Reading Nikolai Berdyaev’s ‘Man and Machine’

This article introduces the author’s English translation of Nikolai Berdyaev’s article ‘Man and Machine’ ninety years after its initial publication. It appeared in the journal Put’: Organ russkoi religioznoi mysli (‘The Path: Organ of Russian Religious Thought’). Established in 1925, Put’ was the journal of Berdyaev’s own Religious-Philosophical Academy founded in exile. The journal had a free-thinking, clearly anti-Soviet bent while also feeling the pulse of European temperaments. We examine Berdyaev’s work in its historical context, its references and influences, including the special role of Russian cosmism. While noting the popularising and dated character of his positions, we maintain the continued relevance of Berdyaev’s argument that machines should assist humanity in achieving goals that transcend humanity rather than humans being mere agents in the progress of machines. We compare this position with the current angst over Artificial Intelligence as expressed, for example, in the works of Yuval Noah Harari who treats the tool and the human as equal agents in history. We argue, in contrast, that one should view intelligent machines as partners in progress toward transcendent goals rather than interlocutors or competitors. The prescience of Berdyaev’s argument is, alas, borne out by the fact that we have lost much of a sense of what such transcendent goals for humanity might mean.