The early examples of self-directing robots attracted the interest of both scientific and military communities. Biologists regarded these devices as material models of animal tropisms. Engineers envisaged the possibility of turning self-directing robots into new “intelligent” torpedoes during World War I. Starting from World War II, more extensive interactions developed between theoretical inquiry and applied military research on the subject of adaptive and intelligent machinery. Pioneers of Cybernetics were involved in the development of goal-seeking warfare devices. But collaboration occasionally (...) turned into open dissent. Founder of Cybernetics Norbert Wiener, in the aftermath of World War II, argued against military applications of learning machines, by drawing on epistemological appraisals of machine learning techniques. This connection between philosophy of science and techno-ethics is both strengthened and extended here. It is strengthened by an epistemological analysis of contemporary machine learning from examples; it is extended by a reflection on ceteris paribus conditions for models of adaptive behaviours. (shrink)

In our current unstable world, nuclear warfare, climate crises, and techno nihilism are three perilous clouds hovering over an anxious humanity. In this article I examine our current state of affairs with regard to the imminent risk of nuclear holocaust, rapid climate emergencies destroying the planet, and the cultural and political consequences of emerging technologies on the fate of civilization. In the wake of innumerable existential threats to the future of our world, I revisit the plausibility of the (...) Doomsday Argument, which predicts the end of human existence. (shrink)

This paper is a comprehensive investigation of Freud’s views on technology and human well-being, with a focus on ‘Civilization and Its Discontents’. In spite of his thesis in ‘Civilization and Its Discontents’, I shall argue that Freud, always in some measure under the influence of Comtean progressivism, was consistently a meliorist: He was always at least guardedly optimistic about the realizable prospect of utopia, under the ‘soft dictatorship’ of reason and guided by advances in science and technology, in spite of (...) due recognition in his later years of the possibility of annihilation through technological advances in warfare. The possibility of human annihilation, then, muffled Freud’s meliorism. Freud’s ‘muffled meliorism’, however, was not a quiet commitment to viewing technology as something good. Ultimately, Freud steered a middle course between techno-advocacy and techno-antagonism. The technologies of science, like the discoveries of psychoanalysis, were tools for humans that could be used for human betterment or, as war showed, for human degeneration. (shrink)

Algorithms have become a widespread trope for making sense of social life. Science, finance, journalism, warfare, and policing—there is hardly anything these days that has not been specified as “algorithmic.” Yet, although the trope has brought together a variety of audiences, it is not quite clear what kind of work it does. Often portrayed as powerful yet inscrutable entities, algorithms maintain an air of mystery that makes them both interesting and difficult to understand. This article takes on this problem (...) and examines the role of algorithms not as techno-scientific objects to be known, but as a figure that is used for making sense of observations. Following in the footsteps of Harold Garfinkel’s tutorial cases, I shall illustrate the implications of this view through an experiment with algorithmic navigation. Challenging participants to go on a walk, guided not by maps or GPS but by an algorithm developed on the spot, I highlight a number of dynamics typical of reasoning with running code, including the ongoing respecification of rules and observations, the stickiness of the procedure, and the selective invocation of the algorithm as an intelligible object. The materials thus provide an opportunity to rethink key issues at the intersection of the social sciences and the computational, including popular concerns with transparency, accountability, and ethics. (shrink)

Just war theory distinguishes between jus ad bellum (whether the war itself is just) and jus in bello (whether the conduct of the war is just). I argue, against the traditional view, that modern warfare has made it impossible to separate the two in practice. Specifically, I argue that modern war is a techno-cultural system which requires its participants to violate the primary criterion of jus in bello—noncombatant immunity. From this it follows that even a war of self-defense (...) is not a just war. I consider several challenges to my position: the doctrine of double effect and the claim that noncombatant immunity can be suspended on the basis of military necessity or supreme emergency. I argue that neither of these challenges is acceptable and that to suspend the rule of noncombatant immunity is to suspend the moral point of view. Finally, I consider alternatives which would change the techno-cultural system of modern war. (shrink)

Of the two purposes of this article, the first is to show that the prohibition against intentionally targeting civilians is poorly suited to the current techno-rational landscape of warfare. Sophis...

