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The field of Artificial Life studies the nature of the living state by modeling and synthesizing living systems. Such systems, under certain conditions, may come to deserve moral consideration similar to that given to nonhuman vertebrates or even human beings. The fact that these systems are nonhuman and evolve in a potentially radically different substrate should not be seen as an insurmountable obstacle to their potentially having rights, if they are sufficiently sophisticated in other respects. Nor should the fact that they owe their existence to us be seen as reducing their status as targets of moral concern. On the contrary, creators of Artificial Life may have special obligations to their creations, resembling those of an owner to their pet or a parent to their child. For a field that aims to create artificial life-forms with increasing levels of sophistication, it is crucial to consider the possible ethical implications of our activities, with an eye toward assessing potential moral obligations for which we should be prepared. If Artificial Life is larger than life, then the ethics of artificial beings should be larger than human ethics.

In the current social and technological scenario, the term digital is abundantly used with an apparently transparent and unambiguous meaning. This article aims to unveil the complexity of this concept, retracing its historical and cultural origin. This genealogical overview allows to understand the reason why an instrumental conception of digital media has prevailed, considering the digital as a mere tool to convey a message, as opposed to a constitutive conception. The constitutive conception places the digital phenomenon in the broader ground of media studies, and it considers digital technologies as an interface between the subject and the world. In this perspective, the media is not added to the experience of the person, but it shapes it from within on a cognitive, expressive and communicative level. The article makes use of two powerful examples to show the shortcomings of an instrumental conception of the digital, and to affirm the value of a constitutive conception for current media studies regarding digital interfaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the recent renewed interest in AI, the field has made substantial advancements, particularly in generative systems. Increased computational power and the availability of very large datasets has enabled systems such as ChatGPT to effectively replicate aspects of human social interactions, such as verbal communication, thus bringing about profound changes in society. In this paper, we explain that the arrival of generative AI systems marks a shift from ‘interacting through’ to ‘interacting with’ technologies and calls for a reconceptualization of socio-technical systems as we currently understand them. We dub this new generation of socio-technical systems synthetic to signal the increased interactions between human and artificial agents, and, in the footsteps of philosophers of information, we cash out agency in terms of ‘poiêsis’. We close the paper with a discussion of the potential policy implications of synthetic socio-technical system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a new perspective on the intersection of technology, biology, and politics in modern Germany by examining the history of biotechnics, a nonanthropocentric concept of technology that was developed in German-speaking Europe from the 1870s to the 1930s. Biotechnics challenged the traditional view of technology as exclusively a human creation, arguing that nature itself could also be a source of technical innovations. Our study focuses on the contributions of Ernst Kapp, Raoul Heinrich Francé, and Alf Giessler, highlighting the gradual shift in political perspectives that influenced the merging of nature and technology in their respective visions of biotechnics. From Kapp's liberal radicalism to Francé's social organicism and ultimately to Giessler's totalitarian fascism, their writings increasingly vitalized technology by portraying it as a natural force independent from human influence. The history of biotechnics sheds light on previously unexplored aspects of debates surrounding the sciences and philosophy of technology in Germany, while also foreshadowing contemporary discussions on technocultural hybridity. As a genealogy of the idea of nonhuman technology, the article raises perturbing questions about the political implications of conflating nature and culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary ethics is currently ramifying into different sub-ethics specific to each type of technology. Although this trend has been very timely and rightly called into question by Sætra and Danaher, both these authors and their critics Llorca Albareda and Rueda leave the matter unsolved from a discipline point of view. In this commentary, we clarify the statute of the ethics of technology, which corresponds to that of a subsidiary applied ethics, and show how it is precisely that, what renders the creation of an ethics for each technology inappropriate. We thus provide a disciplinary reason to support Sætra and Danaher’s concern on tech ethics proliferation and to refute Llorca Albareda and Rueda’s relativization of it. In turn, we conclude by drawing some guidelines for tech ethics in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A promising paradigm in the discourse on Technology Ethics and the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence has manifested in scholarly literature and practical application, entitled “Ethics by Design for A.I.”