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Thinkers

The voices that feed our articles: the intellectual gesture told as a story, the core thought, the major works. An editorial selection — each profile links the thinker to the published entries and articles that put them to work.

• 1912–1954 · Mathematics, logic, theoretical computer science

  Alan Turing

  British mathematician and logician, father of theoretical computer science and of artificial intelligence. By replacing “can machines think?” with a test of indistinguishability, he opened a debate that conversational AI makes more alive than ever.

• 1952–2020 · Philosophy of technology, Phenomenology, Political philosophy

  Bernard Stiegler

  French philosopher of technology, thinker of the pharmakon: every technology is at once poison and remedy. His work offers one of the most powerful frames for thinking about what the digital — and AI — do to attention, knowledge and desire.

• 1926–1984 · Philosophy, history of systems of thought

  Michel Foucault

  The philosopher who turned our gaze away from debates and towards what makes them possible. With the episteme and power-knowledge, Michel Foucault gives us a method for understanding why our discussions about AI go round in circles — and how to break out of them.

• 1949– · Anthropology

  Philippe Descola

  French anthropologist, the last student of Lévi-Strauss. By establishing that the Western divide between nature and culture is only one way of composing the world among four, he gives us the tools to rethink our relations to non-humans — right up to artificial intelligences.