Online technologies enable vast amounts of data to outlive their producers online, thereby giving rise to a new, digital form of afterlife presence. Although researchers have begun investigating the nature of such presence, academic literature has until now failed to acknowledge the role of commercial interests in shaping it. The goal of this paper is to analyse what those interests are and what ethical consequences they may have. This goal is pursued in three steps. First, we introduce the (...) concept of the Digital Afterlife Industry, and define it as an object of study. Second, we identify the politico-economic interests of the DAI. For this purpose, we develop an analytical approach based on an informational interpretation of Marxian economics. Third, we explain the practical manifestations of the interests using four real life cases. The findings expose the incentives of the DAI to alter what is referred to as the “informational bodies” of the dead, which in turn is to be seen as a violation of the principle of human dignity. To prevent such consequences, we argue that the ethical conventions that guide trade with remains of organic bodies may serve as a good model for future regulation of DAI. (shrink)

The web is increasingly inhabited by the remains of its departed users, a phenomenon that has given rise to a burgeoning digital afterlife industry. This industry requires a framework for dealing with its ethical implications. We argue that the regulatory conventions guiding archaeological exhibitions could provide the basis for such a framework.

To analyze potential negative consequences of adopting generative AI solutions in the digital afterlife industry (DAI), in this paper we present three speculative design scenarios for AI-enabled simulation of the deceased. We highlight the perspectives of the data donor, data recipient, and service interactant – terms we employ to denote those whose data is used to create ‘deadbots,’ those in possession of the donor’s data after their death, and those who are meant to interact with the end (...) product. We draw on the scenarios to map out several key ethical concerns posed by ‘re-creation services’ and to put forward recommendations on the ethical development of AI systems in this specific area of application. The recommendations, targeted at providers of AI-enabled re-creation services, include suggestions for developing sensitive procedures for retiring deadbots, ensuring meaningful transparency, restricting access to such services to adult users only, and adhering to the principle of mutual consent of both data donors and service interactants. While we suggest practical solutions to the socio-ethical challenges posed by the emergence of re-creation services, we also emphasize the importance of ongoing interdisciplinary research at the intersection of the ethics of AI and the ethics of the DAI. (shrink)

This edited volume presents an overview of cutting-edge research areas within digital ethics as defined by the Digital Ethics Lab of the University of Oxford. It identifies new challenges and opportunities of influence in setting the research agenda in the field. The yearbook presents research on the following topics: conceptual metaphor theory, cybersecurity governance, cyber conflicts, anthropomorphism in AI, digital technologies for mental healthcare, data ethics in the asylum process, AI’s legitimacy and democratic deficit, digital (...) class='Hi'>afterlife industry, automatic prayer bots, foresight analysis and the future of AI. This volume appeals to students, researchers and professionals. (shrink)

Critics have raised many moral and legal concerns about posthumous digital avatars. Here my focus instead falls on whether they are likely to enable the bonds with the dead that users apparently yearn for. I conclude that though posthumous avatars can have short-term therapeutic benefits in replicating “habits of intimacy” with the dead, users’ expectations for sustaining long-term bonds with the deceased via posthumous avatars are unlikely to be fulfilled. Posthumous avatars are unlikely to foster the construction of valued (...) memories of the deceased and could in fact impede this process. Furthermore, bonds that develop with posthumous avatars are likely to disappoint users’ expectations for relationships that echo relationships among the living in being temporally dynamic, open-ended, authentic, and mutually shaping. Simply put, users will struggle to sustain living relationships with dead people. Posthumous avatars are therefore likely to prove ill-suited to continue the bonds that the living have with the dead in either of these two forms, especially if a ‘digital afterlife industry’ emerges to commercialize these. (shrink)

The automation of online social life is an urgent issue for researchers and the public alike. However, one of the most significant uses of such technologies seems to have gone largely unnoticed by the research community: religion. Focusing on Islamic Prayer Apps, which automatically post prayers from its users’ accounts, we show that even one such service is already responsible for millions of tweets daily, constituting a significant portion of Arabic-language Twitter traffic. We argue that the fact that a phenomenon (...) of these proportions has gone unnoticed by researchers reveals an opportunity to broaden the scope of the current research agenda on online automation. (shrink)

In this article, I engage with aesthetic experience as a central hermeneutic endeavour for theorising performing arts audiences in the Arab region. I argue that a critical engagement with Arab performing arts audiences’ aesthetic experiences necessitates both an archaeological manoeuver and a re-articulation of two keywords: ‘experience’ and ‘everyday’. The article advances, using evidence from research, that allowing the audiences of performing arts in the Arab region to speak may be a step towards democratising the triangular meaning making process among (...) the performer, the audience, and the art institution, and a means towards dislocating, if not liberating, the categories Arab culture, art, performance, and experience, from their teleological articulations. (shrink)

Nothing seems as certain as death. However, what if life continues digitally after death? Companies and initiatives such as Amazon, Storyfile, Here After AI, Forever Identity and LifeNaut are dedicated to precisely this objective: using avatars, records, and other digital content of the deceased, they strive to enable a digital continuation of life. The deceased live on digitally, and at times, these can even appear very much alive-perhaps too alive? This article explores the ethical implications of these technologies, (...) commonly known as Death Tech. With the advancement of artificial intelligence, Death Tech will inevitably transform mourning practices, our perception of death, and how we cope with its reality in the coming years. In this article, it is demonstrated that Death Tech can contribute to individual grief support, education, and a vibrant culture of remembrance. However, it is crucial to recognise that the Digital Afterlife is not a paradise but necessitates active designing and ethical deliberation. DOI 10.5771/0010-3497-2023-3-427. (shrink)

