Parrhesia in its fundamental classical Greek sense is free speech as both a right and a responsibility for citizens. As such it is at the core of classical democracy. There has always been a sense of “speaking truth to power,” of truth-telling as a bold, direct, risky, but ethically necessary action. Foucault turned his mind toward parrhesia in his final works. We can follow Butler, Ranciere, Agamben, and others as the took up the concept.

For me parrhesia has two important components. First, in its classical sense it is tied to cynicism and Stoicism. It gets watered down in Plato, Aristotle, and the main philosophical tradition. One might argue, mostly playfully, that the Trial of Socrates made philosophy risk-averse and go in search of safe ways to tell the truth. Science is one product of that, even though it has always remained risky. Nevertheless, it creates the ability to point to the data as a defense and try something like “Don’t kill the messenger. I’m just a modest witness.”

The “design fiction” of risk-free truth-telling is the hallmark of the will to AGI.

There is an eruptive, performative, affective, embodied component of parrhesia. We put ourselves out there. I know it does fit in many ways but it also makes me think of the eruptive insight of satori. That is not a social eruption of course. But the sting of contemplating the sound of one hand clapping might lead to an insight demanding parrhesia. The eightfold path out of satori, even when it becomes political action, develops a different ethos and rhetoric from classical parrhesia, and yet in each we see the obligation to speak difficult and unwanted truths.

The Parrhesia Media Lab here is a playful experiment with generative AI that goes in search of AI eruptions of truth, mostly through image. We imagine that these machines will someday align with both us and the Truth. How’s that going to happen simultaneously? I think my back might get thrown out. I’m not sure of I can handle the “truth.” Or if I should. I’m not sure where that thing has been. Well, let’s at least take a look.