. The significance of this approach lies in its divergence from conventional assessments focused on the utilization or subsequent societal impact of technological artifacts. Instead, it directs attention to the technological design processes of digital artifacts. While the advocates of this theory acknowledge certain limitations of their theory, the complexity of the framework requires a nuanced examination of additional philosophical, political and economic challenges that remain unresolved. This paper endeavors to clarify the crucial dimensions and conceptual foundations of Ethics by Design for A.I., while furthermore, it provides a comprehensive exploration of contemporary challenges encountered by this paradigm. The principal aim is to delineate the risks and challenges inherent in this approach and to evaluate whether it can resolve the challenges posed or an exceedance is required, one that will lead to forming a different kind of Ethics by Design for A.I. founded on a whole new set of presuppositions and socio-political insights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Cuadernos del Centro de Estudios de Diseño y Comunicación is the property of Cuadernos del Centro de Estudios de Diseno y Comunicacion and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The burgeoning advancements in aerospace technology have not only revolutionized our understanding of the cosmos but also raised profound questions about humanity’s future in space. This paper delves into the concept of “Homo Aerospace,” envisioning a future where humans transcend earthly boundaries and establish a permanent presence beyond our planet. Through a philosophical lens, we examine the implications, challenges, and ethical considerations inherent in this cosmic endeavor. Drawing upon existential philosophy, transhumanism, and speculative futurology, we explore the essence of human nature as it intersects with the vast expanse of space. By contemplating the potential evolution of Homo Aerospace, we strive to illuminate the fundamental questions that arise as humanity reaches for the stars.

In this special issue, we focus on the connection between conceptual engineering and the philosophy of technology. Conceptual engineering is the enterprise of introducing, eliminating, or revising words and concepts. The philosophy of technology examines the nature and significance of technology. We investigate how technologies such as AI and genetic engineering (so-called “socially disruptive technologies”) disrupt our practices and concepts, and how conceptual engineering can address these disruptions. We also consider how conceptual engineering can enhance the practice of ethical design. The issue features seven articles that discuss a range of topics, including trust in blockchain applications and the evolving concept of nature. These articles highlight that as technology changes the world and our concepts, conceptual engineering provides invaluable tools and frameworks to reflect on these changes and adapt accordingly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay aims to rectify a failure on the part of Western philosophers of technology to attend to the creative philosophical work of Li Bocong at the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. After a brief account of Li Bocong’s personal contacts with the West and some remarks on his relationship to Marxism, we take up three aspects of his philosophy that can contribute to enlarging Western philosophical thinking about engineering and technology: (1) Li’s analysis of engineering as more than design, (2) his argument for the relevance of the sociology of engineering, and (3) his conceptualization of engineering ethics as more than professional ethics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Technology marks the maturity of the philosophy of technology, which has lagged behind the history of technology as a distinct field. The book's thirty-two chapters span almost seven hundred pages, written by thirty-four authors from twelve countries. Shannon Vallor, professor of philosophy at University of Edinburgh, edited the volume and wrote its excellent introduction, which provides a historical framing that is largely absent from the rest of the volume. Although many of the remaining chapters are quite strong, the volume as a whole suffers from an unevenness that reflects the conceptual disunity of the field. Nevertheless, the volume shows the value of this field for historians of technology, especially as an alternative to the stale STS theories that many historians of technology draw on. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article carries out a genealogy of the concept of animal-man in the field of the philosophy of technique and technique itself as a prosthesis or extension of the human body, from Oswald Spengler and José Ortega y Gasset to Arnold Gehlen and Marshall McLuhan. At the same time, since this zoological definition of the human being supposes a technical and technological anthropodicey, it analyzes the transformations of the world that it produces and of the same subject involved in this process. With which the biotechnological phenomena of late modernity are shown as an extremely problematic horizon and no longer deductible from the prosthetic lexicon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista de Filosofía UIS is the property of Universidad Industrial de Santander and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This essay reconstructs a now largely obscure fifty year debate within French philosophy of technology from Alfred Espinas to Alexandre Kojève about slavery in the ancient world. To summarize, I argue that early twentieth century French philosophy of technology's hypothesis that Greek and Roman slavery caused a blocage – a block, delay or stagnation – in the development of technology in antiquity may well seem little more than a historical curiosity today, but that its hypothesis of a constitutive relation between slave labour and technological innovation has recently re-emerged in biopolitical form in such texts as Giorgio Agamben's The Use of Bodies (2015). In the confrontation between what Alexandre Koyré famously calls the 'philosophers' and the 'machine', I argue that we not only enter a largely forgotten conceptual archive for modern French philosophy of technology (Gilbert Simondon, André Leroi-Gouhran, Bernard Stiegler) but for contemporary biopolitical theory (Giorgio Agamben). