The Western school classroom can no longer remain a secluded and impermeable space in a world that is increasingly hyperconnected through dynamic flows of capital, technologies, populations, media images and ideas. Books brought to the school by diverse students, narratives from far-away countries and YouTube tunes from different cultures can become powerful teaching and learning tools in this frame. Such tools enable multiple metaphors and connections between various life spheres, diverse cultural and socio-economic milieus, and different times and places, as (...) manifested in the thought-provoking ethnographic observation on ‘The book and the author’s reading’ by Elise v. Bernstorff and Carla J. Maier. (shrink)

Despite the importance of knowing the cognitive capabilities of children with neurodevelopmental conditions, less than one-third of children with cerebral palsy participate in standardized assessments. Globally, approximately 50% of people with cerebral palsy have an intellectual disability and there is significant risk for domain-specific cognitive impairments for the majority of people with cerebral palsy. However, standardized cognitive assessment tools are not accessible to many children with cerebral palsy, as they require manual manipulation of objects, verbal response and/or speeded response. As (...) such, standardised assessment may result in an underestimation of abilities for children with significant motor and/or speech impairment. The overall aim of the project is to examine and compare the psychometric properties of standardised cognitive assessment tools that have been accommodated for use with either a switch device or eye-gaze control technologies, with the specific aims to: Examine the psychometric properties of accommodated assessment tools by comparing the performance of typically developing children on six cognitive assessment tools administered via standardised versus accommodated administration; Describe and compare the performance and user experience of children with cerebral palsy on six accommodated cognitive assessments administered via switch or eye-gaze control technologies. Secondary aims are to: Describe the completion rates and time to complete assessments of participants in each group; Within the group with cerebral palsy, examine the effects of condition-specific characteristics and demographics on participation. This protocol paper describes a two-phase validation and acceptability study that utilizes a mixed-model design. This study will collect concurrent data from 80 typically developing children and 40 children with cerebral palsy, who use switch or eye-gaze control technology as alternate access communication methods. The set of instruments will measure receptive vocabulary, fluid reasoning, sustained attention, vision perception, visuospatial working memory and executive functions. Data analyses will be conducted using SPSS v. 25 and R v 4.1.0. SPSS Sample Power 3 was used for power computation and allows for a 10% drop out rate. Quantitative descriptive statistics, measurement agreement data plotting, bivariate and multiple regressions analysis will be conducted using appropriate methods. (shrink)

Power, dominance, and hierarchy are prevalent analytical terms in social studies of health care. Power is often seen as residing in medical structures, institutions, discourses, or ideologies. While studies of medical power often draw on Michel Foucault, this understanding is quite different from his proposal to study in detail the “strategies, the networks, the mechanisms, all those techniques by which a decision is accepted” [Foucault, M. (1988). In Politics, philosophy, culture: Interviews and other writings 1977–84 (pp. 96–109). (...) New York: Routledge]. This suggestion turns power into a topic worth investigating in its own right rather than a basic analytical resource. It also suggests that technologies form an integral part of the networks and mechanisms, which produce and redistribute power in medical practice. The paper first engages critically with a number of recent discussions of technology and power in health care analysis. It then formulates an alternative conception of this relationship by drawing on Foucault and historian of science and technology Geoffrey C. Bowker’s notions of infrastructural inversion and information mythology. Illustration is provided through a case study of a wireless nursing call system in a Canadian hospital. (shrink)

High-profile political scandals are symptomatic of a profound transformation of the relations between public and private life that has accompanied and helped to shape the development of modern societies. While the distinction between public and private life is not unique to modern societies, the emergence of new media of communication, from print to radio, television and the internet, has altered the very nature of the public, the private and the relations between them. Both the public and the private have been (...) reconstituted as spheres of information and symbolic content that are largely detached from physical locales and increasingly interwoven with evolving technologies of communication, creating a very fluid situation in which the boundaries between public and private are blurred, porous, contestable and subject to constant negotiation and struggle. The shifting boundaries between public and private life have become a new battleground in modern societies, a contested terrain where individuals and organizations wage a new kind of information war, a terrain where established relations of power can be challenged and disrupted, lives damaged and reputations sometimes lost. (shrink)

Approaches to programming ethical behavior for computer systems face challenges that are both technical and philosophical in nature. In response, an incrementalist account of machine ethics is developed: a successive adaptation of programmed constraints to new, morally relevant abilities in computers. This approach allows progress under conditions of limited knowledge in both ethics and computer systems engineering and suggests reasons that we can circumvent broader philosophical questions about computer intelligence and autonomy.