In this episode we are told ‘Oooo Heaven is a place on earth’, but in fact Oooo no it isn't. San Junipero, a virtual beach resort where the dead and dying can upload their minds, is much closer to the underworld of the ancient Greeks than the Christian Heaven. But it is not merely the people who are shades of themselves, in San Junipero our values will also fade as they are constituted in part by our human limitations. In this (...) town the residents experience no danger and can take no risks, therefore can make no real sacrifices for one another. With our natural limits lifted our relationships would lose their importance, making the fate of the two protagonists seem much darker. (shrink)

This paper studies the information of big data in the digital publishing industry chain and adopts advanced algorithms for its fusion calculation. The basic theory of digital publishing ecological chain is dissected, the construction requirements, construction methods, and construction paths of digital publishing ecological chain are analysed, and feasible construction measures are proposed. It also defines the connotation of the fusion of knowledge services between publishing institutions and libraries in the digital era; then analyses the (...) characteristics and principles of the fusion of knowledge services between publishing institutions and libraries in the digital era; and finally sorts out the theoretical foundations such as synergy theory, information integration service theory, and game theory. Meanwhile, this paper also studies the flow of digital publishing resources and empirically analyses the eco-efficiency of digital publishing eco-chain by using metabolic network analysis, population analysis, and life cycle analysis, and it finds the eco-efficiency problems of the existing e-book eco-chain from its analysis. Finally, the imbalance in the digital publishing ecological chain and its hazards are analysed, and specific regulation and optimization measures are proposed. The research in this paper makes up for the deficiencies of related studies and can well solve the problems that exist in the previous and provide theoretical support for the healthy development of digital publishing enterprises. (shrink)

Presence is a palpable sense of space, things and others that overlaps with matters of meaning, yet is not reducible to it: it is a dimension of things that hides in plain sight. This paper is motivated by observations that (1) presence is under-appreciated in questions of modern and nascent human-synthetic agent interaction, and (2) that presence matters because it affects and moves us. The paper’s goal is to articulate a multi-faceted understanding of presence, and why it matters, so the (...) importance of presence may be readily understood by those who regulate media, digital and artificial intelligence (AI) industries. Novel forms of presence raise all sorts of questions of what it means to live with new forms of presences. Some of these are highly positive and others are resistant to simplistic moral diagnosis, a point explored through extended consideration of ‘thanatechnology’ and ‘ghostbots’. To clarify and foreground presence, this paper draws on continental philosophy and technologist ideas about presence to understand the significance and parameters of presence. It then puts these to work by considering a range of existing and emerging human-synthetic agent interactions, arguing that that presence is an underappreciated yet crucial factor in human-synthetic interactions, particularly involving AI and ghostbots. The paper concludes with points of focus for organisations charged with media, data protection and AI governance regarding facets of presence-based characteristics for emergent human-synthetic interaction. Foremost is consideration of open standards for a presence-based afterlife and suggestion of a temporal firewall, or a break of time before resurrection, to prevent harm to those who have recently lost someone. (shrink)

ITC technologies have come to comprehensively represent images and expectations of the future. Hopes of ongoing progress, economic growth, skill upgrading and possibly also democratisation are attached to new ICTs as well as fears of totalitarian control, alienation, job loss and insecurity. Currently, with the terms "Industry 4.0." and ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution”, public institutions, private institutions, and literature refer to the inchoate transformation of production of goods and services resulting from the application of a new wave of technological innovations: (...) interconnected collaborative robots; machine learning; Artificial Intelligence; 3D printers connected to digital development software; simulation of interconnected machines; integration of the information flow along the value chain; multidirectional communication between manufacturing processes and products. According to the main representations of Industry 4.0. by private and public institutions, its effects are expected to be mainly positive, for what regards productivity, economic opportunities and the future of work. The positive potentials now attributed to the new cycle of innovation evoke and expand those attributed to the previous waves of innovation linked to ITC technologies, and, even before, to the transition from Fordism to Post-Fordism. However, these transformations have so far not achieved any of the promises they raised. Improvements for workers in terms of work conditions, work performance and work relationships cannot be determined by any technical innovation in itself, being technological innovation always socially shaped. (shrink)

Global Digital Health Market Size research report offers in-depth assessment of revenue growth, market definition, segmentation, industry potential, influential trends for understanding the future outlook and current prospects for the market. -/- Get a Sample Copy of the Report at – -/- The global digital health market size was valued at USD 548.08 billion in 2021 and is projected to grow from USD 742.72 billion in 2022 to USD 4,547.70 billion by 2029, exhibiting a CAGR of 29.5% (...) during the forecast period. Based on our analysis, the global market exhibited a higher growth of 81.2% in 2020 compared to 2019. The global COVID-19 pandemic has been unprecedented and staggering, with digital health experiencing higher-than-anticipated demand across all regions compared to pre-pandemic levels. -/- Drivers & Restraints -/- The global digital health market size stood at USD 452.79 Billion in 2023 and is projected to reach USD 1,965.30 Billion by 2030, exhibiting at a CAGR of 23.3% in the forecast period -/- This study provides information about the sales and revenue during the historic and forecasted period of (2024 to 2030). Understanding the segments helps in identifying the importance of different factors that aid market growth. Estimations about the CAGR value for specific forecast period, market drivers, market restraints, and competitive strategies are assessed in this Digital Health Market report. -/- This report focuses on Digital Health Market volume and value at the global level, regional level and company level. From a global perspective, this report represents overall Digital Health Market market size by analysing historical data and future prospect. Regionally, this report focuses on several key regions: North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America and Middle East and Africa. -/- Competitive Strategic Window: -/- The Competitive Strategic Window analyses the competitive landscape in terms of markets, applications, and geographies to help the vendor define an alignment or fit between their capabilities and opportunities for future growth prospects. It describes the optimal or favorable fit for the vendors to adopt successive merger and acquisition strategies, geography expansion, research & development, and new product introduction strategies to execute further business expansion and growth during a forecast period. -/- An Overview of the Impact of COVID-19 on this Market: -/- The advancement of COVID-19 has conveyed the world to a stop. We fathom that this prosperity crisis amazingly influences associations across ventures. Nevertheless, everything fortunate or unfortunate should reach a conclusion. There are a couple of organizations that are fighting and some are thriving. By and large, essentially every region is relied upon to be impacted by the pandemic. -/- We are advancing incessant endeavors to help your business support and create during COVID-19 pandemics. Considering our experience and expertise, we will offer you an impact examination of Covid episode across ventures to help you with preparing for what's to come. -/- Key players covered in the global Digital Health Market research report: -/- General Electric Company (U.S.) Koninklijke Philips N.V. (Netherlands) Allscripts Healthcare, LLC (U.S.) Cerner Corporation (U.S.) Epic Systems Corporation (U.S.) McKesson Corporation (U.S.) Medical Information Technology, Inc. (U.S.) Siemens Healthcare GmbH (Germany) Boston Scientific Corporation (U.S.) FUJIFILM Holdings Corporation (Japan) Medtronic (Ireland) IBM (U.S.) Validic (U.S.). (shrink)

