Social media is full of dead people. Untold millions of dead users haunt the online world where we increasingly live our lives. What do we do with all these digital souls? Can we simply delete them, or do they have a right to persist? Philosophers have been almost entirely silent on the topic, despite their perennial focus on death as a unique dimension of human existence. Until now. -/- Drawing on ongoing philosophical debates, Digital Souls claims that the (...) digital dead are objects that should be treated with loving regard and that we have a moral duty towards. Modern technology helps them to persist in various ways, while also making them vulnerable to new forms of exploitation and abuse. This provocative book explores a range of questions about the nature of death, identity, grief, the moral status of digital remains and the threat posed by AI-driven avatars of dead people. In the digital era, it seems we must all re-learn how to live with the dead. (shrink)

Abstract:This essay follows the recent discourse on two phenomena: the tendency of hegemony to incorporate subversive cultures, and the digital reanimation of prominent dead people. At the intersection of these phenomena lies what we call “cultural necromancy,” a special case of hegemonic incorporation that aesthetically manipulates the physical presence of a deceased figure in the service of power. This essay explores historical analogues to cultural necromancy and how the digital age has accelerated the process through examples ranging (...) from medieval saints to Lenin’s mausoleum to the Tupac hologram. It then examines cultural necromancy’s implications for counterculture and resistance. (shrink)

Given the so-called ?crisis? in film theory, the digital mutations of the medium, and the renewed interest in historicism, cinephilia, and film philosophy, André Bazin's thought appears ripe for retrieval and renewal. Indeed, his role in the renaissance of philosophical film theory, I argue, is less epistemological and ontological than moral and aesthetic. It is a quest to explore the revelatory possibilities of cinematic images; not only their power to reveal reality under a multiplicity of aspects but to satisfy (...) our desire for myth ? to allow an aesthetic overcoming of the limits of consciousness and memory. The question I wish to explore is whether cinema has the power to restore our belief in reality, in the worlds that film can reveal, in the experience that it can capture and transfigure. My case study for exploring this question, the question of belief in cinema or what we could call a Bazinian cinephilia, will be Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life (2011); a film whose sublime aesthetics and unorthodox religiosity has provoked polarised critical responses, but whose remarkable ambition is to create a mythology ? personal, historical, and cosmological ? capable of reanimating belief in cinema and in the world. (shrink)

For historians of psychology, Hugo Münsterberg is best remembered as William James’ successor as director of the Harvard Psychological Laboratory and a pioneer of applied psychology. By contrast, for film and media studies scholars, Münsterberg is recognized less for his contributions to experimental psychology than for those to film theory, a field in which his penultimate book, The Photoplay: A Psychological Study (1916), is frequently claimed as an inaugural text. However, lost in the blind spots of both disciplinary perspectives has (...) been a thorough examination of Münsterberg's collaboration with Paramount Pictures, translating psychological tests into experimental short films. Despite reaching millions of moviegoers in 1916, Münsterberg’s ‘Testing the Mind’ series has received little attention from historians of science and early cinema alike. One reason for this neglect is that, to date, not a single extant copy of a ‘Testing the Mind’ release has been located. This article is about the author's efforts, in collaboration with students, to reanimate these lost psychological tests for the screen through meticulous historical reconstruction based on the original scripts, journalistic accounts, and correspondence between Münsterberg and Paramount. This reconstructive process, I show, yields new insights into the relationship between psychology and early cinema and an opportunity for reflection on this promising new space for research at the intersection of media archaeology, the history of psychology, and experimental history of science. Film URL: https://archive.org/details/munsterberg_paramount.pictographs. (shrink)

Throughout Iran and various countries, the recent calls of the “Zan, Zendegi, Azadi” (in Persian), “Jin, Jiyan, Azadi” (in Kurdish), or “Woman, Life, Freedom” (in English) movement call for change to acknowledge the importance of women. While these feminist protests and demonstrations have been met with brutality, systematic oppression, and internet blackouts within Iran, they have captured significant social media attention and coverage outside the country, especially among the Iranian diaspora and various international organizations. This article, grounded in feminist urban (...) theories of the Global South, analyzes the digital feminist placemaking movement in Iran. As the first counter‐revolution led by women, the movement utilizes digital art, graffiti, and protest movements to embody women’s solidarity groups and sympathy rallies. Our analysis employs various digital research methods, including social media scrutiny and the study of protest illustrations. Analyzing the digital feminist placemaking in Iran will enable us to compare the commonalities, differences, challenges, and opportunities between the minorities and majorities in the world’s countries. The outcomes of this research can help international organizations such as Amnesty International and the United Nations Agency for Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment (UN Women), as well as policymakers, institutions, academics, and NGOs, to highlight the various ways in which broader public participation could be encouraged in the process of digital feminist insurgent placemaking. (shrink)