In this paper, we focus attention on the role of computer system complexity in ascribing responsibility. We begin by introducing the notion of technological moral action (TMA). TMA is carried out by the combination of a computer system user, a system designer (developers, programmers, and testers), and a computer system (hardware and software). We discuss three sometimes overlapping types of responsibility: causal responsibility, moral responsibility, and role responsibility. Our analysis is informed by the well-known accounts provided by Hart and Hart (...) and Honoré. While these accounts are helpful, they have misled philosophers and others by presupposing that responsibility can be ascribed in all cases of action simply by paying attention to the free and intended actions of human beings. Such accounts neglect the part played by technology in ascriptions of responsibility in cases of moral action with technology. For both moral and role responsibility, we argue that ascriptions of both causal and role responsibility depend on seeing action as complex in the sense described by TMA. We conclude by showing how our analysis enriches moral discourse about responsibility for TMA. (shrink)

This chapter is reprinted from our lead essay in the Encyclopedia of Science, Technology, and Ethics, ed. C. Mitcham, Gale, 2005.

This research is conducted by the Intellectual Property and Policy Research Group at the W. Maurice Young Centre for Applied Ethics at the University of British Columbia. It is part of the GE3LS component of the Genome Canada Project "Dissecting Gene Expression Networks in Mammalian Organogenesis," MORGEN, which is located principally at the British Columbia Cancer Agency, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The project is involved in upstream, basic genomic research. Part of this work includes the characterization of gene regulatory mechanisms (...) governing organogenesis with a special focus on the heart, liver and pancreas. This paper serves as an introduction to both the MORGEN case study and the role of alternative mechanisms, such as open source. We discuss interim research results as they relate to our broader study of the relationship between open science, commercialization and technology transfer offices. The role of technology transfer offices is central to our analysis and is viewed as a key factor in implementing Genome Canada policies and principles associated with IP and commercialization. (shrink)

The coming decades will present an immense challenge for the planet: sustainably feeding nearly ten billion people that are expected to be alive by 2050. This is no small task, and one that intersects with climate change, geopolitics, the increased globalization of agricultural markets, and the emergence of new technologies. The world faces a challenge of increased demand, propelled by an expanding world population and a global shift in dietary patterns toward more resource-intensive foods. Moreover, changes in demand occur in (...) the context of declining soil fertility and freshwater availability, agriculture's growing contribution to water pollution and climate change, and the emerging threats to agricultural productivity caused by climate disruption. (shrink)

Although overarching if not foundational conceptualizations of digital governance in the field of critical data studies aptly account for and explain subjection, calculated resistance is left conceptually unattended despite case studies that document instances of resistance. I ask at the outset why conceptualizations of digital governance are so bleak, and I argue that all are underscored implicitly by a Deleuzian theory of desire that overlooks agency, defined here in Foucauldian terms. I subsequently conceptualize digital governance as encompassing subjection as well (...) as resistance, and I cast the two in relational perspective by making use of the concepts “affordance” and “assemblage” in conjunction with multiple subjectivities and Foucault's view of power as productive as well as his view of resistance as an “antagonism of strategies” in his late scholarship on resistance, ethics, and subjectivity. I offer examples of salient modes of what I call “productive” resistance, and from a Foucauldian perspective I explain how each mode targets and subverts technologies of repressive power to produce new elements of the digital environment and construct new truths. I conclude by recognizing the agency embodied in resistance as an end in itself, but I also consider that modes of productive resistance can have extrinsic value as they affect the fluid interaction among elements of the digital environment, potentially disrupting the presumed structure of dominance and dependence, and opening our conceptualization of algorithmic life to hopeful possibilities for change. (shrink)