Digital communication now pervades all spheres of life, creating new possibilities for commodification: personal data and communication are the new resources of surplus value. This in turn brings about a totally new category of threats to privacy. With recourse to the culture industry critique of early critical theory, this article seeks to challenge basic theoretical assumptions held within a liberal account of privacy. It draws the attention to the entanglement of technical and socio-economic transformations and aims at elaborating (...) an alternative framing which takes into account that privacy is not in the first place a pre-political space for individual freedom but a constituted sphere in which social power relations are reproduced in a particularly deceitful way. With recourse to positions of critical theory, this article revisits the conceptual ambiguity of liberation and oppression and looks to draft prospects for a socio-theoretical justification and critique of privacy, updated for the digital age. Following the tradition of critical theory, the argument focuses on (new) forms of domination in and by privacy. It aims to prepare the ground for a critique of the social’s increasing commodification as well as an idea of privacy understood as reflexive participation in social practices. (shrink)

The trajectory of beneficial use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in Hungary, Poland, Lithuania and Ukraine is analysed, especially in industry. With respect to telecom access, availability, affordability and uptake indicators, the four countries are generally behind EU cohesion countries. Between the four countries, there are huge differences in development of information society services. In industry, the use of information technologies usually has not attained the phase in which they are most rewarding. Among the most important barriers (...) to a beneficial use of computer networking in industry are the attitude of management, lack of financial resources and a lack of facilitative environment for enterprises. ICT usage is rarely part of a long-term development stratery of the firm. (shrink)

Growing social inequalities represent a major concern associated with the Digital Revolution. The article tackles this issue by exploring how welfare regulations and redistribution policies can be rethought in the age of digital capitalism. It focuses on the history and enduring crisis of social citizenship rights in their connection with technological changes, in order to draw a comparison between the industrial and the digital scenario. The first section addresses the link between the Industrial Revolution and the genesis (...) of social rights. It describes the latter as a legal ‘machine’ designed to offset the imbalances produced by the technological movement of industrialization. The second and third sections introduce the notion of ‘industrial citizenship’ to describe the architecture of social rights in mature industrial societies and to contend that European systems of welfare are still largely modeled on an industrial standard. The fourth part investigates the impact of the Digital Revolution on this model of social citizenship. It identifies debates on basic income as a major trajectory for redesigning welfare regulations in a post-industrial era, and the digital user as a crucial emerging subject of rights. The final part explores how digital users could be entitled to social rights as data suppliers. To this end, it introduces the idea of ‘digital-social rights’ resulting from the incorporation of welfare and redistribution principles into emerging digital rights. Hence, it proposes a legal-political framework for the redistribution of the revenues generated by data in the form of a ‘digital basic income’ for citizens of cyberspace. (shrink)

Digitalization has become a cornerstone of competitiveness in the industrial arena, especially in the cases of small lot sizes with many variants in the goods produced. Managers of industrial facilities have to handle the complexity that comes along with Industry 4.0 in diverse dimensions to leverage the potentials of digitalization for their sites. This article describes major drivers of this complexity in current industrial automation to outline the environment of today’s challenges for managers of this technical transition—and shows how (...) managed industrial security services can contribute to stabilize the industrial system. An outlook is given to future automation scenarios as well as the major concepts involved in their protection. (shrink)

L’impact économique collectif d’internet, et plus généralement des nouvelles technologies, devrait atteindre entre 10 et $20 trillion annuellement dès 2025. Il transformera l’ensemble de la chaine de valeur d’une industrie comme celle de la mode et du luxe : produit, supply chain, distribution. Comment appréhender les inévitables évolutions juridiques que cela va occasionner? L’article défend que le contexte dépendra essentiellement du devenir génératif ou non d’internet ainsi que de la rapidité d’appropriation de la révolution digitale par l’industrie de la mode. (...) Dans ce contexte double-ment incertain, l’article voit dans le sharing economy, les Big data, l’impression 3D et la personnalisation les quatre enjeux stratégiques mais aussi juridiques auxquels l’industrie doit faire face. Aujourd’hui, toutes les options sont ouvertes. (shrink)

Contemporary Information Systems management incorporates the need to make explicit the links between semiotics, meaning-making and the digital age. This focus addresses, at its core, pure rationality, that is, the capacity of human interpretation and of human inscription upon reality. Creating the new real, that is the motto. Humans are intrinsically semiotic creatures. Consequently, semiotics is not a choice or an option but something that works like a second skin, establishing limits and permeable linkages between: human thought and human's (...) infinite world of imagination; and human action, with its correspondent infinite world of intentionality, of desire and of unexplored possibilities. Two instances are contrasted as two reading lenses of current business reality: IS governance and industry 4.0. These phenomena correspond to the need to take accountability, transparency and responsibility into account, when designing IS and when using such systems through the ecology of connectivity, Big Data and the Internet of Things. Political, social and cultural dimensions are brought into the equation, when addressing the question of the relevance and adequateness of IS theory and practice to respond to contemporary challenges. The message is that what has already been achieved is but a shadow, a pale vision, of what might be achieved in the age of the new Renaissance. (shrink)