This article takes as its point of departure Hannah Arendt’s discussion of public happiness, contextualising it within her thoughts on politics, democracy and revolution. It draws on Arendt’s discussion of how the expression “pursuit of happiness” has historically shifted from a public understanding of happiness into an increasingly privatised one. The article engages with Arendt’s account of public happiness in order to reanimate her radical democratic critique of how representative politics reduces the scope of political action and participation; and how (...) the notion of happiness in a neoliberal era can only be interpreted in economistic and subjectivist terms. Furthermore, the article turns to examine how recent works in contemporary political thought, namely, those by Adriana Cavarero and Judith Butler, extend and transform the stakes of Arendt’s account of public happiness. On one hand, Cavarero’s notion of surging democracy is considered as an account of radical politics that keeps alive the Arendtian concern with public happiness by contextualising it within contemporary political struggles and social movements. On the other hand, Butler problematises Arendt’s discussion of politics for its neglect of precarity; however, this article argues that Butler’s work on assembly extends Arendt’s by highlighting possibilities of resistance, radical democracy and even public happiness amid experiences of loss and grief. Although prima facie it might appear that happiness and precarity are opposed to each other, this article points towards contemporary political practices, such as those of Ni Una Menos, that are critically reanimating public happiness through the intertwining of affective registers that range from joy to grief. (shrink)

Interest in the retrieval of organs from non-heart-beating cadaver donors has been rekindled by the success of transplantation of solid organs and the insufficient supply of donor organs currently obtained from heart-beating cadaver donors. There are currently two retrieval techniques being evaluated, the in situ cold perfusion approach and the controlled death approach. Both, however, raise ethical concerns. Reanimation is a new method which has been used successfully in animals. We believe this new approach overcomes the ethical objections raised (...) to these other methods. (shrink)

Introduction to Special Issue of Film-Philosophy.

This article explores how the shift from print to electronic calendars materializes and exacerbates a distinctively quantitative, “spreadsheet” orientation to time. Drawing on interviews with engineers, I argue that calendaring systems are emblematic of a larger design rationale in Silicon Valley to mechanize human thought and action in order to make them more efficient and reliable. The belief that technology can be profitably employed to control and manage time has a long history and continues to animate contemporary sociotechnical imaginaries of (...) what automation will deliver. In the current moment we live in the age of the algorithm and machine learning, so it is no wonder, then, that the contemporary design of digital calendars is driven by a vision of intelligent time management. As I go on to show in the second part of the article, this vision is increasingly realized in the form of intelligent digital assistants whose tracking capacities and behavioral algorithms aim to solve life’s existential problem—how best to organize the time of our lives. This article contributes to STS scholarship on the role of technological artifacts in generating new temporalities that shape people’s perception of time, how they act in the world, and how they understand themselves. (shrink)

The purpose of the article is to reveal the scientific approach that substantiates the impact of the creation of strategic alliances (SA) on the digital transformation of business and the development of their innovative power based on identified success factors. The aim was achieved using the following methods: abstract logic and typification (for classification of SA's success factors), generalization (to determine the peculiarities of SA's influence on their innovation development), analytical and ranking method (to determine the relationship between the (...) dynamics creating of SA and the degree of acceleration of digital transformation), expert evaluation (to determine the degree of influence of SA success factors by business areas). Implementing a business-integrated approach to understanding digital transformation will accelerate implementation of innovation and organizational change, identifies future prospects for market, customer and business relationships, highlighting the importance of researching the factors that ensure their success. An alternative vision of SA’s success factors is suggested, which are determined by the possibilities the organization of partnerships and organizational culture, integration of business sectors, compatibility of management goals, external relevance, obtaining synergies. Innovation is considered by the authors as an integration factor that reconciles all groups of SA success factors, giving them the necessary focus to solve business problems. The results of the study show that the creation of SA has a significant impact on accelerating and changes priority of digital transformation of business areas involved in strategic partnerships, and the impact of SA on the development of their innovation power is crucial. (shrink)

