Concatenation, conjunction, and connection -- The sensitive infosphere -- Global skin : a trans-identitarian patchwork -- The aesthetic genealogy of globalization -- Language, limit, excess -- Avatars of the general intellect -- The swarm effect -- Social morphogenesis and neuroplasticity -- The transhuman -- The horizon of mutation -- Consciousness and evolution -- The end.

Engineers have a greater responsibility than many other professionals not to commit civil disobedience in performing their jobs as engineers. It does not follow that engineers have no responsibility for their company’s actions. Morally, engineer may be required to speak out within the company or even publicly against her company. An engineer may be required to work on a project or quit her job. None of these acts, generally, are against the law. An engineer may be morally required to commit (...) civil disobedience as a private citizen. But, given the institutional character of engineering and the division of labor in the modern world, very rarely will conscience require an engineer to violate the law in the performance of her job as an engineer. (shrink)

Engineers have a greater responsibility than many other professionals not to commit civil disobedience in performing their jobs as engineers. It does not follow that engineers have no responsibility for their company’s actions. Morally, engineer may be required to speak out within the company or even publicly against her company. An engineer may be required to work on a project or quit her job. None of these acts, generally, are against the law. An engineer may be morally required to commit (...) civil disobedience as a private citizen. But, given the institutional character of engineering and the division of labor in the modern world, very rarely will conscience require an engineer to violate the law in the performance of her job as an engineer. (shrink)

In nearly ninety A-Z entries, Transcendence provides a multilayered look at the accelerating advances in artificial intelligence, cognitive science, genomics, information technology, nanotechnology, neuroscience, space exploration, synthetic biology, robotics, and virtual worlds that are making transhumanism a reality. Entries range from Cloning and Cyborg Feminism to Designer Babies and Memory-Editing Drugs. In addition, the book notes historical predecessors and personalities, both in mythology and history--ranging from Timothy Leary to Ray Kurzweil. It also introduces the culture around transhumanism, covering all (...) the geeky obsessions of the transhumanist movement"--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

The articles discusses the philosophical foundations and the traditions of the theory of the humanitarian and technological revolution. The subject-matter of HTR theory is the description and forecast of the transition from the industrial to the post-industrial phase of civilization development as well as the strategy and the most effective methods of management of various socio-economic systems. This theory, actively developing in recent years, focuses on goal setting and on determining priorities and development criteria in the field of (...) class='Hi'>technology, science and education. The current revolution largely justifies the forecast of D. Bell, an author of the theory of post-industrial development, about the transition from the world of technology to the world of people. The human is the main subject and object of the changes. In this regard, we review an interdisciplinary program on human research, initiated in the 1980s by I.T. Frolov. The ongoing scientific revolution in genetics and the transition to autoevolution make these ideas even more relevant. The concept of universal evolutionism proposed by N.N. Moiseev is fundamental. This concept originates from philosophical and methodological generalizations based on the vast experience of computer modeling of “human-dimensional” systems. The principles of co-evolution of man and biosphere, the strategies for finding compromises are very close to the ecology of technologies, developed by the theory of HTR. It is difficult to overestimate the importance of the interdisciplinary concept of self-organization for many scientific fields and, in particular, for the theory of HTR. In our days, proposed by an outstanding mathematician, methodologist and thinker S.P. Kurdyumov, the interpretation of synergetics as a bridge between humanities and natural science, as a common language of natural scientists, mathematicians, scholars has become generally accepted. Kurdyumov predicted that many concepts and ideas of synergetics, through their philosophical understanding, would change the outlook and become an element of scientific culture. We show that this forecast turns into reality and in the process of HTR the ideas of synergetics begin to change our world. We pay special attention to the concept of self-developing systems, the theory of global scientific revolutions and the types of scientific rationality proposed by V.S. Stepin. In this regard, we can say that the HTR brings even more large-scale changes, covering not only science but also technology, society, the inner world of man. Identifying the philosophical foundations of HTR, we contribute to the development of methodology of this approach, enhance intra-scientific reflection and make possible to formulate unsolved problems more accurately. (shrink)

