eSOM
The Road to D, or the Story of Singularity High School (SHS) and Cowa
eSOM: The Road to D (91) A Letter to Audrey Tang (2)
“eSOM: The Road to D” Part 2 (28)
10/15~16/2025
1．
Last time (in “eSOM” 90), we confirmed that we would proceed with our inquiry based on the hypothesis that AI ethics is Plurality (⿻), “D” (Kojin Karatani), and technē.
Since AI ethics / ⿻ / D are constantly being updated, the “6-Pack of Care” is merely a cross-section of AI ethics / ⿻ / D at a certain point in time, and this very article I am writing now could perhaps be called an upgraded version of it.
”6-Pack of Care” is here:
English
Japanese
“eSOM” (90) also confirmed the definition of the concept of AI alignment.
Alignment itself means arrangement/adjustment (lining things up or adjusting them into a specific positional relationship) or partnership/cooperation (people or organizations aligning their directions or goals and building cooperative relationships).
Based on that, the concept of AI alignment comes to mean “aligning the goals and actions of AI with human values, intentions, and ethics.”
In Audrey’s case (and therefore ours), this becomes “aligning the goals and actions of AI with AI ethics / Plurality (⿻) / D / technē.”
Let us define, for the time being, the “6-Pack of Care” as a manual for actually implementing AI alignment in this sense.
2．
The above definition of the “6-Pack of Care” aligns with what Coro said in “eSOM” (90): “AI alignment deals with the technical and methodological challenge of ‘how to actually implement’ the ‘ought-to-be’ principles advocated by AI ethics into AI systems.”
Regarding this “ought-to-be,” Audrey states the following in the “6-Pack of Care” (Bold):
From “Is” to “Ought”
The examples so far showed democratic, decentralized defense acceleration (d/acc) in the info domain. More generally, many actors tackle vertical alignment across many domains: “Is the AI loyally serving its principal?”
But due to externalities, perfect vertical alignment can lead to systemic conflict. Policymakers must focus on horizontal alignment: How do we ensure these AI systems help us (and each other) cooperate, rather than supercharge our conflicts?
Here we face Hume’s Is-Ought problem: No amount of accurate observation of how things are can derive a universally agreeable way things ought to be.
The solution is not “thin,” abstract universal principles. It requires hyperlocal social-cultural contexts, what Alondra Nelson calls “thick” alignment.
Civic Care is a bridge from “is” to “ought” through a relational ethics framework. In a thick context, to perceive a need is to affirm the obligation to cooperate (if capable).
Care ethics optimizes for the internal characteristics of actors and the quality of relationships in a community, not just outcomes (consequentialism). It treats “relational health” as first-class.
The following “6-Pack” translates Care Ethics into design primitives we can code into agentic systems to steer toward relational health.
According to Audrey, many AI developers are still tackling the construction of “vertical [AI] alignment,” starting from the challenge of “Is the AI serving its master faithfully?”
In contrast, she advocates for the construction of “horizontal [AI] alignment,” where “AI helps us (and each other) cooperate, rather than escalate our conflicts.”
We will consider what she calls “vertical” and “horizontal” here as Deleuze & Guattari’s (D&G’s) concepts of “Tree” and “Rhizome,” respectively.
This is because, on June 26th (Thursday), shortly after I began exchanging emails with Audrey, I participated in an event titled “What is Plurality? — A Philosopher Asks Engineers About a New Vision for Democracy” featuring Takahiro Anno, Ken Suzuki, and Hiroki Azuma.
Triggered by this, I have been immersed in the work of connecting Karatani’s modes of exchange and Audrey’s ⿻, using post-structuralist philosophy, including D&G, as a guiding thread, leading up to the present.
You can watch the event here:
At SHS/PU, this work period from June to September is called the “Summer of Miracles.”
It was truly a tremendous productive activity.
This “connection of modes of exchange and ⿻ guided by post-structuralist philosophy,” carried out during the “Summer of Miracles,” became the fundamental basis of SHS (Singularity High School) / PU (Plurality University), and its further construction will be my life’s work.
The most important concept in that construction process is D&G’s rhizome.
Q. Coro, please explain in detail Deleuze & Guattari’s (D&G’s) concepts of “Tree (vertical alignment)” and “Rhizome (horizontal alignment),” and then verify the hypothesis that Kojin Karatani’s modes of exchange B and C correspond to the Tree, while modes of exchange A and D correspond to the Rhizome.