The publication in 1982 of David Marr’s Vision has delivered a singular boost and a course correction to the science of vision. Thirty years later, cognitive science is being transformed by the new ways of thinking about what it is that the brain computes, how it does that, and, most importantly, why cognition requires these computations and not others. This ongoing process still owes much of its impetus and direction to the sound methodology, engaging style, and unique voice of Marr’s (...) Vision. (shrink)

Computer vision systems are, on most counts, poor performers, when compared to their biological counterparts. The reason for this may be that computer vision is handicapped by an unreasonable assumption regarding what it means to see, which became prevalent as the notions of intrinsic images and of representation by reconstruction took over the field in the late 1970’s. Learning from biological vision may help us to overcome this handicap.

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The technological revolution and appropriation of internet tools began to reshape the material basis of society and the urban space in collaborative, grassroots, leaderless, and participatory actions. The protest squares’ representation on Television screens and mainstream media has been broad. Various health, governmental, societal, and urban challenges have marked the advent of the Covid-19 virus. Inequalities have become more salient as poor people and minorities are more affected by the virus. Social distancing makes the typical forms of protest impossible to (...) carry out. Under social distancing, some state-led policies took advantage of social media to focus on the Covid-19 pandemic to silence social and political activities, censor criticism, and control the press. However, during the pandemic era, the movements for social justice have been particularly active, focusing on defending workers’ rights, mutual aid and solidarity, monitoring policymakers, and popular education. These progressive movements combined concrete practices and experiences to confront the reactionary, capitalist, and governmental actors that sought to shape and envision the world. Through different case studies of protest movements during the pandemic in Europe, the UK, and Asia, this paper argues that at the time of rising racial, social, and economic inequalities, the social activities adapted to the circumstances determined by the social distancing and the impossibility of people gathering in physical spaces. Subsequently, the people in different countries had various individual and collective responses to the support of health workers, systemic inequalities, loss of jobs, and other societal and financial challenges imposed by the governments. It means that, rather than disappearing, the social movements have adapted to the unexpected situations during the pandemic outbreak. The pandemic broke the new digital global wave of protests in this sense. (shrink)

This report aims to offer insights into cutting-edge research on digital well-being. Many of these insights come from a 2-day academic-impact event, The Future of Digital Well-Being, hosted by a team of researchers working with the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) in February 2024. Today, achieving and maintaining well-being in the face of online technologies is a multifaceted challenge that we believe requires using theoretical resources of different research disciplines. This report explores diverse perspectives on (...) how digital well-being can be actively cultivated, while also emphasising the importance of considering individual differences, societal contexts, and nuanced cultural factors. We aim to offer a holistic view of the future of digital well-being, one that will inspire the next generation of designers of online tools, as well as policymakers who will regulate these tools. We start by asking what digital well-being is – how we can best define a concept that is used by diverse stakeholders and researchers from many disciplines in various ways. To do this, we explore the classic ethical theories of well-being, showing how they can give us insights into how the term digital well-being is currently deployed. We then move to look at the existing strategies that have been proposed to actively cultivate digital well-being, exploring the business models that threaten digital well-being and the relative advantages of the digital and non-digital solutions that are currently proposed. On the one hand, digital tools – such as Apple’s Screen Time and app blockers such as Opal and Forest – integrate seamlessly with the digital lifestyles of users. They also create precise metrics for digital well-being, which facilitates their solutions to reduce screen time. On the other hand, non-digital solutions, including mindfulness practices, digital detoxes, and digital well-being coaching, offer a new set of tools to reconnect individuals to their natural rhythms and help to actively promote offline activities. We then move to discuss diversity and how various groups of users have strikingly different digital well-being needs. Embracing neurodiversity in digital well-being is crucial as it strongly impacts the users’ experience of online technologies. When designing for diversity, organisations and designers alike need to prioritise customization for people with physical disabilities, mitigate harmful content for users with mental well-being conditions, address gender stereotypes and online harassment, and be designed in ways that recognize the very real risks of online technologies. This report closes by examining cultural differences. We believe that non-Western conceptions of well-being offer rich sources for enhancing digital well-being insofar as these traditions can inform and inspire the designers of future online technologies. We focus on East-Asian and South-Asian traditions, although in further work we recognise it would be useful to investigate conceptions of well-being that are influential in the Gulf region, Africa, and South America. Each of these areas have ethical frameworks that discuss well-being in depth as well as a rich cultural heritage. In conclusion, this report’s insights underscore the imperative of recognizing diversity in digital well-being, both in terms of cultural contexts and disciplinary perspectives. It emphasises the need for culturally responsive design methodologies and the integration of non-Western philosophical perspectives into current digital well-being research. Embracing this diversity, we believe, offers the best chance to create digital environments that prioritise well-being for users and the societies they live in across the world. Ultimately, we believe that it is not only about designing better online products; it’s about shaping a digital landscape that promotes well-being and flourishing for everyone. (shrink)