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In contrast to the history of science and to science and technology studies, the value discourse in the philosophy of science has not provided a thorough analysis of the material culture of science. Instruments in science have a special characteristic, namely that they explicitly and clearly emerge from and remain embedded in social contexts, and are thus imbued with values. We argue that the materials (in most cases they are artifacts) used in science are necessarily influenced by both epistemic and non-epistemic considerations. A consequence of this is that a descriptive term cannot give sufficient information whether an artifact is performing in an acceptable way. Instead of the prevailing descriptive approach, we therefore advocate a normative notion of values in the material culture of science. To this end, we connect the material culture of science to the so-called “new demarcation problem”, in order to lay the foundations for a value-sensitive approach to the analysis of instruments. By assessing the five approaches of demarcation concerning value-influences, it will be shown that they break down at various points if the material aspects of science are taken seriously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shortly before the end of his life, Cornelius Castoriadis turned to radical political ecology, which he seemed to consider the only way to de-colonize the technicist, capitalist imaginary (imaginaire), into which the totality of modern philosophy and praxis is, to use a Heideggerian concept, (heteronomously) being-thrown. Castoriadis' critique of the capitalist imaginary, the imaginary of the unlimited extension of rational mastery, is in a state of eclectic affinity with the unsurpassed critique of the autonomous Technique by the French theologian and sociologist Jacques Ellul. Ellul had highlighted the necessity of demythologizing the spirit of technicism since the 1940s, when he was working on the uncontrollability of modern technology, which in his work is depicted as the societal manifestation of the Ge-stell. The Weberian ideal type of formal rationality runs through the critique of both thinkers. For Ellul, technology, or technique, is intrinsically rational. However, when technique is in contact with social and cultural milieus which belong to a non-technical formation and organization, paradoxes and irrationalities are inevitable. In turn, Castoriadis emphasizes the irrationality and autonomy that characterize the modern sphere of techno-science, which leads, with mathematical precision, to the ecological, and also the anthropological, destruction of the Anthropos. Therein lies the central problem of modernity's technology. Is there a way out? Castoriadis envisions the foundation of a true democracy, nowhere near theocratic, which, nonetheless, must learn to limit itself politically and technologically. Ellul, on the other hand, highlights the ethics of non-power, an essentially spiritual and idealistic attitude that Hans Jonas will adopt a few years later, talking about the heuristics of fear. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to better understand and account for potential difficulties in empathising with each other in online spaces. I argue that two important differences between online and in-person communication are both to do with what information comes across in equivalent interactions. Firstly, there are ways in which less information comes across in online interactions (both consciously and unconsciously). Secondly, agents have greater control over what information comes across in online interactions. I argue that these differences can cause problems in terms of whether online spaces are as fruitful ground for empathising with each other. This is because the information that gets left out is often what's important for building up a fuller and more vivid picture of what the other person's experiences are like, such as identity-markers or vulnerabilities. But despite this, I end on an optimistic note, because we will become more practiced at reading between the lines, as well as adapting and using media more creatively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The point of departure of this article is the trend towards hybridisation in new technology development, which makes classical dichotomies between machines, human life and the environment obsolete and leads to the post-human world we live in today. We critically reflect on the post-human concept of the hybrid world. Although we agree with post-humanists that human life can no longer be opposed to machines but appears as a decentralized human-technology relation, alliance or network that constitutes a hybrid world, we ask for a limit to hybridisation. After rejecting the concept of metabolism as such a limit, we explore the concept of the responsive conativity of material entities. The principle of conativity of material entities provides a materialist perspective on metabolism, which enables us to conceive material entities as self-assertive material entities that