This text focuses on why the global spread of formal rationality contributes to a critical spirit which undermines human values and beliefs, be they ancient, medieval, modern and now postmodern. This is so in special relation to the model of the seven major dimensions of human existence: the True (knowledge), the Holy (religion), the Good (morals), the Just (justice), the Everyday (consumeristic culture), the Technological (technophilic culture), and the Beautiful (arts and literature). This not only has happened in the Eastern (...) world but is spreading to the civilizations of the non-West as well. When carried to its logical conclusion, this undermining will yield what the author refers to as the post-human consciousness after postmodernity, in that humans are nothing in the end, to be someday superseded by post-humans. (shrink)

In analogy with Rousseau's concept of ?civil religion? as a system of ?positive dogmas?, ?without which?, as he observed, ?a man cannot be a good citizen?, this paper advances the concept of ?civil epistemology? as the positive dogmas without which the agents of government actions cannot be held accountable by democratic citizens. The civil epistemology of democracy shapes the citizen's views on the nature of political reality, on how the facts of political reality can be known and by whom. Modern (...) liberal democratic politics assumes that the exercise of political power can be manifest in a visible domain of publicly accessible facts. It rests on the Enlightenment faith in the powers of light and visibility to demystify political power, render political actors more exposed and therefore more honestly accountable and enlist the sense of sight as a vehicle of universal political participation. It is, in this context, that technology has come to play such an important symbolic role in the construction of the particular democratic genre of public action as a political spectacle. Democratic civil epistemology, and technology ? in the widest sense of the word ? as the prototype of action which can be observed in the field of visual perception, uphold the democratic conception of politics as a view. Together they define political actors as visible performers, journalists as observers (who translate actual seeing into virtual seeing) and the citizens as witnesses. (shrink)

Our natural world has been irretrievably altered by humans, for humans. From domesticated wheat fields to nuclear power plants and spacecraft, everything we see and interact with has in some way been changed by the presence of our species, starting from the Neolithic era so many centuries ago. This book provides a crash course on the issues and debates surrounding technology’s shifting place in our society. It covers the history of our increasingly black-box world, which some theorize will end (...) with technology accelerating beyond our understanding. At the same time, it analyzes competing trends and theories, the lack of scientific knowledge of large sections of the population, the dogmas of pseudoscience, and the growing suspicion of science and technology, which may inevitably lead to scientific stagnation. What will the future of our civilization look like? How soon might scientific acceleration or stagnation arrive at our doorstep, and just how radically will such technological shifts change our culture? These are issues that we must address now, to insure our future goes the way we choose. (shrink)

Engaging civil society actors as knowledgeable dialogue partners in the development and governance of emerging technologies is a new challenge. The starting point of this paper is the observation that the design and orchestration of current organized interaction events shows limitations, particularly in the articulation of issues and in learning how to address the indeterminacies that go with emerging technologies. This paper uses Dewey’s notion of ‘publics’ and ‘reflective inquiry’ to outline ways of doing better and to develop requirements for (...) a more productive involvement of civil society actors. By studying four novel spaces for interaction in the domain of nanotechnology, this paper examines whether and how elements of Dewey’s thought are visible and under what conditions. One of the main findings is that, in our society, special efforts are needed in order for technology developers and civil society actors to engage in a joint inquiry on emerging nanotechnology. Third persons, like social scientists and philosophers, play a role in this respect in addition to external input such as empirically informed scenarios and somewhat protected spaces. (shrink)

"This is an exceedingly long short book, stretching at least fifty thousand years into the past and who knows how many into the future." So begins Visions of the Future, the prophetic new book by eminent economist Robert Heilbroner. Heilbroner's basic premise is stunning in its elegant simplicity. He contends that throughout all of human history, despite the huge gulf in social organization, technological development, and cultural achievement that divides us from the earliest known traces of homo sapiens, there have (...) really only been three distinct ways of looking at the future. During a period Heilbroner refers to simply as the Distant Past, stretching from prehistory to the appearance of modern nation-states in seventeenth century Europe, there was no notion of a future measurably and materially different from the present or the past. From the Stone Age to the Bronze, Mesopotamia and Egypt to Greece and Rome, and throughout the Middle Ages, a continuum of cultures and civilizations shared one defining expectation--the absence of any expectation of material progress for the great masses of people. Heilbroner maintains that it was not until the first stirrings of the period he refers to as Yesterday, spanning from roughly 1700 to 1950, that the future entered into human consciousness as a great beckoning force. Capitalism, continually reinvigorated by the seemingly endless forward march of science and an evolving sense of democracy, appeared to promise all levels of society some expectation of a future at least somewhat better than the past. It was this unwavering faith in the superiority of the future that separated Yesterday from the age we have now entered, that of Today. While we are still driven towards tomorrow by the same forces that determined the recent past, the lessons of Hiroshima and Chernobyl, the chaos in the former Soviet Union, the stagnation of the West, and the anarchic rage unleashed in our inner cities and in hot spots around the globe have brought on a palpable anxiety that is quite apart from both the resignation of the Distant Past or the bright optimism of Yesterday. In a brilliant conclusion drawing together the threat of nuclear blackmail, global warming and the growing commodification of life represented by video games, voice mail, and VCRs, Visions of the Future issues a call to face the challenges of the twenty-first century with a new resolve strengthened by the inspiration of our collective past. (shrink)