Beginning with the well-knowncyber-rape in LambdaMOO, I argue that it ispossible to have real moral wrongs in virtualcommunities. I then generalize the account toshow how it applies to interactions in gamingand discussion communities. My account issupported by a view of moral realism thatacknowledges entities like intentions andcausal properties of actions. Austin's speechact theory is used to show that real people canact in virtual communities in ways that bothestablish practices and moral expectations, andwarrant strong identifications betweenthemselves and their online identities. Rawls'conception (...) of a social practice is used toanalyze the nature of the wrong and thestage-setting aspect of engaging in a practice. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The technological revolution has created enormous opportunities for the provision of affordable, accessible, and flexible mental healthcare. Yet it also creates complexities and ethical challenges. While some of these challenges may be similar to face-to-face care, their nuance in the online milieu is different, as relationships, identities and boundaries in this setting are fluid, and there is an absence of physical presence. In this paper we consider the specific ethical complexities involved in the provision of a social networking (...) intervention for depression and problematic alcohol use involving providers and peers. We present a case in which clinicians encountered a participant who repeatedly expressed suicidal thoughts in this online forum, and reflect on how this situation was managed. In analyzing this case, we use relational ethics—which proposes that interpersonal relationships are the fulcrum for ethical decision-making and action—together with actor-network theory—which highlights the power of technology to transform and mediate social and ethical relationships. Our analysis demonstrates the need to move beyond human-centric approaches, to recognize the role of both human and non-human actors in shaping moral decisions and behavior in the provision of e-mental healthcare. (shrink)

This book features papers from CEPE-IACAP 2015, a joint international conference focused on the philosophy of computing. Inside, readers will discover essays that explore current issues in epistemology, philosophy of mind, logic, and philosophy of science from the lens of computation. Coverage also examines applied issues related to ethical, social, and political interest. -/- The contributors first explore how computation has changed philosophical inquiry. Computers are now capable of joining humans in exploring foundational issues. Thus, we can ponder machine-generated explanation, (...) thought, agency, and other quite fascinating concepts. The papers are also concerned with normative aspects of the computer and information technology revolution. They examine technology-specific analyses of key challenges, from Big Data to autonomous robots to expert systems for infrastructure control and financial services. -/- The virtue of a collection that ranges over philosophical questions, such as this one does, lies in the prospects for a more integrated understanding of issues. These are early days in the partnership between philosophy and information technology. Philosophers and researchers are still sorting out many foundational issues. They will need to deploy all of the tools of philosophy to establish this foundation. This volume admirably showcases those tools in the hands of some excellent scholars. -/- . (shrink)

It is critical to remember details about meetings with healthcare providers. Forgetting could result in inadequate knowledge about ones' health, non-adherence with treatments, and poorer health outcomes. Hearing the health care provider plays a crucial role in consolidating information for recall. The recent COVID-19 pandemic has meant a rapid transition to videoconference-based medicine, here described as telehealth. When using telehealth speech must be filtered and compressed, and research has shown that degraded speech is more challenging to remember. Here we present (...) preliminary results from a study that compared memory for health information provided in-person to telehealth. The data collection for this study was stopped due to the pandemic, but the preliminary results are interesting because the pandemic forced a rapid transition to telehealth. To examine a potential memory deficit for health information provided through telehealth, we presented older and younger adults with instructions on how to use two medical devices. One set of instructions was presented in-person, and the other through telehealth. Participants were asked to recall the instructions immediately after the session, and again after a 1-week delay. Overall, the number of details recalled was significantly lower when instructions were provided by telehealth, both immediately after the session and after a 1-week delay. It is likely that a mix of technological and communication strategies by the healthcare provider could reduce this telehealth memory deficit. Given the rapid transition to telehealth due to COVID-19, highlighting this deficit and providing potential solutions are timely and of utmost importance. (shrink)

