Beyond Algorithms: Reconstructing Intelligence—From STEM to STEAM

Abstract

In a world that is increasingly becoming dominated by artificial intelligence, algorithmic governance and data-based rationality, modern definitions of intelligence have been reduced to narrowness in its understanding of computation, efficiency and techno-economic utility. The paper will critically look at the ethical and epistemological implications of prioritizing artificial or instrumental intelligence over emotional intelligence, and it will be argued that these reductionist paradigms lead to social alienation, moral disengagement, and unsustainable types of progress. Placing the discussion in the context of an interdisciplinary approach that builds on literary criticism, philosophy of technology, and cultural history, the paper prefigures two canonical works of Victorian literature, Frankenstein and Hard Times, as arguments against intelligence deprived of empathy, imagination, and moral accountability. In an in-depth examination of the text, the paper traces a historical lineage from the mechanistic rationality of the nineteenth century to the algorithmic systems of the twenty-first century, showing how both dehumanize people by denying them the power of emotion and moral accountability. The investigation contributes to the development of the STEAM paradigm as an ethical and epistemological remedy to STEM-oriented models, and the necessity of the humanities to the development of empathy, moral imagination, and relational accountability. Finally, the paper reprimands intelligence as a living, relational, and ethical ability. It claims that, in the absence of emotional intelligence, technological progress is unsustainable for the existence and democratic culture of the human species.