Improvements of the happiness of the rural population are an essential sign of the effectiveness of relative poverty governance. In the context of today’s digital economy, assessing the relationship between digital literacy and the subjective happiness of rural low-income groups is of great practicality. Based on data from China Family Panel Studies, the effect of digital literacy on the subjective well-being of rural low-income groups was empirically tested. A significant happiness effect of digital literacy on rural (...) low-income groups was found. Digital literacy promotes the subjective happiness of rural low-income groups through income increase and consumption growth effects. The observed happiness effect is heterogeneous among different characteristic groups, and digital literacy significantly positively impacts the subjective happiness of rural low-income groups. Decomposition of subjective happiness into life satisfaction and job satisfaction shows that digital literacy significantly positively affects the job and life satisfaction of rural low-income groups. This paper demonstrates that digital literacy induces a practical happiness effect. To further strengthen the subjective welfare effect of digital literacy in the construction of digital villages, the government should focus on cultivating digital literacy among low-income groups from the demand side. The construction of digital infrastructure should be actively promoted from the supply side. (shrink)

The paper argues that digital ontology (the ultimate nature of reality is digital, and the universe is a computational system equivalent to a Turing Machine) should be carefully distinguished from informational ontology (the ultimate nature of reality is structural), in order to abandon the former and retain only the latter as a promising line of research. Digital vs. analogue is a Boolean dichotomy typical of our computational paradigm, but digital and analogue are only “modes of presentation” (...) of Being (to paraphrase Kant), that is, ways in which reality is experienced or conceptualised by an epistemic agent at a given level of abstraction. A preferable alternative is provided by an informational approach to structural realism, according to which knowledge of the world is knowledge of its structures. The most reasonable ontological commitment turns out to be in favour of an interpretation of reality as the totality of structures dynamically interacting with each other. The paper is the first part (the pars destruens) of a two-part piece of research. The pars construens, entitled “A Defence of Informational Structural Realism”, is developed in a separate article, also published in this journal. (shrink)

T. Mels (ed.), Reanimating Places : a Geography of Rhythms, Aldershot : Ashgate, 2004, 278 p. Quelques pages sont accessibles ici. For geographers, rhythm is one of the most seductive and elusive of concepts. And, as Tom Mels's expansive introductory essay to this collection demonstrates, it is possible to trace the 'lineage of a geography of rhythms' through various theoretical and empirical trajectories. The content and tone of this volume is, however, dominated by one particular (...) - Recensions.

Including international contributors from a variety of disciplines - History, English, Information Studies and Archivists – this book does not seek either to applaud or condemn digital technologies, but takes a more conceptual view of how ...