As one of the basic manufacturing industries in China, injection molding industry is faced with the problems of low degree of informatization and intelligence, resulting in low production efficiency and high costs. It is urgent to integrate deeply with new generation of information technology to achieve transformation and upgrade. In this paper, an integrative industrial Internet architecture of “integration of intelligent equipment, intelligent production lines, intelligent workshops, intelligent factories, and intelligent formats” was described. The injection molding intelligent control system, (...) the production management, control platform based on the MES system, and other key technologies were researched. Also, the smart factory architecture based on digital twin was established, and the implementation method of the smart factory digital twin system was elaborated. The feasibility and effectiveness of the method had been verified through the industrial application, which provided the technical supports for the injection molding industrial Internet system. Finally, the intelligent manufacturing industrial Internet cloud platform for injection molding industry was prospected. (shrink)

Purpose: The research explored empirical evidence to assess the impact of cyber security and supply chain risk on digital operations in the UAE pharmaceutical industry. Methodology/Design/Approach: Based on responses from 243 personnel working at 14 pharmaceutical manufacturing companies in Dubai, data were examined for normality, instrument validity and regression analysis. Cyber security and SC risk on digital operations were explored by applying convenient sampling and descriptive and analytical research design. Findings: The findings validated the significant positive association (...) between cyber security and supply chain risk with digital operations. Research implications and Limitations: The research model was developed with three variables evaluated only on the pharmaceutical industry in Dubai. Future research should focus on multiple manufacturing industries by covering a larger geographic area. Practical implications: When suppliers are highly concentrated, customer-focused organisations with uncertain levels of digital transformation could improve their ability to manage supply chain risk by diversifying their clients. Pharmaceutical firms may require a greater focus on technology-based manufacturing firms to build and maintain customer trust. Originality Value: To illustrate how the pharmaceutical industry has explored the relationship between cyber security, supply chain risk and digital operations, the research highlights the significant and convoluted consequences of the relationship model that have not been previously considered. (shrink)

This study investigates how e-business capabilities and digital marketing strategies jointly influence business performance in the e-commerce industry, which has experienced unprecedented growth driven by technological advancements and changing consumer behavior. E-business capabilities encompass the use of technology and digital infrastructure, while digital marketing strategies are employed to attract and retain online customers. The study examines the effect of e-business capabilities through digital marketing strategies on the customer satisfaction and loyalty of UAE e-commerce industry. (...) The research is descriptive and explanatory, and uses a structured 5-scale Likert questionnaire to collect data from the HR managers of 135 e-commerce companies based in UAE. The statistical analysis is performed using structural equation modeling. The findings highlight the significant relationship of the study variables. Consequently, the results of this study provide valuable insights for e-commerce businesses, elucidating the need to invest in robust e-business capabilities to support effective digital marketing efforts. Additionally, the research underscores the significance of tailoring digital marketing strategies to align with specific business objectives and customer segments. The study also contributes to the literature on digital transformation, by demonstrating how e-business capabilities and digital marketing strategies can enable e-commerce firms to adapt and thrive in the dynamic and competitive digital environment. (shrink)

A number of existing researches agree that digitalization would facility firms to launch ambidextrous innovations. Digitalization is not only about technological change, but more importantly, the reshaping of the firms’ knowledge structure and routines to percept and integrate knowledge. Thus, some researchers suggest that whether firms could benefit from digitalization varies across firms and industries, since innovation in different firms and industries relies on differentiated level of cognitive and reasoning of knowledge. However, existing studies mainly focus on exploring the firm-level (...) differences, and leave the industry-level difference underdeveloped. In response, this study integrates knowledge-based view to examine how a firm’s digitalization affects ambidextrous innovation, and further explore the conjoint effect of industrial knowledge bases—the knowledge base of the industry the firm is located in—on the relationship between firm digitalization level and ambidextrous innovation. This study uses Python to conduct text mining of firms’ annual reports, and obtains data of 394 listed companies from the year 2014 to 2020. The empirical results show that digitalization level has positive effect on both exploratory innovation and exploitative innovation, and the effect on exploitative innovation is stronger than on exploratory innovation. Moreover, the moderating effect of industrial knowledge base is significant on “digitalization–exploratory innovation” but not on “digitalization–exploitative innovation” relationship. By doing so, this study refines the research on the relationship between digitalization and firm innovation, and confirms that the usage of digitalization may lead to achieve an ambidextrous situation. This study also provides a theoretical basis for industrial differences of the effectiveness of digitalization, suggesting firms considering industrial characteristics to implement digitalization-assisted innovation practices. (shrink)

Significant transformations in postmodern society determine the need to form a space of digital communications and the involvement of information and communication technologies. Such trends make significant demands on various categories of professionals, including managers in the field of tourism. The aim of this research is to study the psychological peculiarities of morality in the representatives of digital Generations Y and Z in the field of tourism. In accordance with the aim, we paid attention to the study of (...) such components of moral regulation as ethics attitude, moral foundations, justice sensitivity and moral disengagement. The research involved 200 participants being represented by volunteers from five regions of Ukraine, including 100 respondents in the age of 25-30 who formed part of the Generation Y group; the other 100 participants in the age of 18-23 formed the Generation Z group. The results show that millennials are more idealistic. The intercrossing of the factors of idealism and relativism allows us to characterize millennials as situationalists, and centennials as subjectivists. It is ascertained that millennials are characterised by such important moral foundations for judgments as “Faithfulness”, “Purity”, which is reflected in the greater importance of “Ethics of community”. At the same time, it was found that centennials place more emphasis on the moral foundations of care and justice, and as a result, they are more committed to the “Ethics of autonomy” and “Progressivism”. The research confirmed the uniqueness and specificity of the moral regulation of different digital generations of representatives of the tourism industry. (shrink)

