Three Damaging Ideas and AI in the Anthropocene

Vocabulary flashcards covering Nicolas Kosoy's lecture on the three damaging ideas—anthropocentrism, property regimes, and the economic growth imperative—in relation to artificial intelligence in the Anthropocene.

Anthropocentrism (Platonic View)

The philosophical perspective positing that the sensory world of change is an illusion, while true reality exists in an unchanging realm of forms accessible through reason, which must master and direct human passions.

Anthropocentrism (Aristotelian View)

The view articulated in Metaphysics that nonhuman animals live merely by appearances and memories with little connected experience, whereas humans are uniquely elevated by living through art and reasoning.

Enlightenment Thought (17th and 18th Century)

An intellectual, cultural, and scientific movement that elevated science and reason over myth and religion, gave rise to utilitarianism as a principal ethic, and framed humans as self-interested maximizers.

Human-Centred AI Ethics Standards

Frameworks reviewed by Rigley et al. (2023) across 146 standards wherein nonhumans possess at most extrinsic moral value to humans, risking animal disturbance, ecosystem destabilization, landscape alteration, and severe energy use.

"We Must Pace the Frontier"

A September 2026 essay by Dario Amodei arguing for pacing AI development while claiming AI could cure most major diseases in the next 5–10 years, accelerate economic growth, and usher in abundance and democracy.

Private Property Regime

A property-rights regime categorized by Hanna et al. (1996) where an individual owner holds the rights to asset control and socially acceptable uses, alongside the duty to avoid socially unacceptable uses.

Common Property Regime

A property-rights regime defined by Hanna et al. (1996) in which a collective holds the right to exclude non-owners and bears the duties of maintaining the resource and constraining its rate of use.

State Property Regime

A property-rights regime in which the state serves as the owner, possessing the right to determine rules and the duty to maintain social objectives.

Open Access Regime

A property condition where no owner exists, resource capture is the only recognized right, and users hold no duties.

Bundle of Rights

A property hierarchy framework adapted from Schlager and Ostrom (1992) and Bavinck et al. (2014) classifying rights into five progressive tiers: access, withdrawal, management, exclusion, and alienation.

Proprietor (Property-Rights Position)

A position in the Ostrom and Schlager framework that holds the rights of access, withdrawal, management, and exclusion, but lacks the right of alienation.

Claimant (Property-Rights Position)

A position holding collective-choice rights of access, withdrawal, and management, but lacking the authority of exclusion and alienation.

Authorized User

A position in the property hierarchy restricted to operational rights of access and withdrawal, with no management, exclusion, or alienation rights.

Authorized Entrant

The most limited position in Ostrom's property rights hierarchy, possessing only the operational right of access.

"Property is Robbery!"

A declaration from Pierre-Joseph Proudhon's 1840 work What is Property? critiquing property as unearned income derived without work, as distinguished from rightful possession held by small cultivators.

Primitive Accumulation

Karl Marx's concept (1867) denoting the historical, violent process through which direct producers are separated from their means of production.

Second Enclosure Movement

A term coined by James Boyle (2017) and analyzed by Yang Yang (2026) regarding capitalist AI, describing a cognitive enclosure where corporations privatize data commons and monopolize computing infrastructure such as GPUs and cloud services.

Social Metabolism (1750–Present)

The historical material and energy throughput of human society documented by Bai et al. (2016), highlighting exponential post-1950 spikes in socioeconomic indicators and global Earth system degradation.

Executive Order "Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence"

A US presidential executive order issued on January 23, 2025, which in Section 5 officially revoked the 2023 Executive Order 14,110 on "Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence."

Personal Information Protection Law (PIPL)

China's regulatory statute governing technology and data which centers strictly on data privacy and omits environmental standards or recommendations for AI usage.

Bidirectional Productivity Amplifier

A modeling concept from Alpine et al. (2026) in npj Climate Action demonstrating that AI-driven productivity gains induce greater macroeconomic $CO_2$ emissions than they eliminate.

PFAS in AI Infrastructure

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances manufactured by firms such as Solstice, Daikin, Arkema, and Syensqo whose production is expanding rapidly due to rising demand for semiconductor chips and AI hardware cooling.