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Techné : Research in Philosophy and Technology
Number of Followers: 2

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ISSN (Online) 1091-8264
Published by Philosophy Documentation Center

[89 journals]

Global Engineering Ethics at the University of Michigan-Shanghai Jiao Tong
University Joint Institute (China) - Research and Teaching in
Cross-cultural, International Contexts
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  Authors: Rockwell F. Clancy
  Abstract: Engineering is more cross-cultural and international than ever before, presenting challenges and opportunities in the way engineering ethics is conceived and delivered. To assist in providing more effective ethics education to increasingly diverse groups, this paper shares three related projects implemented at the University of Michigan-Shanghai Jiao Tong University Joint Institute (China). These projects are united in their attempts to address challenges arising from the increasingly global nature of engineering. The first is a course on global engineering ethics, developed for and attended by engineering students from diverse backgrounds. The second is a website hosting contents on global engineering ethics education and conducting research related to cross-cultural moral psychology. The third explores methods of assessing engineering ethics and moral development, using paradigms of ethical decision-making. Although these projects were developed in a Chinese-US collaboration with university students, these contexts could facilitate the adoption of similar programs elsewhere, with practicing engineers.
  PubDate: Fri, 03 Mar 2023 06:01:34 GMT
Acting-with: On the Development of a Public Realm on TikTok during the
Pandemic and its Potential to Enable Action
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  Authors: Jurgita Imbrasaite
  Abstract: The pandemic and subsequent wave of lockdowns in many countries led to a massive increase in TikTok users globally, boosting the platform’s public significance. Even if TikTok’s political potential is already established, the platform still lacks a theoretical underpinning as a space for action. Using both a political-philosophical as well as a techno-philosophical perspective, I seek to discuss and substantiate TikTok’s potential as a public realm that enables political action. Due to the unique algorithmic logic of this app, I argue that users are acting-with the algorithm when engaging in political action from home: be it in the form of national political protest or international acts of care and empowerment. I base my analysis on philosophical theory, cross-disciplinary TikTok research, and my own experiences on TikTok during the pandemic years.
  PubDate: Fri, 03 Mar 2023 06:01:34 GMT
The Psychopolitics of Cognitive Enhancement - The Long Transhuman Shadow
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  Authors: Jessica Ludescher Imanaka
  Abstract: This article explores the shadow side of transhumanist aspirations to transform humanity using cognitive enhancement technologies (CET). The central problem concerns how the desired transhuman anthropogenesis alters the ethical capacities of the human person. Focusing on the intersection between autonomy and equity, the article posits that inequity enhances individual autonomy for some at the expense of others, hence degrading collective autonomy. This process is already unfolding under neoliberalism, as analyzed via Byung-Chul Han’s theory of psychopolitics. Han’s psychopolitics reveals how the imagined increases in autonomy brought by CET would not yield an authentic enhancement of autonomy, but rather result in further undesirable permutations of humanity. It would erode autonomy while increasing inequity, thus degrading empathy and solidarity. Franco Berardi’s critique of semiocapitalism nuances Han’s theory in support of collective autonomy and an anthropogenesis guided by contemplative empathy. Conjoined, they amplify the possibilities for alternative therapeutic forms of transformational CET.
  PubDate: Fri, 03 Mar 2023 06:01:33 GMT
What Do Technical Functions Supervene On'
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  Authors: Martin Peterson
  Abstract: According to the dual nature thesis, technical artifacts have a dual nature: they are material objects that have a material base, but also functions that depend on their intentional history, in particular their intended and actual use. In an influential paper, Houkes and Meijers argue that the dual nature thesis does not square well with the seemingly plausible idea that the function of a technological artifact supervenes on its material base. They correctly point out that many versions of the supervenience thesis are unable to account for the following two-way underdetermination condition: “an artefact type, as a functional type, is multiply realizable in material structures or systems, while a given material basis can realize a variety of functions” (Houkes and Meijers 2006, 120). In this paper, I articulate a supervenience thesis that is compatible with the two-way underdetermination condition.
