please visit the Shop.

If you are a print subscriber you can contact us to create an online account.

Articles

Reality, Humanity & AI

Nafees Malik surveys our quest for truth, and asks if AI can help us discover more.

In 1637, René Descartes, the founder of modern philosophy, famously declared Cogito, ergo sum, or “I think, therefore I am”. Descartes was so sceptical about what, if anything, was real that he even questioned if he existed. He concluded that because he doubted his own existence he must be real, as he must exist in order to do the doubting.

Descartes perfectly exemplifies humanity’s innate desire to understand reality – to know the true nature of the world, from what is visible to the naked eye to what lies behind the veil. Some of our approaches to know reality have been objective, being built on rational arguments and evidence (e.