Knowledge and Civilization advances detailed criticism of philosophy's usual approach to knowledge and describes a redirection, away from textbook problems of epistemology, toward an ecological philosophy of technology and civilization. Rejecting theories that confine knowledge to language or discourse, Allen situates knowledge in the greater field of artifacts, technical performance, and human evolution. His wide ranging considerations draw on ideas from evolutionary biology, archaeology, anthropology, and the history of cities, art, and technology.

This paper offers the first philosophical analysis of a form of artificial intelligence (AI) which the author calls facial profiling technology (FPT). FPT is a type of facial analysis technology designed to predict criminal behavior based solely on facial structure. Marketed for use by law enforcement, face classifiers generated by the program can supposedly identify murderers, thieves, pedophiles, and terrorists prior to the commission of crimes. At the time of this writing, an FPT company has a contract with (...) the United States federal government. After recounting how FPT resurrects the same moral problems associated with the pseudoscience of physiognomy, the author of this manuscript develops and defends the ‘Liberal Argument Against Facial Discrimination’ (LAAFD), which concludes that government use of FPT poses a significant risk of violating the classical liberal value of equality before the law by committing unjust discrimination against groups of people whose faces happen to match FPT classifiers. A key move in the argument suggests how a future scenario that results in widespread discrimination based solely on facial structure could be as unjustified and harmful, mutatis mutandis, as similar discrimination based solely on racial background. In the final section, the author of this paper develops prima facie policy proposals designed to protect classical liberal values if FPT is to be utilized by governments in liberal democratic societies. (shrink)

Natural language processing is a critical part of the digital transformation. NLP enables user-friendly interactions between machine and human by making computers understand human languages. Intelligent chatbot is an essential application of NLP to allow understanding of users’ utterance and responding in understandable sentences for specific applications simulating human-to-human conversations and interactions for problem solving or Q&As. This research studies emerging technologies for NLP-enabled intelligent chatbot development using a systematic patent analytic approach. Some intelligent text-mining techniques are applied, including document (...) term frequency analysis for key terminology extractions, clustering method for identifying the subdomains, and Latent Dirichlet Allocation for finding the key topics of patent set. This research utilizes the Derwent Innovation database as the main source for global intelligent chatbot patent retrievals. (shrink)

Biometric technology was once the purview of security, with face recognition and fingerprint scans used for identification and law enforcement. This is no longer the case; biometrics is increasingly used for commercial and civil applications. Due to the widespread diffusion of biometrics, it is important to address the ethical issues inherent to the development and deployment of the technology. This article explores the burgeoning research on biometrics for non-security purposes and the ethical implications for organizations. This will be (...) achieved by reviewing the literature on biometrics and business ethics and drawing from disciplines such as computer ethics to inform a more robust discussion of key themes. Although there are many ethical concerns, privacy is the key issue, with associated themes. These include definitions of privacy, the privacy paradox, informed consent, regulatory frameworks and guidelines, and discrimination. Despite the proliferation of biometric technology, there is little empirical research on applied biometrics and business ethics. As such, there are several avenues for research to improve understanding of the ethical implications of using this technology. (shrink)

Technology- and product-oriented movements are mobilizations of civil society organizations that generally include alliances with private-sector firms, for which the target of social change is support for an alternative technology and/or product, as well as the policies with which they are associated. TPMs generally involve “private-sector symbiosis,” that is, a mixture of advocacy organizations/networks and private-sector firms. Case studies of nutritional therapeutics, wind energy, and open-source software are used to explore the tendency for large corporations in established industries (...) to incorporate the products and technologies advocated by the TPM. As the incorporation process proceeds, the alternative technologies undergo design transformations that make them more compatible with existing products and technological systems. As the technological/product field undergoes diversification, “object conflicts” erupt over a range of design possibilities, from those advocated by the more social movement–oriented organizations to those advocated by the established industries. (shrink)