Digital privacy scholars tend to bemoan ordinary people’s limited knowledge of and lukewarm interest in what happens to their digital data. This general lack of interest and knowledge is often taken as a consideration in favor of legislation aiming to force internet companies into adopting more responsible data practices. While we remain silent on whether any new laws are called for, in this paper we wish to underline a neglected consequence of people’s ignorance of and apathy for (...) class='Hi'>digital privacy: their potential to encourage capture by industry interests. In particular, we argue that such laws may be at increased risk of capture because they are unlikely to be democratically responsive. We make this claim on a twofold basis: first, well-known theoretical mechanisms explaining how the absence of responsiveness leads to capture, identified in prior political science and political philosophy literature, yield the prediction that digital privacy legislation is likely to be unresponsive and thus captured; second, empirical data concerning the European Union’s digital privacy laws, with a special focus on the General Data Protection Regulation, appears to confirm these predictions: the bloc’s (world’s?) flagship privacy protection law seems more responsive to corporate than citizen interests. (shrink)

When Adorno and Horkheimer constructed in the early forties the critical concept of culture industry they had in mind mainly movies and radio as its main media. Even television broad- casting was not developed enough at that time to be considered as an important player in the scene of mass culture. Nevertheless the critical aspects of their contribution were so strong and well structured that even today they cannot be discarded in a fair evaluation of such an import- ant (...) phenomenon of contemporary culture. However there have been since the time of Adorno and Horkheimer’s criticism many models of mass culture critique that took into account the evolution of the technological devices, from analogical video systems to the more recent developments of digital media. Since the consideration of the latter does not always rely on the maintenance of the aforementioned critical point of view, a criterion guiding the choice of a theoretical approach could be the way in which the relation between artworks and cultural commodities is conceived. According to this criterion the author chooses as an updated counterpoint to Adorno and Horkheimer’s mass culture critique Vilém Flusser’s theory of what he calls “post-history,” especially in its approach on communication, entertainment and art tout court. (shrink)

_With the growth of the edutainment industry, developing countries in Asia have seen a significant increase in this sector in recent years. Although Pakistan has been a latecomer to this emerging industry, it faces challenges in effective marketing strategies, limiting its appeal to potential customers. The concept of edutainment is still relatively unknown, making it crucial to raise awareness of its potential benefits. Pakistan requires more initiatives to build children's confidence, enhance communication skills, foster cognitive growth, and support (...) overall mental development. This research focuses on Giggle Town, a newly established center in Karachi, Pakistan, and examines its digital marketing strategies to position itself favorably within the competitive entertainment industry. Giggle Town offers a unique learning environment that fosters children's curiosity, creativity, and exploration. However, the study reveals that the center's digital marketing efforts are disproportionately focused on entertainment, overlooking the critical educational components that make it unique. This study assesses the effectiveness of these existing digital marketing strategies and explores alternative approaches to enhance Giggle Town's market positioning and outreach. Through qualitative methods including interviews and observational data, we explored how parents and educators perceive these offerings. The center currently relies heavily on influencer marketing and referrals, lacking a comprehensive digital marketing strategy. The findings propose a comprehensive digital marketing strategy that equally emphasizes both educational and entertainment aspects, thus appealing to parents' desire for meaningful and engaging experiences for their children. This approach not only aims to boost Giggle Town's visibility but also sets a new standard for edutainment marketing._. (shrink)

Common mental health disorders are rising globally, creating a strain on public healthcare systems. This has led to a renewed interest in the role that digital technologies may have for improving mental health outcomes. One result of this interest is the development and use of artificial intelligence for assessing, diagnosing, and treating mental health issues, which we refer to as ‘digital psychiatry’. This article focuses on the increasing use of digital psychiatry outside of clinical settings, in the (...) following sectors: education, employment, financial services, social media, and the digital well-being industry. We analyse the ethical risks of deploying digital psychiatry in these sectors, emphasising key problems and opportunities for public health, and offer recommendations for protecting and promoting public health and well-being in information societies. (shrink)

The purpose of the study is to reveal the prerequisites for the accumulation of intellectual and technological potential of an industrial company based on digital twins. The article discusses the application of digital twin technology in industry. The scientific novelty lies in the substantiation of the definition of intellectual potential in terms of creative and professional components in the context of digital provision of jobs in the course of the use of digital twin technology, which (...) will allow accumulating the positive experience and technological potential of the company. As a result, the components of intellectual and technological potential in ensuring productivity growth and competitive advantages of industrial companies have been identified. The level of innovative development and the dynamics of developed advanced production technologies in Russia have been investigated. (shrink)

While the implementation of digital technology in psychiatry appears promising, there is an urgent need to address the implications of the absence of ethical design in the early development of such technologies. Some authors have noted the gap between technology development and ethical analysis and have called for an upstream examination of the ethical issues raised by digital technologies. In this paper, we address this suggestion, particularly in relation to digital healthcare technologies for patients with schizophrenia spectrum (...) disorders. The introduction of digital technologies in psychiatry offers a broad spectrum of diagnostic and treatment options tailored to the health needs and goals of patients’ care. These technologies include wearable devices, smartphone applications for high-immersive virtual realities, smart homes, telepsychiatry and messaging systems for patients in rural areas. The availability of these technologies could increase access to mental health services and improve the diagnostics of mental disorders.Additional Instruction AbstractIn this descriptive review, we systematize ethical concerns about digital technologies for mental health with a particular focus on individuals suffering from schizophrenia. There are many unsolved dilemmas and conflicts of interest in the implementation of these technologies, such as (1) the lack of evidence on efficacy and impact on self-perception; (2) the lack of clear standards for the safety of their daily implementation; (3) unclear roles of technology and a shift in the responsibilities of all parties; (4) no guarantee of data confidentiality; and (5) the lack of a user-centered design that meets the particular needs of patients with schizophrenia. mHealth can improve care in psychiatry and make mental healthcare services more efficient and personalized while destigmatizing mental health disorders. To ensure that these technologies will benefit people with mental health disorders, we need to heighten sensitivity to ethical issues among mental healthcare specialists, health policy makers, software developers, patients themselves and their proxies. Additionally, we need to develop frameworks for furthering sustainable development in the digital technologies industry and for the responsible usage of such technologies for patients with schizophrenia in the clinical setting. We suggest that digital technology in psychiatry, particularly for schizophrenia and other serious mental health disorders, should be integrated into treatment with professional supervision rather than as a self-treatment tool. (shrink)