In the last forty years, significant developments in neuroscience, psychology, and robotic technology have been cause for major trend changes in the philosophy of mind. One such shift has been the reallocation of focus from entirely brain-centered theories of mind to more embodied, embedded, and even extended answers to the questions, what are cognitive processes and where do we find such phenomena? Given that hypotheses such as Clark and Chalmers‘ (1998) Extended Mind or Hutto‘s (2006) Radical Enactivism, systematically undermine (...) the organism-bound, internal, and static pictures of minds and allow instead for the distribution of cognitive processes among brains, bodies, and worlds, a worry that arises is that the very subject of cognitive science, the ‗cognizer‘ will be hopelessly opaque, its mind leaking out into the world all over the place, thereby making it impossible to rein in and properly study. A seemingly unrelated and yet parallel trend has also taken place in feminist theorizing about the body over the last forty years. Whereas feminism of the 1970s and early 1980s tended to view ‗the body‘ as the site and matter of biological sex, while gender was a more fluid and socially constituted mode of existence, more recent feminist theory has questioned the givenness of bodies themselves. In other words, rather than seeing gender categories as manifestations of the already given sexed body, thinkers such as Butler (2000) and Lorber (1992) argue that the very notion of a body is often a product of scientific inquiry, which is itself a product of the power structures aiming to maintain a rigid binary between feminine and masculine gender roles. If the world at large plays such a constitutive role in determining who we are, then this implies that the tools we use, the language we speak, and the power relationships in which we are enmeshed are components of what it means to be embodied in any genuine sense. For thinkers like Haraway (1988) the image of the cyborg is most fitting for this new understanding of embodied subjects, as the cyborg is a coupling of machine and human. Gender and even biological sex will always be a technologically hybridized ‗monster‘ consisting of matter, machine, and mind. The overall aim of my project is thus to bring the two concurrent developments in theorizing about embodied subjects into discourse. As the cyborg features largely in recent feminist thought about embodiment, so too has it been a prominent metaphor in philosophy of mind, ever since Clark (2003) claimed that we ought to think of our ‗selves‘ more appropriately as Natural-Born Cyborgs. I therefore focus on this imagery as I go on to make the argument that this distributed account of cognition as well as of sexual identity is more fruitful for making progress in understanding ‗the human‘ more generally. Likewise, I argue that bringing the discussion of sex and gender into the arena of an otherwise asexual philosophy of mind, will shed light on some important facets of embodiment that have been overlooked but that ought to be addressed if we are to have an adequate account of ‗the proper subject of cognitive science.‘ My chapters include 1) a survey of the discourse between science and philosophy of mind leading to these embodied and extended approaches, 2) a first attempt at defending the extended mind thesis, 3) a discussion of how even the supposed resolution to the objections raised against extended cognition fails to properly take into account just how problematic subjectivity is, regardless of its being defined entirely organismic or not, as organisms themselves are highly malleable and socially constituted, 4) an explanation concerning how the same problematization of embodied subjectivity is ongoing in feminist theory, especially considering the phenomenology of transgendered embodiment, intersex, and technologically mediated bodies, 5) further elaboration on technologically enhanced bodies, exposing what I see as a continuum between bodies modified by ‗hard‘ technologies, such as implants, prostheses or surgeries, and those modified by ‗soft‘ technologies, such as gender norms, the social gaze, and technologically mediated metacognition, and last, 6) an argument for the image of the cyborg to replace ‗organism‘ in cognitive science, along with the corollary argument that cyborgs ought to represent not just embodied minds, but should also be the metaphor in attempting to understand ‗embodiment‘ more generally, which must, at its roots, be underpinned by gender and sexual identity. I argue that the imagery is fitting for the proper study of cognitive subjects as well as sexed and gendered bodies, but moreover, that just as the cyborg suggests a blending and hybridizing of seemingly unrelated elements, so too should the two areas of inquiry, philosophy of mind and feminist theory, pay heed to one another‘s use of this imagery and themselves begin to be more integrative in their approaches. (shrink)

The subject of the interface -- The interface as form of relation -- Between faces and facing between -- The interface and the surface -- Toward a theory of the interface -- Janus and Jupiter -- Control and power -- The interface and the apparatus -- The interface and the game -- The interface and the machine -- Separation and augmentation -- Mimicry in the game and the interface -- The forming of the interface -- The interface as that (...) which defines the fluid -- Turbulence and control -- The exacting of turbulence -- The demons on the threshold -- Theories of the vortex -- Information and entropy -- Governance and reciprocity -- The interface and teleology -- The turbine as superimposition of fluid and machine -- The vertiginous moment of interface -- The augmentation of the interface -- A genius of augmentation -- The tacit knowing of the interface -- Singularity -- Symbiosis -- System -- Positioning. (shrink)

This book aims to offer an empirically-informed philosophical framework for understanding the technological construction of power, allowing for a differentiated vocabulary for describing various senses of technological power, while bridging together social and political theory, critical studies of technology, philosophy and ethics of technology.