are differentiated from the environment. The principle of responsivity of material entities provides a materialist perspective on the post-human world in which material entities are responsive to each other and form alliances and networks. We propose to differentiate between the conativity and responsivity of material entities and propose the conativity of matter as a limit to hybridisation in the post-human world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The arrival of generative artificial intelligence (AI) is fundamentally different from prior technologies used in educational settings. Educators and researchers of online, blended, and in-person learning are still coming to grips with how to employ current AI technologies in the learning experience, let alone understanding the potential consequences that future and unknown developments in AI will produce. Despite potential risks, AI may revolutionize previous models of teaching and learning, and perhaps create opportunities to realize progressive educational goals. Given the longstanding tradition of using philosophy to examine questions surrounding ethics, ontology, technology, and education, the purpose of this critical reflection paper is to draw from prominent philosophers across these disciplines to address the question: how can AI be employed in future educational contexts in a humanizing and ethical manner? Drawing from the work of Gunther Anders, Michel Foucault, Paolo Freire, Benjamin Bloom, and Hannah Arendt, we propose a framework for assessing the use and ethics of AI in modern education contexts regarding human versus AI generated textual and multimodal content, and the broader political, social, and cultural implications. We conclude with applied examples of the framework and implications for future research and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents an investigation into the value-based affordances of volition as an integral philosophical component of technology education, specifically in relation to design methodology. As the central aspect of technology education, design has a prominent position in curricula all over the world, not just in subjects named Design and Technology, but also in most technology and engineering subjects in schools. In philosophy, it has been asserted that design volition (axiology) has a strong relationship with and in many ways forms the basis of design as a methodological stance. The primary philosophical frameworks used as the foundation for the philosophical analysis presented in this article are the ones introduced by Carl Mitcham in his Thinking through Technology (1994) and Andrew Feenberg's critical theory of technology. We perform a narrative review of relevant literature. Based on this review, we attempt a clearer definition of the lucid concept of volition/axiology in the literature, as well as explicate the relationship between axiology and methodology. In particular, we investigate this relationship in terms of values, intentionality, and sustainability in design. We review design as a societal and value-laden phenomenon, prone to strong and weak intentionality where expert and lay designers converge or diverge on sustainable values depending on the amount of interpretative flexibility. Concerning implications, school teaching needs to be founded on design volition which does not reduce technology education to technical education. Technology teachers and students need to be explicit about the values involved at all levels of technology and to clarify, justify, and debate their choices. Students must also be exposed to the way in which "sustainable values" might decrease interpretative flexibility and increase the opportunities for a technology to be sustainable in the medium to long term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emotion recognition technology uses artificial intelligence to make inferences about a person’s emotions, on the basis of their facial expressions, body language, tone of voice, or other types of input. Underlying such technology are a variety of assumptions about the manifestation, nature, and value of emotions. To assure the quality and desirability of emotion recognition technology, it is important to critically assess the assumptions embedded in the technology. Within philosophy, there is a long tradition of epistemological, ontological, phenomenological, and ethical reflection on the manifestation, nature, and value of emotions. This article draws from this tradition of philosophy of emotions, in order to challenge the assumptions underlying current emotion recognition technology and to promote a more critical engagement with the concept of emotions in the tech-industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bioconservative bioethicists (e.g., Kass, 2002, Human Dignity and Bioethics, 297–331, 2008; Sandel, 2007; Fukuyama, 2003) offer various kinds of philosophical arguments against cognitive enhancement—i.e., the use of medicine and technology to make ourselves “better than well” as opposed to merely treating pathologies. Two notable such bioconservative arguments appeal to ideas about (1) the value of achievement, and (2) authenticity. It is shown here that even if these arguments from achievement and authenticity cut ice against specifically pharmacologically driven cognitive enhancement, they do not extend over to an increasingly viable form of technological cognitive enhancement – namely, cognitive enhancement via augmented reality. An important result is that AR-driven cognitive enhancement aimed at boosting performance in certain cognitive tasks might offer an interesting kind of “sweet spot” for proponents of cognitive enhancement, allowing us to pursue many of the goals of enhancement