What is techno-optimism and how can it be defended? Although techno-optimist views are widely espoused and critiqued, there have been few attempts to systematically analyse what it means to be a techno-optimist and how one might defend this view. This paper attempts to address this oversight by providing a comprehensive analysis and evaluation of techno-optimism. It is argued that techno-optimism is a pluralistic stance that comes in weak and strong forms. These vary along a number (...) of key dimensions but each shares the view that technology plays a key role in ensuring that the good prevails over the bad. Whatever its strength, to defend this stance, one must flesh out an argument with four key premises. Each of these premises is highly controversial and can be subjected to a number of critiques. The paper discusses five such critiques in detail. The paper also considers possible responses from the techno-optimist. Finally, it is concluded that although strong forms of techno-optimism are not intellectually defensible, a modest, agency-based version of techno-optimism may be defensible. (shrink)

It has been commonly claimed that prehistoric warfare in Japan began in the Yayoi period. Population increases due to the introduction of agriculture from the Korean Peninsula to Japan resulted in the lack of land for cultivation and resources for the population, eventually triggering competition over land. This hypothesis has been supported by the demographic data inferred from historical changes in Kamekan, a burial system used especially in the Kyushu area in the Yayoi period. The present study aims to (...) examine the previous claim by using an expanded dataset of human skeletal remains and Kamekan. First, in order to quantify the intensity of warfare, we developed a database of injured individuals found in the middle phase of the Yayoi period in two large populations in the northern Kyushu area, the Fukuoka plain and the upperand middle-stream of the Homan River. Second, we collected Kamekan data from site reports published after 1990 and constructed a comprehensive database to infer the demography in these areas. Finally, we compared the frequency of injured individuals and the inferred demography. The results suggest that the frequency of injured individuals and the population increase tended to be higher at the upper- and middle-stream of the Homan River than on the Fukuoka plain. Different assumptions of the lifetime of each type of Kamekan can produce mixed results on the relationship between demography and the frequency of injured individuals. They were positively correlated under the traditional assumption of constant time intervals, while there was no correlation using time intervals based on carbon dating by the National Museum of Japanese History. Thus, our results are partially consistent with the previous claim that the population increase and the lack of land and resources due to the introduction of agriculture were causes of warfare in the northern Kyushu area in the middle phase of the Yayoi period. (shrink)

In a wide range of contemporary debates on Japanese cultures of technological practice, brief reference is often made to distinct Shinto legacies, as forming an animist substratum of indigenous spiritual beliefs and cosmological imaginations. Japan has been described as a land of Shinto-infused ‘techno-animism’: exhibiting a ‘polymorphous perversity’ that resolutely ignores boundaries between human, animal, spiritual and mechanical beings. In this article, we deploy instances of Japanese techno-animism as sites of theoretical experimentation on what Bruno Latour calls a (...) symmetrical anthropology of nature-cultures. In staging a dialogue between actor-network theory and Japanese techno-animism, we show how Shinto cosmograms provide an enlivening and alternative diffraction device on several of the ontological motifs manifested in Latour’s work. In particular, by mobilizing the territory of a ‘new’ animism debate in anthropology – manifested in the work of Philippe Descola and Eduardo Viveiros de Castro – we attempt to infuse Latourian ‘multinaturalism’ with new, other-than-western analytical energy. Extending actor-network theory, we argue, Shinto cosmograms offer an interesting vantage point for interpreting the immanent, affective, enchanting and enabling powers of non-humans in contributing to collective life. By thus broadening the ‘cosmopolitical’ imagination beyond Latour’s own European-Catholic frame of reference, Shinto techno-animism offers up a wider reflection on contemporary entanglements of science, politics, ecology and cosmos. This reflection, we conclude, opens up a new intellectual territory, allowing us to trace techno-animist streams of thinking both ‘East’ and ‘West’, beyond the confines of the scientific naturalism indigenous to European thinking. (shrink)

In response to De Proost and Segers, we provide further reflections on how technologies induce moral change. We discuss moral changes at the societal level as distinguished from changes in bioethical principles or ethical concepts, impacts on theories of justice, and whether the transformations are negative or positive.

..............................................................................................101 I. The Idea of a Noncombatant ........................................................104 II. The Moral Shield Protecting Noncombatants.............................106 A. Accommodation.......................................................................107 B. Guilty Past ...............................................................................107 C. Guilty Bystander Trying to Inflict Harm .................................109 D. Guilty Bystander Disposed to Inflict Harm .............................109 E. Guilty Bystander Exulting in Anticipated Evil ........................109 F. Fault Forfeits First Doctrine in Just Warfare ...........................110 III. Noncombatants as Wrongful Trespassers ...................................110 IV. The Noncombatant Status of Captured Soldiers ........................111 V. Guerrilla Combat ..........................................................................116 VI. Morally Innocent Unjust Combatants.........................................118 VII. Should Rights Reflect (...) What We Can Know? ............................121 VIII. Absolute and Moderate Construction of the Revised Right.. (shrink)

guest editors' introduction to a special issue on techno-anthropology.