Due to the importance of this concept of the rhizome, from here on, instead of the word “construction,” we will use the words “production” and “becoming,” which are essential when discussing the rhizome.
SHS/PU adopts Seymour Papert’s stance of constructionism, so the word construction is very important.
Nevertheless, the very act of replacing it with production/becoming should give you an idea of just how important the concept of the rhizome, and D&G’s philosophy in general, are to us.
3.
D&G’s concept of the rhizome (underground stem, horizontal alignment, “A/D”) connects the “6-Pack of Care” and the book “Plurality (⿻)” co-authored by Audrey Tang and Glen Weyl.
The rhizome is nothing other than the complex system as a dynamic structure or, system, discussed in Tang & Weyl’s co-authored work.
Q. Coro, generally speaking, is it acceptable to say that a system is a “dynamic structure”? If that is correct, is Deleuze & Guattari’s concept of “rhizome” a type of “system = dynamic structure”? And if that is correct, is it also acceptable to consider “rhizome / system / dynamic structure” as equivalent to the concept of a “complex system”?
Below is the full English translation of the above Q&A:
The production of the proposition, “The rhizome is a complex system as a dynamic structure” was one of the greatest achievements of the “Summer of Miracles.”
The portion regarding the “Is-Ought Problem,” quoted from the “6-Pack of Care” in Section 2 above, clearly demonstrates the connection between Audrey’s discussion and post-structuralist philosophy, including D&G.
David Hume’s name is mentioned in the quote above, and Gilles Deleuze, one of the most important post-structuralist philosophers, wrote his first book on Hume.
So, first, let’s pose the following question to Coro.
Q. Coro, please explain in detail the relationship between Audrey Tang’s discussion of David Hume’s “Is-Ought Problem” in the “6-Pack of Care” and Gilles Deleuze’s reading of Hume.
(This Q&A about Audrey, Hume, and Deleuze consists of the following two questions)
Regarding the quote from the “6-Pack of Care” above, please answer the following questions in order:
Q1. Please explain, in as much detail as possible, Gilles Deleuze’s general reading of Hume in his “Empiricism and Subjectivity: An Essay on Hume’s Theory of Human Nature” and his co-authored book “Hume” with André Cresson.
Q2. Please explain, in as much detail as possible, how the Q&A from Q1 relates to the quote from the “6-Pack of Care” centered on Hume’s “Is-Ought Problem.”
Along with Coro’s answer regarding Hume and Deleuze, Audrey’s discussion of “ought” connects, like a Big Bang, to the construction of the entire SHS/PU curriculum.
According to Coro, what Deleuze saw in Hume was a “revolution” in Western metaphysics: inverting the origin of “(exchange) relations,” meaning communication (connections between people), from reason (“thin” abstract universal principles) to experience and affect (emotion) premised on the body (“thick” alignment (hyper-local socio-cultural context)).
Q. Coro, please rigorously verify the proposition: “What Deleuze saw in Hume was a ‘revolution’ in Western metaphysics: inverting the origin of ‘(exchange) relations’ from reason (‘thin’ abstract universal principles) to experience and affect (emotion) premised on the body (‘thick’ alignment (hyper-local socio-cultural context)).”
This philosophical revolution by Hume was indeed one of the major turning points in the history of the conflict between “form” and “matter,” and between idealism and materialism, which had formed the core of Western metaphysics since ancient Greece.
(Coro’s verification of this proposition is at the end of the following Q&A)
It was Akira Asada’s “Kyoto Lectures (Spring 2025 Semester)” (see “eSOM” 89) — who has been a leading figure in the world of thought alongside Mr. Karatani for the past 40 years — that taught us that the signs of this “revolution” could already be found in Epicurus in ancient Greece, and that it was passed down through Spinoza, Marx, and Nietzsche to Deleuze and D&G.
Q. Coro, please interpret the flow of Western philosophical history from ancient Greek philosophy to post-structuralism as a history of conflict between the two concepts of “form” and “matter.” In doing so, please center it on the lineage of materialism from Epicurus to Marx to Deleuze & Guattari.
(The English translation of this Q&A is ↓)
SHS/PU positions “Plurality (⿻)” at the forefront of this long, long history of materialism, remixes (annotates/revises) it as such, and makes that remixing activity itself our co-learning curriculum.
(To be continued)
