FORMS OF LIFE, NOT FUNCTIONS: ETHICS, EVALUATION, AND THE LIMITS OF BENCHMARKING IN AI.

Benchmark-driven approaches to AI ethics increasingly dominate efforts to evaluate artificial systems deployed in socially sensitive domains such as healthcare, education, and criminal justice. By translating complex moral values – like fairness, accountability, or transparency – into quantifiable p...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Publicado en:Philosophical Alternatives Journal / Filosofski Alternativi Vol. 35; no. 1; pp. 14 - 32
Autor principal: SIMION, RADU
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: Institute of Philosophical Research 2026
Materias:
Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
fields @attributes:
  recordID: 1
pdfLink:
plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=191562298&site=ehost-live
header:
  @attributes:
    shortDbName: hlh
    uiTerm: 191562298
    longDbName: Humanities International Complete
    uiTag: AN
  controlInfo:
    bkinfo:
    jinfo:
      jid:
        08617899
        3BV5
      jtl: Philosophical Alternatives Journal / Filosofski Alternativi
      issn: 08617899
      maglogo: N
    pubinfo:
      dt: 2026
      vid: 35
      iid: 1
      pid: 35902
      pub: Institute of Philosophical Research
    artinfo:
      ui:
        191562298
        10.58945/HSPV4476
      ppf: 14
      ppct: 18
      formats:
        fmt:
          @attributes:
            type: P
            size: 919KB
      tig:
        atl: FORMS OF LIFE, NOT FUNCTIONS: ETHICS, EVALUATION, AND THE LIMITS OF BENCHMARKING IN AI.
      aug:
        au: SIMION, RADU
        affil: Assoc. Prof. (PhD) at the Babeş-Bolyai" University, Cluj-Napoca (Faculty of History and Philosophy), Romania.
      su:
        Artificial intelligence & ethics
        Benchmarking (Management)
        Moral foundations theory
        Philosophy of language
        Moral reasoning
        Normativity (Ethics)
        Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 1889-1951
      sug:
        subj:
          Artificial intelligence & ethics
          Benchmarking (Management)
          Moral foundations theory
          Philosophy of language
          Moral reasoning
          Normativity (Ethics)
          Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 1889-1951
      keyword:
        AI ethics
        benchmarking
        computational ethics
        moral epistemology
        normativity
        Wittgenstein
        Витгенщайн
        етика на изкуствения интелект
        компютърна етика
        морална епистемология
        нормативност
        сравнителен анализ
      ab: Benchmark-driven approaches to AI ethics increasingly dominate efforts to evaluate artificial systems deployed in socially sensitive domains such as healthcare, education, and criminal justice. By translating complex moral values – like fairness, accountability, or transparency – into quantifiable proxies, benchmarking seeks to deliver clarity, standardization, and comparability. Yet this process risks reducing normativity to measurable outputs, stripping ethics of its contextual, interpretive, and contested character. In response, this paper offers a philosophical intervention grounded in the later work of Ludwig Wittgenstein. Rather than advancing a prescriptive ethical model, it pursues conceptual clarification, challenging the presumption that moral reasoning can be formalized, abstracted, and rendered computationally tractable. From a Wittgensteinian perspective, ethics is not reducible to algorithmic compliance or rule-following, but is best understood as a grammar of practice embedded in language, interaction, and institutional contexts. Benchmarking emerges here not merely as a limited tool, but as a symptom of deeper philosophical misapprehensions – attempts to impose formal closure on normative ambiguity. To move beyond this reductionism, the paper calls for a reorientation toward what it terms "ethical infrastructures": situated, participatory, and reflexive processes that enable moral reflection and accountability across diverse sociotechnical settings. The central question thus shifts from how to measure ethical AI to how ethical meaning is negotiated, sustained, and challenged in practice. Reframed in this way, ethics becomes less about computational alignment and more about sustaining the conditions under which moral reasoning remains plural, situated, and publicly contestable.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
      doctype: Article
      src: R
    language: English
    refInfo:
    copyright:
      @attributes:
        flag: Y
      custom: Copyright of Philosophical Alternatives Journal / Filosofski Alternativi is the property of Institute of Philosophical Research and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.
      item: Philosophical Alternatives Journal / Filosofski Alternativi
      holder: Institute of Philosophical Research
      dt:
        @attributes:
          year: 2026
    holdings:
      @attributes:
        islocal: N