This paper will investigate the intersection between fascism and social media communication. Drawing from Christian Fuchs’s notion of digital fascism and placing it in dialogue with other Marxist literature, the paper will argue that the state retains a centering role in the organization of fascism as against the post-organizational position which highlights its ambivalent, fluid, and decentered character. The paper will further argue that the propagandistic character of fascism requires it to instrumentalize technical specifications of communications technologies. What (digital) (...) fascism instrumentalizes today is what will be developed as the omnipresence of communication, primarily supported by the complexities of today’s internet powered social media. The paper will examine fascism as it has taken place in the Duterte-Marcos Jr. fascist continuity in the Philippines. The paper will conclude by proposing a kind of anti- fascism that goes beyond the ecosystems of the social media, reiterating both technical as well as socio-political transformations required to overcome fascism. (shrink)

This essay presents a theory of the role of technology in the distribution and exercise of social power. The paper studies how technical artefacts and systems are used to construct, maintain or strengthen power relations between agents, whether individuals or groups, and how their introduction and use in society differentially empowers and disempowers agents. The theory is developed in three steps. First, a definition of power is proposed, based on a careful discussion of opposing definitions of (...) power, and it is argued that a theory of power should have two components: a theory of power relations and a theory of empowerment. Second, an analysis of power relations is presented, in which five basic types of power relations between agents are distinguished, and this analysis is applied to technology, resulting in an account of the possible roles of technical artefacts in power relations. Third, I analyse how technology can lead to or contribute to empowerment and disempowerment, and what resistance strategies are possible against disempowerment through technological means. The theory of technology and power presented in this paper is claimed to be an essential ingredient of a critical theory of technology, which is a theory that analyses and critiques the role of technology in the distribution and exercise of power in society. In the final section of this paper, it is argued that the theoretical analysis of power and technology presented in this paper provides an adequate basis for the further development of such a critical theory of technology. I study how it may, specifically, be used to develop strategies for the democratization of technology. (shrink)

This paper traces the origins of two technological trajectories in the contemporary history of wind power technology: the American Smith-Putnam Wind Turbine and the Danish Gedser Wind Turbine. Describing the two wind turbine projects in terms of their technical design characteristics, the professional background of the individuals involved, the organizational features of the technological knowledge production, and the historical context, the paper builds on the notion of technological trajectories in the making as a means of identifying emerging selection (...) mechanisms for possible engineering problem solutions, scientific methods, material artifacts, and financial assessment techniques. Conceived during the Great Depression and World War II, respectively, both projects promoted the idea that wind power could make a cost-effective contribution to the existing electric utility system. The two projects resulted in distinctive wind turbine innovations that paved the way for two technological trajectories in the contemporary history of wind power. Studying the emergence of technological trajectories, it is argued, requires the historian of technology to attend to well-known features of technological design and its cultural context that in retrospect appear to be significant, but also to tackle the creation of novelty and the inevitability of technological uncertainties about which the logic of trajectories has little to say. (shrink)

In this era of terabytes and big data, the field of digital culture and art is witnessing an emergence of dystopian lines of criticism denouncing new forms of programmed governmentality and ubiquitous surveillance, placing societies, lifestyles and the human psyche under the control of algorithms. These criticisms are so negative because they start from a belief of human autonomy from technology. To examine the other side of this argument, this article aims to discuss the coevolution of humans and (...) class='Hi'>technology. To accomplish this aim, the article is based on the writings and practice of the artist and theorist Roy Ascott, in whose work can be found the most original and significant conceptual sources for the defence of this thesis. (shrink)

The debate over the civilian use of nuclear power is highly polarised. We argue that a reasonable response to this deep disagreement is to maintain that advocates of both camps should modify their positions. According to the analysis we propose, nuclear power is neither entirely right nor entirely wrong, but rather right and wrong to some degree. We are aware that this non-binary analysis of nuclear power is controversial from a theoretical point of view. Utilitarians, Kantians, and (...) other moral theorists make sharp, binary distinctions between right and wrong acts. However, an important argument speaking in favour of our non-binary analysis is that it better reflects our considered intuitions about the ethical trade-offs we face in discussions of nuclear power. The aim of this article is to make this argument sharp by explaining how it can be rendered compatible with, and supported by, the Capability Approach, which is quickly becoming one of the most influential frameworks for thinking about human development. (shrink)