I comment on some of the points made in John Caiazza's thesis on techno‐secularism and offer some of my own further reflections on the subject. Tertullian's rhetorical question about Athens and Jerusalem has universal relevance, not just for Western culture, and, notwithstanding the many positive contributions of science and technology to human culture and civilization, they may not take the place of religion of one kind or another in the foreseeable future. What is needed is to transform religions in (...) ways that meet the challenges of a world drastically transformed by science and technology. (shrink)

This is the story of a seductive idea and its sobering consequences. The twentieth century brought a new cultural confidence in the social powers of invention – but also saw the advance of consumerism, world wars, globalisation and human-generated climate change. Techno-Fixers traces how passive optimism and active manipulations were linked to our growing trust in technological innovation. It pursues the evolving idea through engineering hubris, radical utopian movements, science fiction fanzines, policy-maker soundbites, corporate marketing, and consumer culture. It (...) explores how evangelists of technological fixes have proselytised their faith, and critically examines the examples and products of their followers. The new technological confidence mixed together beliefs that were simultaneously compelling and unsettling. As motor vehicles, electricity supplies and radio became part of modern life in the early decades of the century, it was hard to argue against the transformative effects and inevitability of such transitions. Like it or not, social consequences seemed to come inexorably with the Machine Age, the Space Age and the Information Age. This deterministic vision implied an ever more technological future with unavoidable social consequences. For many, innovative technologies promised appealing new lifestyles and powers. But for a narrower band of proponents – the first generation of technological fixers – wise engineering invention was touted as a guaranteed route to positive human benefits and societal progress. Socially-engaged engineers and designers argued that such improvements could be directed, hastened and amplified. These engineering adventurers argued that modern societies could be guided only by rational designers. They contended that adroit technological solutions could solve contemporary problems better than any traditional method, including economic initiatives, citizen education, political ideology, lifestyle changes, legal frameworks and moral guidance. Their seductive claims were tamed by more mainstream American enthusiasts, and eventually boiled down to the concept of the technological fix. Their shared confidence infused policy-makers, broadcasters and science popularisers. Trust in technological fixes shaped a new generation of managers and law-makers, engineers and educators, futurists and citizens – and continues to drive a new generation of techno-fixers today. This cultural wave, its promoters and detractors, have championed the promise and voiced concerns that we have inherited, still unresolved. This book tracks the hubristic influencers and weighs up the confidences and concerns associated with them: the dramatic potential for novel technologies to work alongside longer human traditions to meet our enduring ambitions – or to reshape society for the worse. (shrink)

The socio-religious panorama of the African religion deserves a close observation of its foundation and function. The perception of the spirit world is dominant in Africa. Similarly, spiritual warfare in the African context is prevalent in the mind and worldview of an African. Spiritual warfare derives its framework from African Traditional Religion (ATR). Hence, understanding ATR’s complexity helps us with the understanding of spiritual warfare. Some essential questions to understand would be what is spiritual warfare from (...) an ATR perspective? How do Africans perceive spiritual warfare? And how do Africans engage in spiritual warfare? What is the place of ATR in spiritual warfare? African Traditional Religion acknowledges the reality and functionality of witchcraft. The perception of the reality of evil forces in Africa attracts all forms of spiritual rites, seeking more extraordinary spiritual powers for defensive and offensive spiritual warfare. This article argues that the effectual Christian response to spiritual warfare with witchcraft practices in Africa is ‘the classical model’ of spiritual warfare. The article provides a synopsis of the models of spiritual warfare, that is, the classical model (CW), world systems model (WSM), ground-level deliverance model (GLDM), and strategic-level deliverance model (SLSW). Subsequently, the article provides the framework for African spiritual warfare and witchcraft practices from traditional and contemporary perspectives. Lastly, the article argues that the Evangelical Christian Response to witchcraft practices is rooted in ‘the classical model’ of spiritual warfare. Contribution: The article contributes to African religiosity within the African context. It reveals the ongoing argument about the continuity and discontinuity of the ATR beliefs and practices in Christianity. The article adds to the evangelical or classical arguments in support of the discontinuity of ATR beliefs and practices in Christianity. (shrink)

This article examines some of the implications of technological optimism. I first contextualize, historically and culturally, some contemporary variants of techno-optimism in relation to the equally significant contemporary exemplars of techno-pessimism, skepticism and fatalism. I show that this techno-optimism is often instrumentalized in the sense that the optimistic outlook as such is believed to have some influence on the evolving state of affairs. The cogency of this assumption is scrutinized. I argue that in the absence of explicit (...) probabilities, such optimism presupposes some form of retro-causation, where the future is held to somehow have a retroactive effect on the past. This suggests that the underlying mechanism by which techno-optimism is supposed to be instrumental in bringing about the future is fundamentally superstitious. Such superstition, of course, goes against our common understanding of reason and rationality, for adopting rational expectations about the world requires that we avoid the emotional over-determination of our assessments. I show that applied reason is conceptually entangled with this superstitious optimism in the continued successes of technology. The article thus reveals a curious sense in which reason is intrinsically superstitious. I offer an evolutionary explanation for this, showing that the biological origins of reason will by nature tend to produce rational agents which are superstitiously bound to realism and causality, and thus implicitly optimistic about technology’s capacity to overcome contingency. (shrink)

