29 April 2026
Artificial Intelligence and Progress? A Pragmatist, Justice-Oriented Critique
Prof. Dr. Jan-Christoph Heilinger
Universität Witten/Herdecke, DE
AI in its many forms is often presented as a driver of “progress”: improving lives, accelerating solutions, and expanding human possibilities. This talk offers a critical framework for assessing such claims. Drawing on a pragmatist understanding of progress, it proposes that genuine progress consists in removing entrenched obstacles to human flourishing – especially where deprivation, exclusion, and domination persist.
Against this standard, I examine how and why AI’s most celebrated promises often misfire. First, the political economy of AI entails massive opportunity costs: While severe deprivation remains cheaply preventable, extraordinary resources are channelled into ever more powerful IT systems. Second, “sustainable AI” narratives often function as a reputational alibi rather than meeting defensible threshold standards of sustainability. Third, some of the most ambitious AI imaginaries carry troubling assumptions about authority and hierarchy, about who decides and who counts.
The critical conclusion is not anti-technology, but firmly pro-justice. It is imperative to resist any potential hypes, to ask critical questions, and to accept responsibility for just regulation and reform as a shared political task. Furthermore, genuine progress needs to begin by taking seriously those at the margins.
About the Speaker
Jan-Christoph Heilinger holds the Chair of Moral and Political Philosophy at Witten/Herdecke University and is Permanent Visiting Professor in Philosophy at Ecole Normale Supérieure, Port-au-Prince, Haiti. He studied in Cologne, Paris and Berlin, receiving his doctorate from Humboldt University in Berlin and his Habilitation from LMU Munich. He has held positions at the University of Zurich, LMU Munich and RWTH Aachen University, and visiting positions at Columbia University, the University of Sydney and ENS Paris, among others. His research in moral and political philosophy focuses on theories of relational equality, structural injustice and global responsibility, as well as their practical relevance in fields such as public health ethics, environmental and climate ethics, and the ethics of artificial intelligence.
photo credit: Dr. Jan-Christoph Heilinger, cropped
Lecture Time and Location
Wednesday, 29 April 2026
18:15–19:45 (CEST)
Flügelbau Ost, 2. OG, Raum O 221
Edmund-Siemers-Allee 1
20146 Hamburg
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