During the Covid-19 pandemic, considerable scholarly attention has been paid to the proliferation of conspiracy theories and their potential impacts. How and why digital media has facilitated the production, consumption, and distribution of such discourses as ‘truth’ remains largely neglected in the literature though. This paper explores this process through a transdisciplinary methodology designed to investigate legitimation in digital spaces. Based on a theoretical bridge between Beetham’s theory of legitimation and KhosraviNik’s principle that visibility-equals-legitimacy, the Multimodal Critical Affect-Discourse Analysis of (...) an audio-visual performance of the 5G conspiracy theory exposes how it has been simultaneously legitimized through authoritative performance and visibility. An interview given by the notorious conspiracy theorist David Icke, in which he associates the pandemic with 5G technology, was used as a case study because it was widely consumed and reproduced as ‘truth’, leading media companies to take unprecedented action against conspiracy theories. Besides contributing to existing debates on conspiracy theories, this paper offers new directions for the critical analysis of legitimation and power, acknowledging the fluid and diffuse nature of power in network societies and illuminating how meanings, beliefs, and affects have been manipulated by multiple actors to achieve consent and motivate collaborative authorship. (shrink)

Cumulative technological culture can be defined as the progressive diversification, complexification, and enhancement of technological traits through generations. An outstanding issue is to specify the cognitive bases of this phenomenon. Based on the literature, we identified four potential cognitive factors: namely, theory-of-mind, technical-reasoning, creativity, and fluid-cognitive skills. The goal of the present study was to test which of these factors—or a combination thereof—best predicted the cumulative performance in two experimental, micro-society conditions differing in the nature of the interaction allowed (...) between participants. The task was to build the highest possible tower. Participants were also assessed on the four aforementioned cognitive factors in order to predict cumulative performance and attractiveness. Our findings indicate that technical-reasoning skills are the best predictor of cumulative performance, even if their role may be restricted to the specific technological domain. Theory-of-mind skills may have a facilitator role, particularly in the Communication condition. Creativity can also help in the generation of novel ideas, but it is not sufficient to support innovation. Finally, fluid cognition is not involved in cumulative technological culture. Taken together, these findings suggest that domain-specific knowledge remains critical for explaining cumulative technological culture. (shrink)

The rapid spread of electronic fingerprinting not only creates new regimes of surveillance but compels users to adopt novel ways of performing their bodies to suit the new technology. This ethnography uses two Indian case studies – of a welfare office and a workplace – to unpack the processes by which biometric devices become effective tools for determining identity. While in the popular imaginary biometric technology is often associated with providing disinterested and thus objective evaluation of identity, in (...) practice ‘failures to enrol’ and ‘false rejects’ frequently cause crises of representation. People address these by tinkering with their bodies and changing the rules, and in the process craft biometric bodies. These are assembled bodies that link people and objects in ways considered advantageous for specific identity regimes. By using assemblage theory, the article proposes an alternative interpretation of new surveillance regimes as fluid practices that solidify through the agency of multiple actors who naturalize particular power/knowledge arrangements. (shrink)

This special issue explores the power that images with a techno-scientific content can have in international relations. As we introduce the articles in the collection, we highlight how the study of this influence extends current research in the separate (but increasingly interacting) domains of history of science and technology, and political science. We then show how images of different types (photographs, cartoons and plots) can inform inter-state transactions through their public appeal alongside the better-studied dialogic practices of the (...) diplomatic arena. Finally, we offer an analysis of the interlacing of different diplomatic tracks based on words and images and conclude that, in contrast with words, images conflate agency and argument, therefore creating opportunities to inform transactions and negotiations which their designers may not have even intended. (shrink)

(1990). Science, technology and bureaucracy: From the discourse of power to the power of discourse. World Futures: Vol. 28, Cross-Cultural Dialogue, pp. 183-201.