The techno-moral scenarios approach has been developed to explore the interplay between technology, society and morality. Focused on new and emerging sciences and technologies, techno-moral scenarios can be used to inform and enhance public deliberation on the desirability of socio-technical trajectories. The article presents an attempt to hybridise this scenario tool, complementing the focus on ethics with an explicit acknowledgement of the multiple meanings of responsibility and of the plurality of its regimes, i.e. the institutional arrangements presiding over (...) the assumption and assignment of responsibilities. We call this integrated technique ‘rTMS’ to stress the continuity with the original technique and, at the same time, to highlight the additional element we aim to develop: responsibility. The article describes this approach and illustrates a loosely standardised procedure that can be used to organise and conduct public engagement workshops based on rTMS. (shrink)

Quantification is particularly seductive in times of global uncertainty. Not surprisingly, numbers, indicators, categorizations, and comparisons are central to governmental and popular response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This essay draws insights from critical data studies, sociology of quantification and decolonial thinking, with occasional excursion into the biomedical domain, to investigate the role and social consequences of counting broadly defined as a way of knowing about the virus. It takes a critical look at two domains of human activity that play a (...) central role in the fight against the virus outbreak, namely medical sciences and technological innovation. It analyzes their efforts to craft solutions for their user base and explores the unwanted social costs of these operations. The essay argues that the over-reliance of biomedical research on “whiteness” for lab testing and the techno-solutionism of the consumer infrastructure devised to curb the social costs of the pandemic are rooted in a distorted idea of a “standard human” based on a partial and exclusive vision of society and its components, which tends to overlook alterity and inequality. It contends that to design our way out of the pandemic, we ought to make space for distinct ways of being and knowing, acknowledging plurality and thinking in terms of social relations, alterity, and interdependence. (shrink)

This book offers an overview of the ethical problems posed by Information Warfare, and of the different approaches and methods used to solve them, in order to provide the reader with a better grasp of the ethical conundrums posed by this new form of warfare. -/- The volume is divided into three parts, each comprising four chapters. The first part focuses on issues pertaining to the concept of Information Warfare and the clarifications that need to be made (...) in order to address its ethical implications. The second part collects contributions focusing on Just War Theory and its application to the case of Information Warfare. The third part adopts alternative approaches to Just War Theory for analysing the ethical implications of this phenomenon. Finally, an afterword by Neelie Kroes - Vice President of the European Commission and European Digital Agenda Commissioner - concludes the volume. Her contribution describes the interests and commitments of the European Digital Agenda with respect to research for the development and deployment of robots in various circumstances, including warfare. (shrink)

In this chapter, we consider the plausibility and consequences of the use of the term “honest errors” to describe the accidental killings of civilians resulting from the US military’s drone campaigns in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. We argue that the narrative of “honest errors” unjustifiably excuses those involved in these killings from moral culpability, and reinforces long-standing, pernicious assumptions about the moral superiority of the US military and the inevitability of civilian deaths in combat. Furthermore, we maintain that, given (...) the knowledge-distorting practices within the US military’s organizational structure, few if any civilian deaths from drone strikes meet the criteria of a genuinely morally excusing “honest mistake”. Instead, these accidental killings often reflect objectionable attitudes of relative disregard for the safety of civilians. These attitudes are, we argue, sufficient to warrant the attribution of blame and moral responsibility, both with respect to certain individual actions and with respect to the US military as an institution. In light of this, we propose incorporating a Principle of the Moral Equality of Non-combatants into military assessments of what counts as “acceptable risk” to civilians. This would go some way, we argue, to redressing the ongoing injustice inflicted on the victims of civilian killings by the failure of the US military and US political leadership to take moral responsibility for unjustified civilian deaths. (shrink)

This article characterises the nature of cognitive warfare and its use of disinformation and computational propaganda and its political and military purposes in war and in conflict short of war. It discusses both defensive and offensive measures to counter cognitive warfare and, in particular, measures that comply with relevant moral principles.