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

As a generation of ‘digital natives,’ secondary students who were born from 2002 to 2010 have various approaches to acquiring digital knowledge. Digital literacy and resilience are crucial for them to navigate the digital world as much as the real world; however, these remain under-researched subjects, especially in developing countries. In Vietnam, the education system has put considerable effort into teaching students these skills to promote quality education as part of the United Nations-defined Sustainable Development Goal (...) 4 (SDG4). This issue has proven especially salient amid the COVID−19 pandemic lockdowns, which had obliged most schools to switch to online forms of teaching. This study, which utilizes a dataset of 1061 Vietnamese students taken from the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)’s “Digital Kids Asia Pacific (DKAP)” project, employs Bayesian statistics to explore the relationship between the students’ background and their digital abilities. Results show that economic status and parents’ level of education are positively correlated with digital literacy. Students from urban schools have only a slightly higher level of digital literacy than their rural counterparts, suggesting that school location may not be a defining explanatory element in the variation of digital literacy and resilience among Vietnamese students. Students’ digital literacy and, especially resilience, also have associations with their gender. Moreover, as students are digitally literate, they are more likely to be digitally resilient. Following SDG4, i.e., Quality Education, it is advisable for schools, and especially parents, to seriously invest in creating a safe, educational environment to enhance digital literacy among students. (shrink)

This paper argues that social media companies’ power to regulate communication in the public sphere illustrates a novel type of domination. The idea is that, since social media companies can partially dictate the terms of citizens’ political participation in the public sphere, they can arbitrarily interfere with the choices individuals make qua citizens. I contend that social media companies dominate citizens in two different ways. First, I focus on the cases in which social media companies exercise direct control over political (...) speech. They exercise quasi-public power over citizens because their regulation of speech on social media platforms implies the capacity to arbitrarily interfere with citizens’ democratic contestation in the political system. Second, companies’ algorithmic governance entails the capacity to interfere with citizens’ choices about what mode of discursive engagement they endorse in their relationships with fellow citizens. By raising the cost of deliberative engagement, companies narrow citizens’ choice menu. (shrink)

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

Nietzsche promises to “translate man back into nature,” but it remains unclear what he meant by this and to what extent he succeeded at it. To help come to grips with Nietzsche’s conceptions of drive (Trieb), instinct (Instinkt) and virtue (Tugend and/or Keuschheit), I develop novel digital humanities methods to systematically track his use of these terms, constructing a near-comprehensive catalogue of what he takes these dispositions to be and how he thinks they are related. Nietzsche individuate drives and (...) instincts by the type of actions they motivate. One way in which the “translation” of man back into nature might succeed is through naturalistic explanation and reduction of moral notions such as virtue in terms of amoral, naturalistic notions, such as drives and instincts. I go on to show that this is indeed Nietzsche’s project: for him, a virtue is a well-calibrated drive. Such calibration relates both to the rest of the agent’s psychic economy (her other drives) and to her social context (what’s considered praiseworthy and blameworthy in her community). (shrink)

Cameras, microphones, and other sensors continue to proliferate in the world around us. I offer a new metaphor for conceptualizing these technologies: they are _digital wormholes_, transmitting representations of human persons between disparate points in space–time. We frequently cannot tell when they are operational, what kinds of data they are collecting, where the data may reappear in the future, and how the data can be used against us. The wormhole metaphor makes the mysteriousness of digital sensors salient: digital (...) sensors have brought us to a strange place. If humans are to be capable of making sensible decisions while under observation by digital sensors, we must improve the epistemic position of potential sensor subjects. (shrink)

Cet article propose un regard sur la place des familles au chevet des patients comateux et leur rôle potentiel dans le processus d’éveil, notamment en ce qui concerne le travail de mémoire et le partage d’affect, principalement la honte. Il s’appuie sur l’expérience de travail de plusieurs années d’un psychologue en service de réanimation adulte. La réanimation est un lieu dans lequel la place de chaque objet est pensée en fonction de son utilité pour le soin du patient, mais peu (...) dans la perspective du lien à l’entourage. Certains objets comme la famille sont porteurs de complexité à résonances affectives. L’article montre que cette complexité, si elle est accompagnée par le psychologue et l’équipe soignante, peut jouer un rôle favorable dans le processus d’éveil et dans le travail de réappropriation de son vécu par le patient. (shrink)

Cet article propose un regard sur la place des familles au chevet des patients comateux et leur rôle potentiel dans le processus d’éveil, notamment en ce qui concerne le travail de mémoire et le partage d’affect, principalement la honte. Il s’appuie sur l’expérience de travail de plusieurs années d’un psychologue en service de réanimation adulte. La réanimation est un lieu dans lequel la place de chaque objet est pensée en fonction de son utilité pour le soin du patient, mais peu (...) dans la perspective du lien à l’entourage. Certains objets comme la famille sont porteurs de complexité à résonances affectives. L’article montre que cette complexité, si elle est accompagnée par le psychologue et l’équipe soignante, peut jouer un rôle favorable dans le processus d’éveil et dans le travail de réappropriation de son vécu par le patient. (shrink)

