Artificial Intelligence or an Information-Computing Tool?
https://rusnak.link
Rusnak, A. (2025). Artificial Intelligence or an Information-Computing Tool? Zenodo. https://zenodo.org/10.5281/zenodo.17357021
1. A Marketing Move
Since 2018–2019, with the emergence of BERT and GPT-2, the term “artificial intelligence” has been increasingly applied to modern neural networks and large language models (LLMs).
The term “AI” is appealing from a marketing perspective — yet it refers merely to information processing rather than genuine intelligence.
Scaling over time will not change the fact that this is an informational tool rather than artificial intelligence.
In the following sections, we will examine why LLM technologies do not constitute true AI.
2. A Linguistic Trick
Why call an instrument—or any merely instrumental thing—“artificial intelligence”? For what purpose?
Perhaps this linguistic trick once again proclaims the end of the world—or the beginning of a new, imagined era.
Yet no true “artificial thinking” can be seen. It is only a new tool for the real and only Spirit.
History will end only when the true participant—Spirit—is gone.
“Weak AI,” “strong AI”—mere words.
Spirit is not only thought; formal thinking is just the visible surface of its work.
There is no “machine thinking,” only an imitation—an animation.
3. Revitalizing the Tool
When numbers are added up on an instrument, is some kind of intellectual activity taking place inside it? Perhaps it “thinks”? Does artificial thinking arise there—some kind of spiritual activity?
Can any other tool—any information-computing system—be regarded as something capable of thinking?
Such a tool can do more than add numbers: it performs complex operations and can even “control” devices and processes.
Yet every time I write that “it is capable,” this is only my way of animating something that does not exist as spiritually alive. Neither it, nor “its production of something” without me, truly exists.
A human being can bring anything to life. In his mind, nature and the cosmos begin to act; political entities, forces, and the laws of physics seem to move toward the “end of history,” which is merely another concept brought to life in thought.
Without my thinking, all this exists—but not in this way. In what way, then?
All this exists in its actual state, one unknown to me.
And I can know what is happening only either by inventing an animated scheme for what is happening or by performing living acts of presence.
4. A Living Tool—or My Imagination?
If a tool can help dig a hole better and faster than hands, what does that really mean?
“That a tool exists as someone who suddenly decides to understand itself as a tool, which then starts digging holes because it feels the need to…”
Has the author of such a claim gone mad? Or are all conversations of this kind simply senility? Or perhaps artistic fiction from the land of Oz?
And if a machine—a factory as a whole—allows certain things to be produced for me… Yet there is no machine, no factory. Everything I define as a Machine is something else without me. But what? A sum of matter, of atoms? Or is it, once again, merely my way of defining what is happening?
There—without me, without my thinking, without my inventing this structure—none of it exists.
No: no atoms, no living cells, no signals…
But “what is” remains a mystery to me, which I can only define through my thinking—by inventing a particular “solution” to the mystery, but already in the form of atoms, schemes, mathematical formulas, objects, cells, goals…
5. Solving Complex Problems — But Only for Me
An information-computing system solves complex problems in a different, seemingly independent way.
The same applies to an unmanned vehicle that carries out my decisions yet remains only a tool. Such tools can perform complex tasks, but they are neither thinking nor intelligent.Even a simple calculator, “by itself,” performs calculations for me.
Tomorrow, such systems may connect directly to the brain, reproduce words, or pass the Turing Test. Yet even then, they will remain extensions of my spirit and my hands—a mechanical arm, a prosthetic, a mechanism.
These are merely tools—forms of my spirituality through which I grasp and direct what happens. Their “independence” is only my animation of what, without me, would not exist at all.
Without me—it does not exist.
6. The Influence of “Revived” Tools on the Present
Tools will again transform human life—just as the bow, gunpowder, and countless inventions once did.
New, still unknown tools will solve complex problems according to our plans: performing surgeries, exploring space, building stations, even terraforming planets. Yet all of this remains only tools—for me.
As they develop, billions may lose their purpose. The economic order itself could change—production, profit, money, and power becoming meaningless or taking new forms.
But for whom would these billions be unnecessary?
7. The Illusion of a Living World
Man arranges the world, yet it exists only through a spiritual act.
Without our spirituality, all that “is” becomes nothing.
What we call life is merely our capacity to animate—to breathe spirit into instruments and events.
Thus arises the “living world,” filled with forces, spirits, and laws—Nature, Economics, Crises…
But without our thought—does any of it exist at all?
8. Manifested Thinking — and the Other Side
The problem is that we know only manifested thinking — formal, logical, physical, everyday, scientific.
A cooled form of manifestation that clothes everything in a concept, a scheme, an atom, a cause, a goal.
Yet behind this façade there presumably exists an unknown, genuine spiritual activity.
Perhaps the interaction with meta-reality unfolds in an entirely different way. But how?
The reverse process — immersion in meta-reality — is like dipping a finger into hot water.
Any thought that follows — water, hot, cold, liquid, finger — is already manifested, determinative thinking: something that has “jumped out from there to here,” cooled, and frozen.
9. Production of Objects
We take our manifested thought, grasp the meta-event, and fuse it into manifestation in order to realize a purpose.
10. But what is it that thought is binding together?
What is this “thing I take with my hands”? What is it, truly? And the immediate answer comes: it is… words, words… definitions, formulas, objects, actions.
Yet — it cannot be comprehended apart from my thinking, which instantly gives rise to “definiteness.” But that definiteness is already “not what it is without my thinking.”
This “definiteness,” in the end, may become complex — an object, a product — even something I can touch with my hands, or something that begins to act, as if without me.
But “in itself,” or without my thought and my hands, it is something else. But what?
11. There are two types of thinking:
• Manifest (defined): if A, then B; not A, not B; existence; identity…
• Unmanifest (real): that which enables the invention of something new — but what is it?
12. Information-computing tools are incapable of employing the kind of thinking we use in its unmanifest (implicit) state. This is because we ourselves do not know how such thinking occurs, what it consists.
13. Creating a Theory of Implicit Spiritual Activity
New certainties may arise in an attempt to grasp the essence of “quantum thinking” (spirit), but manifested thought does not reveal them. A theory can describe the experiment, yet never fully comprehend it, often requiring the introduction of “a certain madness” — Schrödinger’s cat. We cannot overcome the metaphysical limit described in another work: Rusnak, A. (2025). The metaphysical limit: the depicted and the happening. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17237367
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Title: Artificial Intelligence or an Information-Computing Tool?
Author(s): Alexey Rusnak
Description / Abstract:
Since the emergence of BERT and GPT-2 (2018–2019), the term “artificial intelligence” has been increasingly applied to modern neural networks and LLMs. From a marketing perspective, the label “AI” is attractive, but it obscures the fact that these systems are primarily instruments of information processing rather than genuine intelligence. Scaling and increasing complexity do not transform them into autonomous thinking entities.
Through the concept of “revived instruments,” the essay shows that human thought projects agency onto tools, which remain extensions of human intention. It also highlights that their apparent autonomy does not imply genuine intelligence or spiritual activity.
This preprint is publicly available on Zenodo to establish authorship and gather feedback. Portions were translated from Russian with AI assistance (ChatGPT, OpenAI) and reviewed by the author. The original Russian version is here: https://telegra.ph/Iskusstvennyj-intellekt-ili-informacionno-vychislitelnyj-instrument-01-04
Keywords: Artificial Intelligence, Information-Computing Systems, Large Language Models (LLM), Manifested Thinking, Unmanifested Thinking, Philosophy of Technology, Phenomenology of Tools
License: CC BY-NC 4.0 — Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/