While COVID-19 has taken a toll on many professions and livelihood of all walks of lives, technology has amplified its intrusion to ease the necessities. Innovative technology, therefore, has improved the glitches and provided the software to adhere to these new normal. However, individuals' awareness and attitude toward the advancements of these technological trends need to be addressed. Although the government has taken measures to prevent and curb the growing cases for COVID-19 with the help of technology, the support from (...) the individuals would depend mostly on their level of awareness and the attitude toward those measures. The present qualitative study explored the techno trend awareness, perception and attitudes of techno experts and technical professionals toward social connectedness and mitigating factors of COVID-19. Besides, it also explained individuals' shift toward virtual interaction to maintain social connections during the pandemic. The thematic analysis generated four prominent themes. Social Connectedness, emphasized on the emotional connections that created a positive feeling of belongingness. Technological Advancement provided three sub-themes highlighting perception, techno trend awareness and desirable attitudes toward the mitigation of COVID-19. The categories under Treatment and Preventive Measures indicated the enhanced self-care of individuals and also the tendencies to minimize the spread of diseases. The emergence of the theme Inclination toward Indigenous Knowledge, which is an important finding, indicated the techno-experts inclination toward the indigenous knowledge amid vague scientific shreds of evidence. (shrink)

The idea that technologies can change moral beliefs and practices is an old one. But how, exactly, does this happen? This paper builds on an emerging field of inquiry by developing a synoptic taxonomy of the mechanisms of techno-moral change. It argues that technology affects moral beliefs and practices in three main domains: decisional (how we make morally loaded decisions), relational (how we relate to others) and perceptual (how we perceive situations). It argues that across these three domains there (...) are six primary mechanisms of techno-moral change: (i) adding options; (ii) changing decision-making costs; (iii) enabling new relationships; (iv) changing the burdens and expectations within relationships; (v) changing the balance of power in relationships; and (vi) changing perception (information, mental models and metaphors). The paper also discusses the layered, interactive and second-order effects of these mechanisms. (shrink)

An exploration of the production, transmission, and mutation of affective tonality—when sound helps produce a bad vibe.

Our historical study of Canada’s main research university illuminates the overlooked influence of national identities and interests as forces shaping the institutionalization of technology transfer. Through the use of archival sources we trace the rise and influence of Canadian technological nationalism—a response to Canada’s perceived dependency on the United States’ science and technology. Technological nationalism provided a symbol for producing a shared understanding of the desirability and appropriateness of technology transfer that legitimated the commercial activities of university scientists.

Techno-colonialism, which I argue here to specifically mean the transfer of technology and its values and norms from one locale to another, has become a serious concern with the advancement of socially disruptive technologies1 of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), like artificial intelligence and robots. While the transfer of technology from one locale, especially economically advanced countries, to developing countries comes with economic benefits for both regions, it is important to understand that technologies are not value- neutral; they come (...) with the values, cultures, and worldviews of their designers. However, despite the nonvalue-neutrality of the technologies of the 4IR, they are still relevant for subSaharan Africa’s development. Thus, using a phenomenological approach, especially the sub-Saharan African experiences of past histories of colonialism, I prescribe cautionary measures that sub-Saharan Africans ought to take in approaching the current industrial revolution and its technologies. (shrink)

Techno-Scientific Practices analyzes and helps readers to understand the role of instruments and technologies in the practice of science, and their partnership with human agents in producing knowledge about the world.

This book chapter addresses two questions. First, can targeted killing by drones in non-battlefield zones be justified on basis of just war theory? Second, will the proliferation and expansion of combat drones in warfare, including the introduction of autonomous drones, be an obstacle to initiating or executing wars in a just manner in the future? The first question is answered by applying traditional jus ad bellum and jus in bello principles to the American targeted killing campaign in Pakistan; the (...) second question is answered on basis of principles of “just military preparedness” or jus ante bellum, a new category of just war thinking. It is concluded that an international ban on weaponized drones is morally imperative and, certainly, that an international treaty against autonomous lethal weapons should be adopted. (shrink)

Taddeo’s recent article, ‘Information Warfare: A Philosophical Perspective’ (Philos. Technol. 25:105–120, 2012) is a useful addition to the literature on information communications technologies (ICTs) and warfare. In this short response, I draw attention to two issues arising from the article. The first concerns the applicability of ‘information warfare’ terminology to current political and military discourse, on account of its relative lack of contemporary usage. The second engages with the political and ethical implications of treating ICT environments as (...) a ‘domain’, with its ramifications for the pursuit of ‘dominion’, particularly through military action. (shrink)