Digital change is one of the most critical factors influencing social change in most societies. The Digital Evaluation Index 2017 (Chakravorti & Chaturvedi, 2017) showed based on 60 national economies that almost no digitally indifferent societies exist anymore. However, different speeds of development and, above all, different attitudes towards the challenges and opportunities of digitization can be observed. Primarily industrially, highly developed nations are also digitally highly developed. However, a "trust deficit" is prevalent in those nations as well; (...) that is, there is a rather reserved attitude on the side of policymakers and the population towards digital development. This "trust deficit" points to a changing attitude towards media and thus towards social change as a whole. According to the mediatization theory (Krotz, 2009), "digitization" can be understood as a factor of social change brought about by media-technical progress. This media-driven change is pedagogically and ethically relevant. Digitization does not only influence the ways we engage with one another (online vs. offline) but, more importantly, seems to influence the attitudes and feelings we have towards engaging with one another and also the attitudes and feelings towards how we engage with one another. Phenomena like cyberbullying, hate speech, digital addiction are examples of behaviors that are (seemingly) made possible through digitization. These negative examples might be considered to show the downsides of digitization, though, at the same time, the way these examples are portrayed generates a fear-based attitude around digitization that contributes to the "trust deficit." German teachers – as several international studies, especially the ICILS studies (cf. Fraillon et al. 2014; Fraillon et al. 2019), have shown – are rather critical and restorative media users. Research shows that ethically sound knowledge and easy use tools for reviewing and normatively evaluating media offerings and practices can have a positive impact on educational institutions (Marci-Boehncke & Vogel 2018). The interdisciplinary German research project DigitalDialog21 aims to contribute to a comprehensive evaluation of current and future technologies, practices, and ways of thinking of digital change. The task of an ethical reconstruction of the "trust deficit" is to make the attitudes of the population accessible and processable via a digital assessment of ethics (Rath, 2003). This task will set the theoretical framework for comprehensive digital literacy. One pedagogical goal of the project is to develop practical tools that help to arrive at a concrete, well-founded evaluation of digital offers at the individual level. (shrink)

Introduction. On the territory of the Chelyabinsk region there are 16 single-industry towns, the labor market and employment of which depend on the socio-economic situation of the single-industry enterprise. This state of matters results in the growth of unemployment, decrease in the level of human capital, the population’s life quality, and the loss of scientific and production potential. According to the authors, developing the theoretical foundations of the labor market and employment digital transformation in a single-industry (...) town will make it possible to find alternative ways of employing the population in order to improve regional policy on the labor and employment market. The purpose of the study is to develop the theoretical foundations of the labor market and employment digital transformation in a monotown. Methods. The authors use the following scientific methods: system analysis, comparison, description, generalization, systematization, formalization, analysis of sources, etc. The scientific novelty of the research consists in defining the concepts «digital transformation of the labor market of a monotown», «digital platform of the labor market»; in determining changes in the elements of a monotown labor market structure in the processes of digital transformation; in determining the subjects, objects of the labor market digital transformation; in developing a comparative characteristic of the traditional labor market and the labor market of Industry 4.0 monocity; in developing recommendations for the digital transformation of the labor market of a monotown in order to improve the regional employment policy. Results and conclusions. As a result of analyzing the structure of the population’s employment in single-industry towns of the Chelyabinsk region, the authors determine quantitative transformations in the number of the residing population, the average number of employees towards its reduction; the authors characterize the average monthly salary of workers in organizations of single-industry towns as unstable. The analysis of unemployment shows that there is a tendency for the number of youth among the unemployed to grow, at the same time, hidden unemployment is decreasing; in general, the unemployment rate in single-industry towns is higher than in the Chelyabinsk region for the entire study period. The analysis shows that it is necessary to search for alternative ways of employing the population, of decreasing the unemployment rate, which made it possible to develop theoretical foundations for transforming the labor market and employment of a single-industry town. (shrink)

Emergent digital technologies provide cultural heritage spaces with the opportunity to reassess their current user journey. An immersive user experience can be developed that is innovative, dynamic, and customised for each attendee. Museums have already begun to move towards interactive exhibitions utilising Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IOT), and more recently, the use of Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) has become more common in cultural heritage spaces to present items of historical significance. VR concentrates (...) on the provision of full immersion within a digitised environment utilising a headset, whilst AR focuses on the inclusion of digitised content within the existing physical environment that can be accessed through a medium such as a mobile phone application. Machine learning techniques such as a recommender system can support an immersive user journey by issuing personalised recommendations regarding a user’s preferred future content based on their previous activity. An ethical approach is necessary to take the precautions required to protect the welfare of human participants and eliminate any aspect of stereotyping or biased behaviour. This paper sets out a human-centred manifesto intended to provide guidance when inducing smart digital immersion in cultural heritage spaces. A review of existing digital cultural heritage projects was conducted to determine their adherence to the manifesto with the findings indicating that Education was a primary focus across all projects and that Personalisation, Respect and Empathy, and Support were also highly valued. Additionally, the findings indicated that there were areas with room for improvement such as Fairness to ensure that a well-balanced human-centred system is implemented. (shrink)