advocates without running into some of the most prominent objections from bioconservative philosophers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of ANIAV: Revista de Investigación en Artes Visuales is the property of Universidad Politecnica de Valencia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In the science and values literature, scholars have shown how science is influenced and shaped by values, often in opposition to the 'value free' ideal of science. In this paper, we aim to contribute to the science and values literature by showing that the relation between science and values flows not only from values into scientific practice, but also from (allegedly neutral) science to values themselves. The extant literature in the 'science and values' field focuses by and large on reconstructing, post hoc, how values have influenced science; our reconstruction of the case studies, instead, aims to show that scientific concepts and methods too, because of specific identifiable characteristics, can promote some values rather than (or at the expense of) others. We explain this bidirectional relation in analogy to debates on the normativity of technical artifacts and on feminist approaches in science, and we illustrate our claims with cases from the health sciences and machine learning. While our arguments in this paper also draw on post hoc reconstructions, we intend to show where, in the science in the making, we should engage not only with the question whether a practice is value-laden, but also how specific conceptual and methodological choices can influence values down the road. All in all, these considerations expand the ways in which philosophers can contribute to more value-aware scientific practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intelligent manufacturing is a systematic engineering and technological innovation that propels the transformation and upgrading of China’s manufacturing industry, enhancing industrial competitiveness. It is a pivotal element in strengthening the manufacturing sector of China. The comprehensive and profound advancement of intelligent manufacturing necessitates adherence to ideological innovation, requiring the formulation of a scientifically grounded development strategy from its philosophical roots. This paper, based on the phenomenological reductionism and ontological perspective method, starts from the perspective of the philosophy of technology, integrates systemic dialectical logical reasoning, investigates and identifies the “hard problems” of human– machine collaborative technology in intelligent manufacturing, and insightfully explores its philosophical essence from the standpoint of the philosophy of scientific epistemology. The research findings indicate that explicit knowledge and tacit knowledge are commonly present in manufacturing technology activities. However, the long-standing technological development has overlooked the significance of tacit knowledge and has made an unreasonable assumption about the existence of “rational people” in human subjects, neglecting their crucial role in manufacturing systems. Therefore, this paper, through ontological reflection, proposes a Cartesian intelligent manufacturing technology development path based on the Internet of Things, Internet of Contents & Knowledge, and Internet of Bodies. Building upon this foundation, it establishes a Heideggerian intelligent manufacturing system architecture grounded in behavior-oriented, deictic representations, and embodied embedding. Through this traceable causal analysis, it constructs a three-stage progressive development knowledge paradigm for resolving the “hard problems” of human – machine collaborative technology. This paradigm is characterized by data-driven, functional representation, and embodied integration. To efficiently promote the development of the new-generation intelligent manufacturing, a knowledge engineering classification assessment system can be established. The application of theoretical cognitive models can drive the resolution of technological challenges and the formulation of industry support policies. Establishing a multi-faceted application-oriented intelligent manufacturing public service platform strengthens knowledge circulation and integrated application.

This article seeks to establish a theoretical framework surrounding the drone and its use in archaeology. More than just a tool, this vehicle has revolutionized not only the practice of the discipline but also the way archaeologists approach their object of study. To highlight its theoretical components, we have established a dialog with the philosophy of technology and the archaeological dimension, to understand the implications and impositions that the drone implies for the activities of archaeologists. Passing through the verticalization of the gaze, the machinic rhythms and choreographies, and, finally, the theme of automation, we understand that the theory of the drone in archaeology is fertile ground for a critique of how technique shapes the discipline.

Philosophy in technology is a research program that studies the philosophical roots of engineering and technology. Technologists, by virtue of their education, believe that the limits, goals, possibilities, and effects of technology on society and humankind are exclusively technological problems, hence their solutions must lie exclusively in technology. In contrast, philosophy in technology asserts that the resolutions to these problems need to be rooted in an understanding of their philosophical origins. This program paper defines the objectives of philosophy in technology, the kinds of questions it explores, the methods it uses, and how it differs from the philosophy of technology.