Gandhi scholars agree that he was a critic of capitalism, if not capital or capitalists. Nevertheless, they disagree about his relationship to socialism. Some emphasize Gandhi’s claim that the modern Western canon of socialism is incompatible with the philosophy of nonviolence. Others emphasize his occasional affirmation that he is a socialist, regarding socialism as a beautiful ideal of equality. Gandhi moves back and forth between conditional endorsements of capitalists and socialism’s beautiful ideal. In this article, I ask why Gandhi never (...) specifies any clear economic preference for the philosophy of nonviolence. Is he confused and incapable of reaching practical judgments about what nonviolence demands in terms of economics? I answer this question in two ways. First, I argue that passing back and forth over the partial and fallible viewpoints of capitalists and socialists of various stripes is consistent with Gandhi’s method of experiments in truth. The passing-over method extends from experiments in devotion to constructive experiments in economics, laying the foundation for integrating distinctively human life goals or puruṣārthas. Second, and perhaps more surprisingly, I consider the background to Gandhi’s use of this method as applied to economics in Kauṭilya’s classical Arthaśāstra. Scholars often characterize Kauṭilya as both a socialist and a realist. While establishing the world’s first welfare state, his Arthaśāstra is also tied deeply into the material-spiritual concerns of the puruṣārthas, combining economics with duty, earthly pleasure, and transcendence. In this latter respect, however, Kauṭilya’s realism concedes too much to the contextual realities of his time concerning imperial conquest and caste. Gandhi emerges from this inquiry as another kind of realist in his constructive experiments with diverse economic perspectives, equally attuned to the contextual realities of his age. Gandhi succeeded—where Kauṭilya failed—to integrate economics with the spiritual goals of the puruṣārthas. I contend that Gandhi’s back and forth method in economics provides contemporary Gandhians with a way to address new contextual realities of the digital or “gig” economy through techno-satyagraha. (shrink)

In the last few years a strand of virtual worlds known as Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs) has catapulted the development and demand for online worlds to an unprecedented scale. This paper interrogates the commonly held assumption that places these online worlds in the same category as other digital games by seeing them as places which reconfigure the interaction between the real and imaginary through virtual technologies and proposes that the demand for these worlds is the contemporary techno-mediated manifestation (...) for a desire for otherworlds in various forms that has persisted through time. (shrink)

A multitude of techno-natures emerge through discourses and practices of the new technosciences. While some philosophers and science studies scholars argue that model organisms and artefacts are getting more and more disembodied and decontextualised in the laboratory, I want to show how ontic dimensions of model organisms and artefacts are made invisible as well as visible in different practices of technosciences like Artificial Life and robotics.This analysis opens up possibilities for an understanding of how ontic dimensions of non-human actors (...) are made visible and invisible in technoscientific practices. At the same time it allows the development of a concept of nonhuman actors beyond reifying, velontriquist practices of representation as well as a critical intervention in the co-construction of our technoculture. German Mannigfaltige Techno-Naturen an der Schnittstelle von Sozialem, Technischem und Natürlichem entstehen in den und durch die Diskurse und Praktiken der neuen Technowissenschaften. Entgegen der verbreiteten These von der Entkörperung und Dekontextualisierung von Modellorganismen im Labor zeige ich in meinem Beitrag auf, wie auf je unterschiedliche Weise ontische Dimensionen von Modellorganismen und Technofakten in der Artificial Life-Forschung und Robotik sichtbar bzw. unsichtbar gemacht werden.Gerade die Untersuchung der Konstruktion der ontischen Dimension nichtmenschlicher Akteure in unterschiedlichen Forschungspraktiken eröffnet Möglichkeiten, nichtmenschliche Akteure ernst zu nehmen, erlaubt ein genaueres Verständnis des Un/Sichtbarmachens von spezifischen ontischen Dimensionen nichtmenschlicher Akteure und zeigt Wege für kritische Interventionen in unsere Technowissenschaftskultur auf. Sie vermeidet jene bauchrednerischen Erzählpraktiken, die mit der Stimme aus dem Off den nichtmenschlichen Akteuren Eigenschaften verordnen und sie damit einmal mehr zum Verstummen bringen. (shrink)

As digital labour becomes more widespread across the uneven geographies of race, gender, class and ability, and as histories of colonialism and inequality get drawn into these forms of labour, our imagination of what these worlds contain similarly needs to expand. Beyond the sensationalist images of the ‘brogrammer’ and the call-centre worker lie intersecting labour practices that bring together histories of bodies and materiality in new ways. In the recent past, these entanglements have yielded oppressive results. As scandals over predictive (...) policing, data mining and algorithmic racism unfold, digital labourers need both to be accounted for in analyses of algorithmic technologies and to be counted among the designers of these platforms. This article attempts to do both of these by highlighting particular cases in which digital labour frames embodied subjects, and to propose ways digital workers might train themselves to recognise ethical problems as they are emerging. I use the idea of attunements as a way to grasp what these forms of care might look like for the digital worker. (shrink)