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

Digital artifacts — humanly-constructed items that inhabit our computers and networks — suffer an unfortunate reputation as being virtual and therefore unreal, and all too easy to reproduce on the cheap. These features together prompt the question of this article: if digital artifacts can be reproduced for free, and if they are unreal, why do they have economic value at all? Using a focal case study of bitcoin — the most unreal digital artifact of them all, and (...) one that has been copied and pasted a thousand times over — I answer the question. Some digital artifacts can't be copied on the cheap, as it turns out, and they are real enough to be useful. (shrink)

Social isolation and loneliness are growing concerns around the globe that put people at increased risk of disease and early death. One much‐touted approach to addressing them is deploying artificially intelligent agents to serve as companions for socially isolated and lonely people. Focusing on digital humans, we consider evidence and ethical arguments for and against this approach. We set forth and defend public health policies that respond to concerns about replacing humans, establishing inferior relationships, algorithmic bias, distributive justice, and (...) data privacy. (shrink)

Background Providing understandable information to patients is necessary to achieve the aims of the Informed Consent process: respecting and promoting patients’ autonomy and protecting patients from harm. In recent decades, new, primarily digital technologies have been used to apply and test innovative formats of Informed Consent. We conducted a systematic review to explore the impact of using digital tools for Informed Consent in both clinical research and in clinical practice. Understanding, satisfaction and participation were compared for digital (...) tools versus the non-digital Informed Consent process. Methods We searched for studies on available electronic databases, including Pubmed, EMBASE, and Cochrane. Studies were identified using specific Mesh-terms/keywords. We included studies, published from January 2012 to October 2020, that focused on the use of digital Informed Consent tools for clinical research, or clinical procedures. Digital interventions were defined as interventions that used multimedia or audio–video to provide information to patients. We classified the interventions into 3 different categories: video only, non-interactive multimedia, and interactive multimedia. Results Our search yielded 19,579 publications. After title and abstract screening 100 studies were retained for full-text analysis, of which 73 publications were included. Studies examined interactive multimedia, non-interactive multimedia, and videos, and most studies were conducted on adults. Innovations in consent were tested for clinical/surgical procedures and clinical research. For research IC, 21 outcomes were explored, with a positive effect on at least one of the studied outcomes being observed in 8/12 studies. For clinical/surgical procedures 49 outcomes were explored, and 21/26 studies reported a positive effect on at least one of the studied outcomes. Conclusions Digital technologies for informed consent were not found to negatively affect any of the outcomes, and overall, multimedia tools seem desirable. Multimedia tools indicated a higher impact than videos only. Presence of a researcher may potentially enhance efficacy of different outcomes in research IC processes. Studies were heterogeneous in design, making evaluation of impact challenging. Robust study design including standardization is needed to conclusively assess impact. (shrink)

Christiaens argues that digital technologies are fundamentally undermining workers’ autonomy by enacting systems of surveillance that lead to exploitation, alienation, and exhaustion. For a more sustainable future of work, digital technologies should support human development instead of subordinating it to algorithmic control.

Digitalization of (higher) education has been an increasingly important subject in the recent years, spiking especially due to pandemic lockdowns. While many scholars and third parties consider this process to be an improvement or even an inevitability, I argue that there is much to understand about it beyond ‘attending to the materialities of digital education’. This paper aims to do two things: 1) to argue why digital materialities approach (‘attending to the materialities of digital education’) is not (...) enough to grasp the digitalization of the University (and thus, its stakes) and 2) to discuss how combining general organology and an educational-phenomenological outlook offers a more robust way of understanding digitalization of the University and its stakes. I conclude by pointing to the issue of place and placefulness that seems to be one of the most directly affected characteristics of the University and studying, which calls on to be reflected further upon. (shrink)

