The Mystic and the Machine: The Self and Human Experience in the Age of AI and Robotics

In this piece I use the notion of the “Mystic and the Machine”. This creates a critical-counterpoint which allows us (me) to explore, critique, understand and start to dis-entangle what it is that we (I) reflect on when we engage with notions relating to the self and AI. This short piece is influenced by Autotheory, Anthropology, Design, Robotics Theology and Critical Theory. Through taking this cross-disciplinary approach, we can start to look at the ways that the self, aligns with the Mystic, while AI resides in the world of the Machine. We then go on to contemplate how the self and AI might be brought into some alignment in a Liminal Design space allowing contemplation on the ways that we practically use AI, what it means to us (the self) and the influences, memories and materials that impact upon the decisions that we make as the self.