The radical changes deriving from the COVID-19 emergency have heavily upset some of the most familiar routines of daily work life. Abruptly, many workers have been forced to face the difficulties that come with switching to remote working. Basing on the theoretical framework proposed by the Job Demands-Resources model, the purpose of this paper was to explore the effect of work overload, on behavioral stress, meant as an outcome linked to the health impairment process. Furthermore, the aim of the study (...) was to explore the mediating role of job crafting, considered as a second-order construct consisting of two dimensions in the abovementioned relation. Participants were 530 workers experiencing remote working or work-from-home during the first COVID-19 lockdown in Italy. Hypotheses were explored by using three different latent variables, measured reflexively through indicators on a 5-point scale, extracted from validated questionnaires. Data analysis was performed through Structural Equation Modeling; to test the mediation, bootstrap validation was computed. Results showed that the mediation of job crafting was partial. More specifically, the direct effect between work overload and behavioral stress was positive; moreover, the indirect, negative effect through the mediation of job crafting was also significant. Therefore, results showed that job crafting can play a crucial role as a protective factor supporting the activation and adjustment of suitable resources; these resources can be useful to deal with the negative effects of work overload, particularly under the condition of heavy remote working and use of technologies, on individual outcomes. Starting from the current global scenario of the pandemic that has not yet ceased its effects, the study suggested decisive theoretical and practical implications. Accordingly, findings extended the current trends in occupational health psychology research, with special reference to the mainstream topic “work and COVID-19” in the Italian context. Finally, results can give suggestions to companies engaged in managing change, recommending that they build a collaborative workplace at the individual and collective level to implement job crafting interventions and enrich the personal and organizational resources of workers, which is useful cope with the current demands. (shrink)

Cognitive warfare—controlling others’ mental states and behaviors by manipulating environmental stimuli—is a significant and ever-evolving issue in global conflict and security, especially during the COVID-19 crisis. In this article, we aim to contribute to the field by proposing a two-dimensional framework to evaluate China's cognitive warfare and explore promising ways of counteracting it. We first define the problem by clarifying relevant concepts and then present a case study of China's attack on Taiwan. Next, based on predictive coding theory (...) from the cognitive sciences, we offer a framework to explain how China's cognitive warfare works and to what extent it succeeds. We argue that this framework helps identify vulnerable targets and better explains some of the conflicting data in the literature. Finally, based on the framework, we predict China's strategy and discuss Taiwan's options in terms of cognitive and structural interventions. (shrink)

Robots equipped with artificial intelligence pose a huge challenge to traditional ontological differentiations between the spheres of the human and the non-human. Drawing mainly from neo-animistic and perspectivist approaches in anthropology and science and technology studies, the paper explores the potential of new forms of interconnectedness and rhizomatic entanglements between humans and a world transcending the boundaries between species and material spheres. We argue that intelligent robots meet virtually all criteria Western biology came up with to define ‘life’ and that (...) it ultimately makes sense to recognize them as a new species that is part of our social universe. Contrasting dualistic concepts of man and nature with a monistic approach, we show that traditional properties of life (agency, self-replication, etc.) may apply to artefacts and that, once we accept the idea that social relationships are ultimately open connections to matter of any kind, the seemingly strict boundaries between species and material spheres can no longer be sustained. Instead, we propose to include ‘matter’ and ideas into the sphere of the social as agents in their own right to form a _relational ontology of multi-species assemblages_ (ROMA). (shrink)

Technology takes an unprecedented position in contemporary society. In particular, it has become part and parcel of governmental attempts to manufacture life in new ways. Such ideas concerning the governance of life organize around the same contention: that technology and life are, in fact, highly interconnectable. This is surprising because if one enters the sites of techno-scientific experimentation, those visions turn out to be much frailer and by no means “in place” yet. Rather, they afford or enforce constant interfacing (...) work, a particular mode of manufacturing life, rendering disparate, sturdy, and often surprisingly incompatible things available for one another. Here, we contend that both of those aspects, pervasive rationalities of interconnectability and practices of interfacing mark the cornerstones of what we call a new techno-bio-politics of life. In order to grasp the government of life under the technological condition, we must understand how both human and non-human entities are being rendered interconnectable and re-worked through practices of interfacing. We take neuro-technology and care robotics as two illustrative cases. Our analysis shows that the contemporary government of life is not primarily concerned with life itself in its biological re-constitution but rather with life as it is interfaced with and through technology. (shrink)

I take up the challenge posed by John Caiazza (2005) to face down the religiously vacuous ethics of techno‐secularism. Techno‐secularism is not enough for human fulfillment let alone human flowering. Yet, communities of faith based on the Bible have a positive responsibility to employ science and technology toward divinely appointed ends. We should study God's world through science and press technology into the service of transforming our world and our selves in light of our vision of God's promised (...) new creation. This warrants invocation of the concept of the human being as the created co‐creator developed in the theology of Philip Hefner. (shrink)

This essay examines the notion of “poetical rescue” in Heidegger, which derives from Heidegger’s commentary on Hölderlin’s lines from “Patmos,” “Yet where danger is, grows also that which rescues.” Heidegger’s remarks on the two-faced essence of technology draw on these lines, characterizing the enframing as both the danger and the possibility of saving. The turn from danger to rescue depends on the possibility of a poetic revealing, which has been overshadowed, even disallowed, by the dominant revealing in modernity—namely, das Gestell. (...) To free the possibility of the poetic revealing and the rescue spreading from it, humans, as Heidegger remarks, need to learn to become mortals. To be mortal means here being “capable of death as death”—that is, becoming attentive to the nothingness pulsing in every moment. The rescue Heidegger explores is thus the freeing of the experience proper to being mortal in the midst of a revealing that orders all that exists into the ready availability of a standing-reserve. (shrink)