  PubDate: Fri, 03 Mar 2023 06:01:32 GMT
Technology as Mimesis: Biomimicry as Regenerative Sustainable Design,
Engineering, and Technology
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  Authors: Vincent Blok
  Abstract: In this article, we investigate how to explain the difference between traditional design, engineering, and technology—which have exploited nature and put increasing pressure on Earth’s carrying capacity since the industrial revolution—and biomimetic design—which claims to explore nature’s sustainable solutions and promises to be regenerative by design. We reflect on the concept of mimesis. Mimesis assumes a continuity between the natural environment as a regenerative model and measure for sustainable design that is imitated and reproduced in biomimetic design, engineering, and technology. We conceptualize mimesis in terms of two interdependent boundary conditions: differentiation and participation. We subsequently develop four characteristics of biomimicry as regenerative design, engineering, and technology: technological mimesis is 1) a participative differentiation of nature; 2) supplemental to natural mimesis in biomimetic design; 3) the participative differentiation of technological mimesis is constitutive of nature; 4) the participative differentiation of technological mimesis is always limited.
  PubDate: Fri, 03 Mar 2023 06:01:32 GMT
A Merleau-Pontian Account of Embodied Coping in Virtual Reality
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  Authors: Dakota Root
  Abstract: Virtual reality (VR) offers a simulated environment where users can interact directly with their surroundings and provokes questions about embodiment and disconnection. This article will demonstrate how VR’s unique embodiment features differentiate it from the experience of non-VR online and video games and allow the transfer of movement and first-person perspective into the ‘gamespace.’ Drawing upon Merleau-Ponty’s concept of embodiment, I will argue that 1) VR is a coping experience, and 2) the VR environment becomes the world of our engagement. This understanding of the VR experience allows us to reassess this technology, showing how it uses bodily action and perception to open up new digitally-mediated possibilities for connection.
  PubDate: Fri, 03 Mar 2023 06:01:31 GMT
Sociotechnical Eudaimonia in a Digital Future - Transhumanistic Virtues
and Imaginaries of Human Perfectibility in the Danish Technology Education
Discourse
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  Authors: Oliver Alexander Tafdrup
  Abstract: Through a discourse analysis of core documents related to the development of a new primary school subject titled technology comprehension (TC), this article explores how sociotechnical imaginaries of (trans)human perfectibility are promoted in technology education in Denmark. Based on the idea that transhumanism can be understood as a type of eudemonistic virtue ethics, I argue that TC is shaped by the idea that the purpose of technology education is to prepare pupils for the coming of a future characterised by a profound digital transformation of society and human existence through the cultivation of ‘transhuman virtues’ related to normative—and politically produced—ideas of human perfectibility or, in other words, a sociotechnical eudaimonia. I identify two types of transhuman imaginaries, and thus two versions of sociotechnical eudaimonia, in the discourse of TC: 1) the imaginary of technological extension and 2) the imaginary of technological adaptation.
  PubDate: Fri, 03 Mar 2023 06:01:30 GMT
Dutch Comfort: The Limits of AI Governance through Municipal Registers
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  Authors: Corinne Cath;Fieke Jansen
  Abstract: In this commentary, we respond to the editorial letter by Professor Luciano Floridi entitled “AI as a public service: Learning from Amsterdam and Helsinki.” Here, Floridi considers the positive impact of municipal AI registers, which collect a limited number of algorithmic systems used by the city of Amsterdam and Helsinki. We question a number of assumptions about AI registers as a governance model for automated systems. We start with recent attempts to normalize AI by decontextualizing and depoliticizing it, which is a fraught political project that encourages what we call ‘ethics theater’ given the proven dangers of using these systems in the context of the digital welfare state. We agree with Floridi that much can be learned from these registers about the role of AI systems in municipal city management. The lessons we draw, on the basis of our extensive ethnographic engagement with digital wellfare states, are distinctly less optimistic.
  PubDate: Fri, 03 Mar 2023 06:01:30 GMT
Our Digital Agora: Politics Without Privacy
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  Authors: Felicia S. Jing
  PubDate: Fri, 03 Mar 2023 06:01:29 GMT
Transmitted Traces: Amit Pinchevski’s Transmitted Wounds
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  Authors: Natalie Haziza
  PubDate: Fri, 03 Mar 2023 06:01:28 GMT