Ancient theories of life after death involve souls and gods. Reincarnation theories say an immortal soul travels from one mortal body to another. Lives are shaped by karmic laws, which may be retributive or progressive. Resurrection theories say that persons are bodies. After you die, God will revive your body, or reassemble it from its atoms, or recover it from information stored in the divine memory or your soul, or replicate it in another universe. Modern afterlife theories rely heavily (...) on ideas from computer science. Life after death involves simulation, promotion, uploading, digital ghosts, and recursive self-improvement. The many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics entails that some versions of your life never die. (shrink)

Digital privacy scholars tend to bemoan ordinary people’s limited knowledge of and lukewarm interest in what happens to their digital data. This general lack of interest and knowledge is often taken as a consideration in favor of legislation aiming to force internet companies into adopting more responsible data practices. While we remain silent on whether any new laws are called for, in this paper we wish to underline a neglected consequence of people’s ignorance of and apathy for (...) class='Hi'>digital privacy: their potential to encourage capture by industry interests. In particular, we argue that such laws may be at increased risk of capture because they are unlikely to be democratically responsive. We make this claim on a twofold basis: first, well-known theoretical mechanisms explaining how the absence of responsiveness leads to capture, identified in prior political science and political philosophy literature, yield the prediction that digital privacy legislation is likely to be unresponsive and thus captured; second, empirical data concerning the European Union’s digital privacy laws, with a special focus on the General Data Protection Regulation, appears to confirm these predictions: the bloc’s (world’s?) flagship privacy protection law seems more responsive to corporate than citizen interests. (shrink)

Industry 5.0 and Healthcare 5.0 converge towards a human centered society, having technological advancement as a lever. In Society 5.0, decentralized autonomous cities and a convergence of physical and cyberspace are the foundations of the new chapter of society’s development. The idea of creating digital replicas and legitimate representatives of human beings in cyberspace has become a pillar of digitalization. Society 5.0 introduces Human Digital Twins as a central element of Cyber Physical Systems that include human factors (...) or are designed to interact with humans in a personalized fashion. Overall, the HDT and neighboring concepts are applied to depict how humans can be represented in a cyberspace. However, there are clear challenges in determining which human characteristics should take precedence, how much autonomy should be granted to HDTs to optimize their functionality and how to conceptualize the digital environment in which HDTs interact with various entities, including other digital agents and stakeholders with agency and decisional power. To harness similarities and differences of current approaches, we propose a classification of HDTs based on meta-characteristics and ethical implications. We discuss ethical implication by focusing on emerging risks and paradigm shifts and anchor the previous discussion in the vision for Society 5.0, questioning whether societal development relying on disruptive technologies, instead of leading to more human-centered societies might be driving humanized societies away from humanity. (shrink)

Digital capability encompasses the skills and attitudes that firms and employees need to thrive in the modern digital era. Digital capability of a firm involves the effective adoption and use of modern digital technologies such as Industry 4.0. From the individual perspective, digital capability is referred to as knowledge and skill sets of people which are essential to work in digitally enabled firms. Not many studies have been conducted to assess how digital capability (...) can help in twin transition, that is, both at individual and firm levels, and how such digital capability can help in improving profitability for the firms. There is also a lack of studies exploring how firm leadership support can enhance digital capability to improve both organizational and employee performance. In this background, the aim of this study is to assess the role of digital capability for both firm and people perspectives with leadership support as moderator. With the support of resource-based view (RBV) and literature, a research model was prepared conceptually which was later validated using PLS-SEM technique considering 348 responses from employees of different types of industries. Based on the analysis of feedback from participants in India, this study has reached a specific conclusion. Consequently, the results suffer from external validity issues which have been considered as one of the critical limitations of this study. It has been demonstrated that impacts of digital competency could improve both people and firm performance enhancing the profitability of the firms. Such enhancement of profitability is facilitated by the impact of leadership support. (shrink)

Urban Digital Twins (UDTs) have become the new buzzword for researchers, planners, policymakers, and industry experts when it comes to designing, planning, and managing sustainable and efficient cities. It encapsulates the last iteration of the technocratic and ultra-efficient, post-modernist vision of smart cities. However, while more applications branded as UDTs appear around the world, its conceptualization remains ambiguous. Beyond being technically prescriptive about what UDTs are, this article focuses on their aspects of interaction and operationalization in connection to (...) people in cities, and how enhanced by metaverse ideas they can deepen societal divides by offering divergent urban experiences based on different stakeholder preferences. Therefore, firstly this article repositions the term UDTs by comparing existing concrete and located applications that have a focus on interaction and participation, including some that may be closer to the concept of UDT than is commonly assumed. Based on the components found separately in the different studied cases, it is possible to hypothesize about possible future, more advanced realizations of UDTs. This enables us to contrast their positive and negative societal impacts. While the development of new immersive interactive digital worlds can improve planning using collective knowledge for more inclusive and diverse cities, they pose significant risks not only the common ones regarding privacy, transparency, or fairness, but also social fragmentation based on urban digital multiplicities. The potential benefits and challenges of integrating this multiplicity of UDTs into participatory urban governance emphasize the need for human-centric approaches to promote socio-technical frameworks able to mitigate risks as social division. (shrink)