The actuality of the research topic is that for the development of Ukraine it is necessary to take into account the indisputable fact that globalization together with the information revolution has created new conditions for all types of life. Humanity continues to grow quantitatively and increase the number of independent states whose citizens use the national languages. The purpose of the study is a critical analysis of the reasons for the unprecedented complexity of language changes in Ukraine after the collapse (...) of the Soviet Union and the restoration of its independence. Objectives of the study - to identify the deep causes of the loss of the truth of Ukrainians about their linguistic past; to prove on the basis of the latest scientific discoveries the peculiarity of the linguistic contribution of the ancestors of Ukrainians to the emergence of the Indo-European linguistic family thousands of years ago; to fulfill the forecast for the future of international languages. The methodology of the research is the noointegral, systemic and noohistorical methods that allow a newer way to analyze the affinity of the Ukrainian language with English and to make a forecast of changes in the role of the English language in the future. Presenting main material: the result of the study is the discovery of evidence that the Ukrainian language is not just a little branch of the Russian language, but a transformed primary Indo-European language. The scientists from the West were proved that Ukrainians were the part of the inventors of agriculture in Levant. During the movement on the West they chose life on the black earths of Ukraine, joined with the Arians and created the civilization "Trypillya-1". Trypillians domesticated a horse, invented a wheel, created a metallurgy of bronze and formed the economic zone of the Greate Trypillya between the Carpathians and Western Siberia. All the common words of today about 400 Indo-European languages are a cloud of tags spread from the Great Trypillya. The article is devoted to the concept of "international language". The analysis of contemporary world language changes is carried out in order to assess the possibility of converting English into a global international language. Examples of the growth and decline of languages of certain peoples in the past are considered. The data on evolution and changes in the international language ranking in the New Times are given. The facts of the temporary leadership of the French, German and Russian languages are revealed and the main reasons for their retreat and decline are indicated. The reasons for the global use of English in the twentieth century are explained, but the assumption about the impossibility of its transformation into the universal language of humanity in the future is expressed. A forecast of the influence of progress in computer technologies and artificial intelligence on the ways of using English and other languages is made. The fact of the appearance of the first version of the computer multilingual translator Travis-1 is noted and its rapid improvement and inclusion in the software of near-future mobile devices, which spread on the planet in billions of copies, is envisaged. Conclusions - formulated suggestions for plans for the development of the education system in Ukraine. It is proposed to use positive experience in Scandinavian countries - Sweden and Finland in modernizing the teaching of English and other foreign languages. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Technology and Our Relationship with GodAnselm Ramelow O.P.God's Original Plan and the FallTechnology may appear to be a very secular thing, but to assume that technology can be understood without God would be a mistake. Technology is deeply involved in our relationship with God. This involvement is, moreover, profoundly ambivalent.1To begin with the positive side of this ambivalence: the growing awareness of the dangers of (...) class='Hi'>technology should not lead Christians to think that technology is necessarily a bad thing. It is, in fact, not even merely a "necessary evil." Rather, we can find in the use of technology an unfolding of our God-given rational nature. If we believe that God "made us in his image and likeness," then this quite directly implies two things: (1) God is a maker (he made us), and (2) since he made us in his image and likeness, we are makers as well. The making of technology thus reflects our dignity as made in the image and likeness of God.2 Accordingly, the Church has been more positive towards the development of technology than one might expect, and some of our technologies (e.g., agricultural, architectural, and time-keeping technologies) have their roots in medieval monasteries.3 [End Page 159]We should therefore expect that Adam and Eve, had they not fallen, nevertheless would have become makers of technology in some form or other. They would have exhibited inventiveness and tool use, though perhaps not a tool use focused on warding off evil (which did not exist in Eden), but concerned with promoting positive forms life, such as tools of art and communication. Art and communication technologies are, like all tools, means to an end; but these in particular contain their ends in themselves. In Aristotelian terms, their making (poiesis) concerns a praxis (such as "making conversation"). That is why we sometimes forget to list such technologies among our typical examples of technologies. We forget, for example, that, among the technologies of communication, language as a physical tool (sounds or written marks) is an obvious example. And it is a prelapsarian feature: the book of Genesis has Adam naming things before the Fall. In doing so, Adam echoes God's own creative "technique" of speaking or calling things into being.4 Even in its oral form, language is a matter of human making and a technology of communication. In paradise, communication would not have been merely instrumental, not merely a means, but an intrinsic good, embodying knowledge and intersubjective communion.Other forms of prelapsarian technology, however, are a matter of speculation. And whether or not one agrees with Jacques Ellul's thesis that there was no such prelapsarian technology,5 the ambivalence of technology is clear from the very beginning as well. This is at least what we see in the book of Genesis. For, as a matter of biblical record, it was Cain and his descendants who founded cities and developed technology (e.g., Tubal-Cain as the "forger of all instruments of bronze and iron" in Gen 4:22). And the history [End Page 160] of these urban civilizations does not display the best part of human behavior. But if, as we have said, technology is not necessarily a bad thing, then this must be a corruption of technology. What might this corruption consist in?I want to suggest that it consists precisely in the corruption of our relationship with God, from which technology can never abstract and in which it is, for better or for worse, embedded. Unsurprisingly, therefore, as technology progresses, this relationship becomes more and more explicit, and it does so in a paradoxical way: initially, it is an attempt to put humanity in charge and control, to replace our need for reliance on God by allowing us to play God ourselves. But in our current situation, particularly with the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, the roles appear reversed: rather than putting humanity in charge, technology in turn is increasingly in control—to the point of becoming itself a god or idol that rules human life. As a result, we only end up having replaced one God with another... (shrink)