IntroductionLarge corporations—from Apple to Volkswagen—are powerful; whereas their customers are much less powerful. But many observers believe that information and communication technologies are giving consumers weapons to level the playing field. Is this really true?From Theory to the Reality of Economic PowerTechnology and economic power share one characteristic: economic theory has long ignored them.Starting with the industrial revolution, technology has been the first driver of economic growth. But it is only a couple of centuries later that economic theory (...) gave it the place it deserves—as an engine of economic cycles.In classical economic theory, economic power did not exist. Market mechanisms excluded it—many suppliers sell to many buyers without any mutual influence and without any say on price. The only exception was monopolies, and their power was evil.The emergence of the modern corporation, the multiplication of oligopolies, and the Depression were all needed to slowly dem. (shrink)

The paper aims to explore the phenomenon of the spread in democracy of new powers – produced by inexhaustible technological developments – from the perspective of the philosophy of Institutions. It traces the original idea of democracy, in which the «government of the people» arises from the conversion of natural liberty into social and political liberty, dwells on the political and juridical meaning of authority, analyses the traditional instruments used to condition human opinions and behaviours, and reconstructs – in light (...) of this itinerary – the functioning and new grammar of the digital order. What opens before us is a fluid and disorganized scenario, dominated by digital systems, algorithms and artificial intelligence, that draws the attention of philosophers and sociologists, jurists and scholars of language and of anthropology. The old single order, outlined by the political and juridical machine of the modern State – which, through an aloof and solemn language, aimed to impart regularity to human behaviour and to give society direction – is replaced by multifarious models of order, each of which is generated by its own logic, practices, and autonomous control techniques. Under the omnipotence of technology, concepts such as authority, liberty, truth and power undergo a vortex of semantic transformations that penetrate a new symbolic space into human reasoning and actions. (shrink)

The power trading system has the characteristics of nonlinearity, dynamics, and complexity. Part of the business data in the trading system needs to be exposed to numerous external business systems. The traditional centralized power trading model has some problems, such as low data security and trust crisis of regulators. Blockchain technology provides prominent ideas for solving these problems. Firstly, the improved AdaBoost algorithm is used to predict the supply and demand gap of power trading nodes. Secondly, (...) based on the fact that the information on the blockchain is only open to the power supply side, a two-stage game model of asymmetric information between the power supply side and the power user is constructed to capture the price competition behavior between them in order to find the Nash equilibrium price in two stages. Finally, the US PJM market electricity market data are used to carry out an example analysis to verify the effectiveness of the algorithm and model. (shrink)

The emergence of new technologies regularly involves comparisons with previous innovations. For instance, analogies with asbestos and genetically modified organisms have played a crucial role in the early societal debate about nanotechnology. This article explores the power of analogies in such debates and how they could be effectively and responsibly employed for imagining and governing emerging technologies in general and nanotechnology in particular. First, the concept of analogical imagination is developed to capture the explorative and anticipatory potential of analogies. (...) Yet analogies do not simply stimulate imagination, they also restrict it by framing emerging technologies in specific ways. Thus, second, the article argues that tracing the rhetorical and persuasive power of analogical arguments is essential for understanding how analogies are constructed to legitimise assessments, funding policies, and governance approaches. Third, the article addresses factors that account for the persuasiveness of analogies in debates about emerging technologies. The article concludes with reflections on how analogical imagination and an enhanced analogical sensibility for framing and persuasive effects can foster responsible research and innovation. (shrink)

When Durkheim (1933) wrote that the introduction of technologies had produced “profound changes... in the structure of our societies in a very short time”, he was warning against the unqualified acceptance of rapid technological change before a knowledge base had had time to develop from the existing values and shared experiences of individuals. This paper will consider how the technologising of society, in the context of work, is at once a suppression of knowledge and a reaffirmation of its power. (...) Interpretive analysis of office-based employees in three organisations reveals how the abstraction, the alienation, the anomie that disorientates, invades, isolates and ultimately separates individuals from the conditions of their work, are symptoms of this assault on knowledge. Paradoxically, the analysis also disputes the pre-eminence of this view. It considers the technologising of society to be establishing a prevailing knowledge base that provides a range of new opportunities for not only communicating at work, but also increasing mobility within and without the workplace, raising employment prospects, and nurturing a greater sense of self-sufficiency, accountability and responsibility. This paper contends that these are factors, which indicate that the technologising of society, by cultivating fresh sources of knowledge, is also empowering individuals through the facilitation of new autonomous working practices. (shrink)

Technology is an increasingly important dimension of social life. This title discusses the impact of technology and science on our lives, exploring how power is demonstrated and reinforced by technological innovation.