This paper advocates for a constructivist approach to symbiosis to restore human-centredness in the governance of Symbiotic Artificial Intelligence (SAI). Challenging rigid, deterministic foundational methods warns against the risk of divorcing ethics from mere adherence to moral principles. Instead, it calls for a shift towards a distributed, contextual, relational, and dialectical structure to embody human-centredness. Through an analysis of the SAI landscape and its interplay between social and technological factors, the paper argues for a reconceptualisation of theoretical foundation and human responsibility within the socio-technical perspective. Chapter 2 delves into foundational issues of SAI, questioning the application of biological categories and proposing patterns of SAI based on definitions of intelligent life. Chapter 3 explores the potential of a constructivist approach, emphasising flexibility and context awareness, and presents a framework for understanding and evaluating SAI systems, components of an evolving methodology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While systems engineers and philosophers of technology have analysed failure in artefacts, the nature of failure in sociotechnical systems has been largely underdeveloped. Sociotechnical systems differ from artefacts in that they are made up of relationships between people and technologies, and this difference means that failure needs a different analysis. In this article, we provide an account of two kinds of malfunctioning in sociotechnical systems. To accomplish this, we draw on resources from the disciplines of Human Factors, Systems Engineering, and Philosophy of Technology. We offer an account of two kinds of malfunction that are not only dependent on functions but also on roles of people involved in the functioning of sociotechnical systems. Hence, we aim to broaden the discourse of malfunctions in sociotechnical systems in terms of relations (relational roles). Primarily, we address two roles of users and operators and show how these different roles involve different kinds of malfunctions. Specifically, we highlight that two kinds of malfunctions can occur in sociotechnical systems: ambiguity-based failure and expectation-based failure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The contribution of the philosophy of technology is based on a reflection on the nature of artifacts, their knowledge and the normative conditions linked to their production and use, with a discussion on the realism/anti-realism of artificial classes according to the functional theory and the historical-intentional theory of artifacts. At the same time, questions of functional knowledge and the epistemic privilege of the knowledge that makers have of their products are addressed. Finally, the discussion of artifacts as value-bearers and their normative dimension of technique is analyzed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Philósophos is the property of Revista Philosophos and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista Philósophos is the property of Revista Philosophos and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Journal for Technology in Theory & Practice / Zeitschrift für Technikfolgenabschätzung in Theorie und Praxis (TATuP) is the property of Oekom Verlag GmbH and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Pós: Revista do Programa de POS-Graduacao Em Artes - EBA/UFMG is the property of Pos - Programa de Pos-graduacao em Artes (PPG-Artes) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article considers the Turing test as a problem of communication, particularly by asking how the language of artificial intelligence (AI) appears to human experience in comparison to the language of the Other. This question is approached through Levinas' philosophy, by considering the possibility of AI as an absolute alterity, rather than reducing its alterity to the Same. This perspective diverges from traditional accounts of AI, which are more concerned with identifying structures of consciousness in the machine that are analogous to those evident in firsthand experience. This article asks how exactly AI appears to human consciousness, and whether this appearance precludes the appearance of AI as a thinking-being. In the final analysis, the author argues that AI diverges from Levinas' understanding of alterity, which centers around the exteriority of the Other. The alterity of AI, in contrast, centers around anteriority, defined as the appearance of language's origin-in-itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his article ‘The Metaverse: Surveillant Physics, Virtual Realist Governance, and the Missing Commons,’ Andrew McStay addresses an entwinement of ethical, political, and metaphysical concerns surrounding the Metaverse, arguing that the Metaverse is not being designed to further the public good but is instead being created to serve the plutocratic ends of technology corporations. He advances the notion of ‘surveillant physics’ to capture this insight and introduces the concept of ‘virtual realist governance’ as a theoretical framework that ought to guide Metaverse design and regulation. This commentary article primarily serves as a supplementary piece rather than a direct critique of McStay’s work. First, I flag certain understated or overlooked nuances in McStay’s discussion. Then, I extend McStay’s discussion by juxtaposing a Lockean inspired argument supporting the property rights of Metaverse creators with an opposing argument advocating for a Metaverse user's ‘right to virtual abundance,’ informed by the potential of virtual reality technology to eliminate scarcity in virtual worlds. Contrasting these arguments highlights the tension between corporate rights and social justice in the governance of virtual worlds and bears directly on McStay’s assertion that there is a problem of the missing commons in the early design of the Metaverse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most accounts of responsibility focus on one type of responsibility, moral responsibility, or