Many sociologists have drawn attention to the puzzling absence of a detailed discussion of religion in Elias’s investigation of the European civilizing process. Elias did not develop a sociology of religion, but he did not overlook the importance of beliefs in the ‘spirit world’ in the history of human societies. In his writings such convictions were described as fantasy images that could be contrasted with ‘reality-congruent’ knowledge claims. Elias placed fantasy–reality balances, whether religious or secular, at the centre of the (...) analysis of how societies have dealt with collective fears that arise in response to largely uncontrolled conditions. He located religious orientations within a broader framework of analysis regarding fantasy–reality balances in the first human groups and in current state-organized societies. Elias stressed how balances changed in ‘civilized’ societies with the rise of the natural sciences. But his writings emphasized the continuing influence of fantasy images in technologically sophisticated societies, particularly in the context of national and international power struggles. His analysis of how fantasy images acquired considerable influence under conditions of fear is important for studies of social responses to global challenges including climate change. Connections with Weber’s sociology of religion point the way to theoretically informed empirical research on balances between fantasy and reality-congruence in a tumultuous and unpredictable era. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: References and Further Reading.

The rapid fertility decline in most advanced industrial nations, coupled with secularization and the disintegration of the family, is a sign that Western Civilization is beginning to collapse, even while radical religious movements pose challenges to Western dominance. Under such dire circumstances, it is pointless to be cautious about developing new Converging Technologies. Historical events are undermining the entire basis of ethical decision-making, so it is necessary to seek a new basis for ethics in the intellectual unification of science (...) and the power to do good inherent in the related technological convergence. This article considers the uneasy relations between science and religion, in the context of fertility decline, and the prospects for developing a new and self-sustaining civilization based in a broad convergence of science and technology, coalescing around a core of nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, and cognitive technologies. It concludes with the suggestion that the new civilization should become interstellar. (shrink)

In spite of the discredited notions of determinism during the last two decades, the idea of technological determinism strikes again, based on the social impacts of modern technology. The main objective of this article attempts to study the relation between civilization, modern technology, and development. To attain our objective, the debate is presented on the issue of whether the current management of technology contributes to the guidance of technological development on the basis of “social priorities.”.