Implicit in the value sensitive design (VSD) approach is a concern for understanding, and where possible, disrupting problematic power relationships. Yet an awareness of the issues and ethics of power relations is a pre-requisite for such a concern to bear fruit. This article provides some insight into the issues, and through a case study of technology design to support care arrangements for age-related cognitive decline, illustrates how finding a satisfactory resolution can be particularly troublesome.

The ideal of “freedom-as-omnipotence” pointed out by Daya Krishna in its interpretation of the Yogasūtra is undoubtedly present throughout the history of yoga. This ideal of omnipotence is also at the basis of the contemporary transhumanist program through the ideal of human perfection, and there are already transhumanist versions that defend the use of meditative techniques from India as complements to a program of human enhancement. In this essay I argue that transhumanism and bioliberalism seek to free us from biological (...) conditioning at the cost of making us more and more dependent on science and technology, presenting a sort of “derivative freedom” that many premodern yogas would never accept. Instead, contemporary yogas, which no longer contemplate the ideal of yogic powers, are much more amenable to the idea of human enhancement through external devices, partly because they have adopted diluted versions of the models of freedom advocated in premodern yogas. We are already witnessing the evolution of a post-human yoga in which technological devices are incorporated into the practice and virtual practice communities are created, some even made up of avatar-practitioners, in which the human factor is progressively lost.Finally, ChatGPT takes issue with some of the ideas in this essay for reasons that ChatGPT’s own existence contradicts. While offering me detailed postural yoga routines, it reminds me that the “spiritual component” of yoga is important and concludes that the alliance between yoga and technology will pose a great challenge to the “yogic community” of the 21st century. (shrink)

New biotechnologies have the potential to both dramatically improve human well-being and dramatically widen inequalities in well-being. This paper addresses a question that lies squarely on the fault line of these two claims: When as a matter of justice are societies obligated to include a new biotechnology in a national healthcare system? This question is approached from the standpoint of a twin aim theory of justice, in which social structures, including nation-states, have double-barreled theoretical objectives with regard to human well-being. (...) The first aim is to achieve a sufficient level of well-being in each of six core dimensions. In the special case of healthcare systems, this aim is focally but not exclusively attentive to achieving health sufficiency as one of the core dimensions. The second aim is to combat the emergence and persistence of densely woven patterns of systematic disadvantage that tend to undermine the achievement of a sufficient level of health and the other core elements of well-being of some persons and groups. Judgments about entitlements to health related resources, including new biotechnologies, are made in light of a threshold notion of health sufficiency. What is enough or sufficient health? The answer that is defended here is that sufficient health is enough health for a decent human life, understood as enough health to live a full life course without preventable, significant functional disability or decrement in health, or treatable pain or suffering. When a state must include a new biotechnology in its national healthcare system is also influenced by ancillary concerns about the connection between health and other core dimensions of well-being. What counts as a significant functional impairment or health decrement is thus explicated, in part, in relation to the theory’s sufficiency aim for the other essential dimensions of well-being, and thus for a decent life, overall. Those elements of health that play a critical role in the experience of sufficient reasoning, affiliation, security, respect and self determination are especially important; any loss of health function or capacity that threatens the individual’s prospects for sufficiency in these other dimensions, including the relational egalitiarian concerns they entail, constitutes a significant functional impairment. Within national borders, individuals are thus entitled to those health-related goods and services that are essential for a sufficiency of each of the dimensions of well-being; with regard to self determination and respect, what is sufficient by way of guaranteed access to specific goods and services is going to depend on the implications of such access for where an individual stands in relation to her co-nationals. The content of any entitlement to health-related goods and services is also necessarily dynamic. What can be done for health and the other core dimensions of well-being as a function of technological innovation and diffusion is in constant flux. The paper concludes by considering the implications of this analysis for the conditions under which states are obligated to include access in their healthcare systems to one biotechnology, deep brain stimulation. (shrink)