Marginalized communities are confronted with issues resulting from their marginalization, such as exclusion, invisibility, misrepresentation, and hate speech, not only offline but – due to digital change – increasingly online. Our research project DigitalDialog21 aims at evaluating the effects of digital change on society and how digital change, and the risks and possibilities that come with it, is perceived by the population. Digital change is understood as a factor of social change in this project. By investigating (...) digital change and its effects on society, we are able to draw more general inferences on how societies change socially and what needs to be done in education to establish digital trust. In 2017 the Digital Evolution Index observed an increasing trust deficit and skepticism towards digitalization in both very industrialized and lesser industrialized countries. We will draw inferences from these observations here and hypothesize the following: It seems that especially in marginalized communities, that is: in communities that are structurally and systemically disadvantaged and that experience societal marginalization, this trust deficit and skepticism towards digitalization is prevalent. This could be so because, as a member of a marginalized community, one might quickly find issues resulting from marginalization to be present in digital spaces just like they are present in non-digital spaces. This paper will examine critically how attitudes in marginalized communities towards digital media are influenced by digital change. Do the risks of digitalization outweigh the advantages for marginalized communities? Are digital media perceived to provide advantages such as increased visibility and representation or are they perceived to fuel discrimination against marginalized people? Our research project brings together secondary analyses of existing studies with the results of our own qualitative interview study on marginalized people's perceptions of digital change. The paper will portray some example interviews, and thereby analyze if and how attitudes in the margins towards digital media change, what this change consists of, and how we can understand the changing attitudes within an ethical and educational framework. Our findings will point at a necessity to increase ethically based digital literacy (PEAT) in the German education system, starting in early education. Marginalized groups in particular must be empowered to become digitally competent through problem-oriented education. Independent self-efficacy can increase digital trust in fragmented societies. The paper concludes by introducing media ethics tools that are being developed as part of the project. (shrink)

One of the major concerns of the social philosophy is the technological revolution and its impacts on the social systems. Critical views on the systems from the social philosophers depart from the social predicaments of their time. The pivotal critic of Karl Marx in his work of Das Capital, for example, is on poverty caused by the system of capitalism. Capitalism, for him, only produces various social downturns such as slavery, oppressions, exploitations and impoverishment. Herbert Marcuse, meanwhile, pointed at the (...) same problem, but he came from a different point of view from Marx. Marcuse criticized the abundant society. In One Dimensional Man Marcuse rendered a couple of incisive critics on the industrial society. Industrial society, for him, is marked by the abundance and surplus but this society is still oppressed under a new type of slavery, called voluntary slavery. We may briefly say that both philosophers rendered critics on the same matter of the industrial society, but the two stood on the different position. Marx’s critic was on the hungry and deficient society, while Marcuse on a satiated, plenteous and surplus society. The aim of this paper is to present of how Marcuse’s One-Dimensional Man ends in the digital age. (shrink)

The extensive use of digital and network technology has pushed mankind from the industrial era into the information and digital era. In the digital era, digits are becoming an extensive global phenomenon and force. The ethical culture of digital globalization has provided not only a new space for cultural exchange and␣integration among nations, but also a new environment for the formation of new global ethical principles and concepts. This article investigates a theme of scholarly concern, the (...) theme of global ethics in the environment of the digital era. (shrink)

The liberal democratic regimes rest on a well-developed public sphere accessible to all citizens that favors free discussions based on reason and critical debate and serves as a space where public opinion is formed through reasoned dialogue. The new digital technologies disrupted many parts of contemporary democratic societies and transformed their public sphere. Digital transformation alters industries and markets, changing the perceived subjective value, satisfaction, and usefulness of goods or services and displacing established companies and products. Within the (...) political realm, digital transformation creates a cleavage between the vulnerable populations who are ill-informed and lack digital fluency and politicians who tend to learn about peoples‟ problems not to deal with them but to weaponize new technologies to engineer elections and win power. The rise of misinformation and disinformation undermines public trust in democratic institutions and discourages or incapacitates citizens from engaging in debates within the public sphere. On the other hand, the digital transformation of the public sphere empowers ordinary people to aggregate in various publics and counteract the domination of the mainstream parties. Our paper aims to answer whether new technologies provide citizens with ways to counter the undemocratic tendencies caused by digital transformation and engage actively in the public sphere. (shrink)

The importance of digital technologies for social and economic developments and a growing focus on data collection and privacy concerns have made the Internet a salient and visible issue in global politics. Recent developments have increased the awareness that the current approach of governments and business to the governance of the Internet and the adjacent technological spaces raises a host of ethical issues. The significance and challenges of the digital age have been further accentuated by a string of (...) highly exposed cases of surveillance and a growing concern about issues of privacy and the power of this new industry. This special issue explores what some have referred to as the “Internet-industrial complex”—the intersections between business, states, and other actors in the shaping, development, and governance of the Internet. (shrink)

Industry over the last ten years has been characterized by a high level of digital transformation, affecting all layers of production and all areas of the economy. One of the key trends in the digitalization of industry is the digital twin – a system that combines a physical object, its digital model, and a continuous link between the two. However, the integration of such a complex technological solution is fraught with a number of barriers that (...) arise in one way or another in the way of technology users. The authors of the article analyzed 100 examples of digital twin use in industry according to 7 criteria, among which the scope of technology application, the most problematic stage of its integration, key technological, organizational, ecosystem and economic barriers, as well as recommendations on overcoming these barriers, which have been applied or are in the process of application, were highlighted. The article contains a layer of statistical data and infographics that confirm the key conclusions about the main barriers to the integration of digital twins, among which the lack of devices and equipment with the necessary capacity, the lack of existing strategies for the technology implementation, the lack of standards for industry regulation and high initial investment are the main ones. Each block of barriers is accompanied by real examples (cases) of use of digital twin in the domestic and foreign industry, among which there are such companies as KamAZ, UEC-Klimov, Tesla, Volvo, Norske Shell and others. (shrink)

Our digital technologies have inspired new ways of thinking about old religious topics. Digitalists include computer scientists, transhumanists, singularitarians, and futurists. Digitalists have worked out novel and entirely naturalistic ways of thinking about bodies, minds, souls, universes, gods, and life after death. Your Digital Afterlives starts with three digitalist theories of life after death. It examines personality capture, body uploading, and promotion to higher levels of simulation. It then examines the idea that reality itself is ultimately a system (...) of self-surpassing computations. On that view, you will have infinitely many digital lives across infinitely many digital worlds. Your Digital Afterlives looks at superhuman bodies and infinite bodies. Thinking of nature in purely computational terms has the potential to radically and positively change our understanding of life after death. (shrink)