ANNOTATION Sardak S.E. Global Regulatory System of Human Resources Development. – Manuscript. Thesis for the Doctor of Economic Science academic degree with major in 08.00.02 – World Economy and international economic relations. – SHEE «Kyiv National Economic University named after Vadym Hetman», Kyiv, 2014. The preconditions and factors of the global economic system with the identified relevant subjects areas and mechanisms of regulation instruments have been investigated. The crucial role of humans in the global economic system as a key factor (...) of production, the main resource, the producer and the consumer of economic and social benefits that are exposed to global threats, problems, challenges, trends and subjects has been confirmed. There have been revealed the causes and consequences of the public institutions transformation under the influence of globalization, which formed a qualitatively new conditions for social and economic development that determine the need for further changes in the areas of conceptual guideline for the management of human resources development, optimization of tasks, state and international institutions activity forms, integration of efforts as for monitoring, planning and forecasting. The modern major instruments and spheres of international cooperation to ensure human development have been determined. The integrated characteristic of human resources and their role in social development both from the standpoint of their use in labour processes and as a medium of civilization and social utility with the help of the categorical classification system organizing and expanding which enables to design and apply the appropriate approaches at all managerial levels have been defined. The necessity and the concept of human resources development in the context of the content of managerial influence identifying (self-development, self-management and external control of development) at different administrative levels that ensures the growth of human capital to the limits of its potential have been analysed. The survey of human activity system aspects in the global world, taking into account the parametrization of the global environment, its structure, management and development have been realized. The formed methodology principles of managerial influence on the development of human resources with scientific schools, hardness degrees, available models, research and providing theoretical and practical implementation peculiarities for groups of countries and territories of the world taken into consideration have been examined. There have been noted civilization and national differences in the forms of managerial influence on the development of human resources, which lead to the formation of human resources development national control systems conditioned by different value public strategic guidelines, especially in relation to social security, education, national management and state migration policy. The current and future requirements for global human resources development which are proposed to be achieved by the development and formalization of global civilizational paradigm of social development due to social coordination interaction have been given. The influence of the institute of state on the human resources development has been evaluated and it has been proved that in the beginning of the XXI century in the global environment the institute of state is the ultimate guarantor of its citizens’ labour ability and vital activity renewal, that makes it the main instrument of managerial influence on human development. The methodology of countries and territories matrix positioning by human development qualitative criteria and population size quantitative parameters which allows to design unified managerial measures as for human resources for similar national economies in the context of global regulatory trends has been proposed. The strategic trends of improvement of human resources development in the national economy, taking into account the differences in the development of human resources in different countries and areas which vary and differ in their focus, content and ways of implementation for such groups. The varying criteria for evaluating the effectiveness of the global impact on human resources development, taking into account the natural, biological, technological, economic, social and management dimensions and the results of human resources development management in social and economic systems at various levels have been revealed. The periodization and the forecast of the global dynamics of human resources development by analyzing and modeling the values of the absolute and relative terms correlation character have been carried out, which enables to make their retrospective and prospective comparison and to find chronological boundaries of qualitatively different periods. The configuration of the human resource development global coordinate system as a set of interrelated principles, components, fields, tools, frameworks, management levels and forms of managerial influence that allows with the help of institutional means to adapt the state of human resources development to a globally varying environment. (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 (...) class='Hi'>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)

The apparently universal presence of digital technology is an insufficient condition for a global civilization. An examination of the distribution of the physical hardware of cyberspace reveals deep continuities with earlier patterns of international commerce and information flow, which contradict the supposedly revolutionary nature of the global information network. These patterns have reflected and continue to reflect hierarchical power relations—not global harmony—between the technological haves and have-nots.

This timely book tells the story of the smart technologies that reconstruct our world, by provoking their most salient functionality: the prediction and preemption of our day-to-day activities, preferences, health and credit risks, criminal intent and spending capacity. Mireille Hildebrandt claims that we are in transit between an information society and a data-driven society, which has far reaching consequences for the world we depend on. She highlights how the pervasive employment of machine-learning technologies that inform so-called ‘data-driven agency’ threaten privacy, (...) identity, autonomy, non-discrimination, due process and the presumption of innocence. The author argues how smart technologies undermine, reconfigure and overrule the ends of the law in a constitutional democracy, jeopardizing law as an instrument of justice, legal certainty and the public good. Finally, the book calls on lawyers, computer scientists and civil society not to reject smart technologies, explaining how further engaging these technologies may help to reinvent the effective protection of the rule of law. (shrink)

This article introduces the central ideas of G. H. von Wright’s cultural philosophy concerning the techno-scientific form of life. Georg Henrik von Wright (1916-2003) was best known for his achievements in the field of modal logic and for his association with LudwigWittgenstein. However, his work also included a critical analysis of science and technology. von Wright was concerned about ecological problems, human alienation, and the breakdown of traditional value systems. He analyzed the historical roots of modern techno-science. According to (...) him, understanding the conceptual framework of modern natural science can help us in facing the problems produced by the powerful use of technology. As the most troubling feature of techno-science, he considered its manipulative approach toward reality. (shrink)

This article is an attempt to analyze and criticize, both positively and negatively. Whitehead's concept of progress. Whitehead's progressive cosmology is critically examined, as is the relationship between technology and moral progress. The fragility of progress is emphasized.