address one particular aspect of moral responsibility such as agency. This article outlines a broader framework to think about responsibility that includes causal responsibility, relational responsibility, and what I call "narrative responsibility" as a form of "hermeneutic responsibility", connects these notions of responsibility with different kinds of knowledge, disciplines, and perspectives on human being, and shows how this framework is helpful for mapping and analysing how artificial intelligence (AI) challenges human responsibility and sense-making in various ways. Mobilizing recent hermeneutic approaches to technology, the article argues that next to, and interwoven with, other types of responsibility such as moral responsibility, we also have narrative and hermeneutic responsibility—in general and for technology. For example, it is our task as humans to make sense of, with and, if necessary, against AI. While from a posthumanist point of view, technologies also contribute to sense-making, humans are the experiencers and bearers of responsibility and always remain in charge when it comes to this hermeneutic responsibility. Facing and working with a world of data, correlations, and probabilities, we are nevertheless condemned to make sense. Moreover, this also has a normative, sometimes even political aspect: acknowledging and embracing our hermeneutic responsibility is important if we want to avoid that our stories are written elsewhere—through technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A central issue in postphenomenology is how to explain the multistability of technologies: how can it be that specific technologies can be used for a wide variety of purposes (the "multi"), while not for all purposes (the "stability")? For example, a table can be used for the purpose of sleeping, having dinner at, or even for staging a fencing match, but not for baking a cake. One explanation offered in the literature is that the (material) design of a technology puts constraints on the purposes for which technologies can be used. In this paper, I argue that such an explanation—while partly correct—fails to address the role of the environment in which human beings operate in putting constraints on technology use. I suggest that James Gibson's affordance theory helps highlighting how stabilities in technology use arise in the interaction between human being and environment. Building on more recent approaches in affordance theory, I suggest that the environment can be conceptualized as a "rich landscape of affordances" that solicits certain actions, which are not just cued by the environment's material structure, but also by the normativity present in the form of life in which a human being participates. I briefly contrast the approach to affordances developed in this paper with how Klenk (2020) and Tollon (2021) have conceptualized the "affordance character" of technological artifacts, and highlight how a focus on the situated nature of affordances augments these earlier conceptualizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last three decades, a cultural perspective has been used to understand scientific knowledge and technology. This relatively new perspective has introduced literature on the ethical dimension to the development of technology, which are embedded in techniques, tools and artifacts. Today, more than ever, there is an urgent need to comprehend the global ramifications of modernization. In this paper, we make an attempt to look at science and technology based on culture, wisdom, ecology and ethical values. We move towards reviewing and consolidating significant literature on philosophy of technology and culture within contemporary times. Furthermore, this article touches upon the transformative power of technologies in relation to modernity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many philosophers of science and technology who see themselves as coming "after" Husserl also claim that their phenomenology is hermeneutical. Yet they neither practice the same sort of phenomenology, nor do they all have the same understanding of hermeneutics. Moreover, their differences often seem to be more a function of different pre-selected substantive commitments—say, to take a "material" turn or to be resolutely "empirical"—than the product of any serious effort to clarify what it is be hermeneutical. In this essay, after some discussion of Dilthey's reception among post-Husserlians (especially Patrick Heelan and Don Ihde), I consider how aspiring hermeneuts might make their own pre-possession of substantive and methodological commitments a hermeneutical topic. This is, of course, is not just a scholarly question of how post-Husserlian phenomenologists might make themselves more phenomenological. Without thoughtful self-awareness of these commitments, one's assumptions about the use of technology, design, the place of science in the larger culture and in relation to conceptions of human flourishing—all of these assumptions are likely to pass through into technoscientific practice with insufficient critical consideration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How should we understand postphenomenological methodology? Postphenomenology is a research perspective which builds on phenomenological and pragmatist philosophy to explore human–technology relations, but one with open methodological questions. Here, I offer some thoughts on the epistemological processes that should be (and often implicitly may be) at work in this research. In particular, I am concerned with postphenomenological research on technological "multistability," i.e., a device's ever-present capacity to be used for a variety of purposes, and to always be meaningful in multiple ways. I develop a methodology called "variational cross-examination," which entails the critical contrast of a device's various stabilities. As a set of instructive examples, I draw on my own line of research on the politics of public spaces, and especially the critique of anti-homeless design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]