This paper focuses on Information Warfare—the warfare characterised by the use of information and communication technologies. This is a fast growing phenomenon, which poses a number of issues ranging from the military use of such technologies to its political and ethical implications. The paper presents a conceptual analysis of this phenomenon with the goal of investigating its nature. Such an analysis is deemed to be necessary in order to lay the groundwork for future investigations into this topic, addressing (...) the ethical problems engendered by this kind of warfare. The conceptual analysis is developed in three parts. First, it delineates the relation between Information Warfare and the Information revolution. It then focuses attention on the effects that the diffusion of this phenomenon has on the concepts of war. On the basis of this analysis, a definition of Information Warfare is provided as a phenomenon not necessarily sanguinary and violent, and rather transversal concerning the environment in which it is waged, the way it is waged and the ontological and social status of its agents. The paper concludes by taking into consideration the Just War Theory and the problems arising from its application to the case of Information Warfare. (shrink)

Is Currency Warfare defined as, the use of monetary or military force directed against an enemy’s monetary power as part of a military campaign, a just way to fight a war? This article explores the...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Epistemological Warfare and Hope in Critical Dystopia by Emrah AtasoyClaire P. CurtisEmrah Atasoy. Epistemological Warfare and Hope in Critical Dystopia. Ankara: Nobel Bilimsel Eserler, 2021. vii+ 167 pp. ISBN: 978-625-7589-04-8This book is an application of the idea of critical dystopia to three understudied novels and the beginning of an argument about utopian desire itself. Emrah Atasoy, a prolific author who reviewed Turkish speculative fiction in a (...) well-received 2021 Utopian Studies article, is modeling a search for hope in dystopian texts. In this book, derived from his dissertation, he examines three British novels written in three different eras of the twentieth century: Katherine Burdekin's Swastika Night (1937), Anthony Burgess's The Wanting Seed (1962), and P. D. James's The Children of Men (1992). In each novel, Atasoy argues, the protagonists move from an ignorance that served the interest of the dystopian forces to a resistant knowledge that should be read as offering hope, both as resistance and as knowledge.The book is organized in a straightforward way, with an introduction, conclusion, and then three analytical chapters, one for each of the novels. The introduction is expansive, offering both brief surveys of the nature of utopia and dystopia and a recounting of a number of themes taken up by dystopian texts: education, politics, gender roles, family life, and more. Layered onto this is a discussion of theorizing around knowledge and power and the transition from ignorance to understanding. The chapters focused on the individual novels are all similarly expansive. Atasoy offers biographical information about the authors along with considerations of the primary social and political events to which the authors might be responding. The analyses of the novels focus primarily on the motivations of the protagonists, but interspersed in the plot summaries are narrative cul-de-sacs explaining particular textual details (for example, the discussion of Theo's choice of the Greek statue of Diadoumenos as allocation to leave a note for the Warden [James, 37]). These [End Page 519] little detours are often interesting but can be distracting from the primary analytic focus.The analyses themselves also cover a lot of territory. The middle section of the chapter on The Children of Men (118–34) includes discussions of power, eugenics, religion, sexuality, punishment, assisted suicide, and immigration. Each of these is used to elucidate modes of social and political control wielded by the Warden, but the sheer number of issues included in the fast-moving analysis left me wanting more. Atasoy's analysis of Quietus nicely captures the ways in which James has created a world where the elderly are both encouraged and manipulated to end their lives for the good of the whole. This discussion fits especially well with the larger focus of his analysis on modes of social engineering. Fewer themes and more close readings like this one would have deepened the reading experience. But for anyone beginning a project on one of these novels, this book is a good place to start.This book begins and ends with the interesting contention that times of catastrophe diminish the literary production of utopia, and potentially the capacity for hope itself. While the point of this book is not to defend this claim empirically, it is one worth considering for any scholar of utopia, or any person interested in the potential of future change for the better. The book may underplay the fact of twentieth-century literary utopias (there is a brief discussion of the feminist utopias written in the 1970s and 1980s), but it is surely correct that there is an imbalance in the production of utopia in favor of dystopia. Utopias are more challenging to construct and potentially (especially in this day and time) less formulaic than dystopia, which is an increasingly popular (and marketable) genre.Kim Stanley Robinson noted in a recent interview that "[utopias] shape people's conception of what's possible that could be good in the future."1 Atasoy's book offers the possibility that a close reading of dystopian texts might well help us uncover other ways of finding out what future good is possible. By extolling the value of finding the... (shrink)