The purpose of the article is to evaluate the ethical and political conclusions that Ulrich Beck draws from his account of ‘civilization risks’. I have argued that the categories of ‘life’, ‘the organic’, and the ‘technological’ which are presented in Risk Society, presuppose a certain metaphysics of ‘natural’ human identity; and that it is the inscription of this identity in the politics of risk administration which opens the possibility of an absolutely legitimized regulation of nature, humanity, and society. Thus, (...) in order to evaluate the ‘risk’ entailed in the ethical and political strictures of Beck's ‘world risk society’, I have had recourse to the expositions of time, presence, identity and technology which Derrida has given in Of Grammatology and Specters of Marx. It is through these expositions that I have tried to work through the idea of an ecological politics that would remain sensitive to the events of difference and alterity precipitated by its own ‘cosmopolitan’ interventions. (shrink)

This article describes the fight of transnational civic networks to influence business development strategies and counter the threats to environmental and labor rights posed by the construction and exploitation of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline in Transcaucasia. The article starts by discussing the role of civil society in the global struggle for sustainable development. Then a brief overview of the geopolitical significance of the Transcaucasian-Caspian region in today’s oil and gas markets is presented. The case study looks at how the (...) actions of international and domestic nongovernmental organizations influenced the BTC’s main shareholder and operator company, British Petroleum, as well as host countries’ governments, to switch to more environmentally cognizant and socially responsive practices. The article discusses internationalization of civil society networks in response to the looming environmental crisis in the region, using the BTC case as an illustration. The article concludes by generalizing from this particular case study to the broader issue of transnational civic activism as a risk-mitigating factor in the world dominated by industry-related threats presented by globalization of the extractive technologies. (shrink)

In a spellbinding narrative that skillfully weaves together cutting-edge research among today's foremost scientists, theoretical physicist Michio Kaku--author of the bestselling book Hyperspace --presents a bold, exhilarating adventure into the science of tomorrow. In Visions, Dr. Kaku examines in vivid detail how the three scientific revolutions that profoundly reshaped the twentieth century--the quantum, biogenetic, and computer revolutions--will transform the way we live in the twenty-first century. The fundamental elements of matter and life--the particles of the atom and the nucleus of (...) the cell--have now been decoded, closing one of the great chapters of scientific history. But this is just the preface to an even more far-reaching scientific revolution, as we make the transition from being passive observers of the mysteries of nature to becoming masters of nature, able to manipulate matter, life, and intelligence to remold the world around us. In the first part of Visions, Dr. Kaku discusses the cyber future, when millions of microprocessors are scattered throughout our environment; when the iron principle that has ruled the computer industry, Moore's Law, finally collapses, forcing scientists to adopt startling new designs like DNA computers and quantum computers; and when artificial intelligence systems finally arrive. In the next section, Dr. Kaku shows how the decoding of DNA will allow us to conquer devastating genetic diseases, defeat many cancers at the molecular level, synthesize new medicines using virtual reality, grow new organs, conquer aging and reshape our genetic inheritance. Finally, he explores how quantum physicists will perfect new ways to harness the cosmic energy of the universe--from molecular machines to supermagnets that may energize a second industrial revolution, to powerful fusion engines that one day may take us to the stars. What makes Michio Kaku's vision of the future of science so compelling and authoritative is that it is based on the groundbreaking research already underway at leading laboratories around the world. Weaving interviews with over 150 scientists--several of them Nobel laureates--into a rich, inspiring narrative, Dr. Kaku reveals the growing consensus among key scientists about how science will likely evolve through the early, middle, and late years of the twenty-first century. An intimate, thrilling tour through the next century of science, Visions is a riveting, essential map to how scientists will reshape our future. (shrink)

International Scientific Relations offers a holistic analysis of the role and impact of science, technology, and innovation in the international system of the twenty-first century.