As ever more advanced digital systems are created, it becomes increasingly likely that some of these systems will be digital minds, i.e. digital subjects of experience. With digital minds comes the risk of digital suffering. The problem of digital suffering is that of mitigating this risk. We argue that the problem of digital suffering is a high stakes moral problem and that formidable epistemic obstacles stand in the way of solving it. We then (...) propose a strategy for solving it: Access Monitor Prevent (AMP). AMP uses a ‘dancing qualia’ argument to link the functional states of certain digital systems to their experiences—this yields epistemic access to digital minds. With that access, we can prevent digital suffering by only creating advanced digital systems that we have such access to, monitoring their functional profiles, and preventing them from entering states with functional markers of suffering. After introducing and motivating AMP, we confront limitations it faces and identify some options for overcoming them. We argue that AMP fits especially well with—and so provides a moral reason to prioritize—one approach to creating such systems: whole brain emulation. We also contend that taking other paths to digital minds would be morally risky. (shrink)

Since the advent of accessible online computing, the digital divide existed, it exists today and it will exist tomorrow. It means that almost every aspect of life will be affected, particularly for those who are most vulnerable for whatever reason. It is important that research-informed action addresses this unacceptable state. In this special issue, a number of perspectives are taken to consider different aspects of the digital divide. In total, they illustrate the synergistic value of crossing disciplinary boundaries (...) and adopting a plethora of research methods and philosophies. Thus, the guest editors and authors of this special issue have created a notable contribution to the fight against the digital divide. (shrink)

This paper endeavors to appraise scholarly works from the 1940s to the contemporary era, examining the scientific quest to transpose human cognition and consciousness into a digital surrogate, while contemplating the potential ramifications should humanity attain such an abstract level of intellect. The discourse commences with an explication of theories concerning consciousness, progressing to the Turing Test apparatus, and intersecting with Damasio’s research on the human cerebrum, particularly in relation to consciousness, thereby establishing congruence between the Turing Test and (...) Damasio’s notions of consciousness. Subsequently, the narrative traverses the evolutionary chronology of transmuting human cognition into machine sapience, and delves into the fervent endeavors to metamorphose human minds into synthetic counterparts. Additionally, theoretical perspectives from the domains of philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience provide insight into the constraints intrinsic to AI implementations, contentious hypotheses, the perils concealed within artificial networks, and the ethical considerations necessitated by AI frameworks. Furthermore, contemplation of prospective repercussions facilitates the refinement of strategic approaches to safeguard our future Augmented Age Realities within AI, circumventing the prospect of inhabiting an intimidating technopolis where a mere 30% monopolize the intellect and ingenuity of the remaining 70% of human minds. (shrink)

The digital is deeply transforming reality. Through discussion of concepts such as identity, location, presence, law and territoriality, this article explores why and how these transformations are occurring, and highlights the importance of having a design and a plan for our new digital world.

Digital technologies mediate engagement with the world by making activities visible. The automaticity and physicality of the ways in which they do this suggest that it could be productive to view them as responsive digital materials. This paper explores the structure and function of responsive materials in order to develop a conceptualization of responsive digital materials. It then begins to unpack the complexities of digital material mediation through both drawing on and extending existing postphenomenological theory.

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

This research report presents findings about the extent and nature of digital self-harm among New Zealand teens. Digital self-harm is broadly defined here as the anonymous online posting or sharing of mean or negative online content about oneself. The report centres on the prevalence of digital self-harm (or self-cyberbullying) among New Zealand teens (aged 13-17), the motivations, and outcomes related to engaging in this behaviour. The findings described in this report are representative of the teenage population of (...) New Zealand by gender, ethnicity and age. Key findings are: Overall, 6% of New Zealand teens have anonymously posted mean or negative content online about themselves in the past year. Teenagers’ top reasons for this behaviour were: making a joke, wanting to show resilience, looking for friends’ sympathy, and seeking reassurance of friendship. By exploring the nature and extent of this behaviour, we are providing the online safety community, schools and parents with insights about a complex and, to some extent, hidden phenomenon involving New Zealand teens. (shrink)

This essay takes as its chief point of departure Jacques Ellul’s contention that imaginative treatments of malevolent technology in antitechnological science fiction, by way of inviting rejection, refusal, dismissal, or condemnation, conspire in facilitating human acceptance of and adjustment to technology as it otherwise presently is. The author extends Ellul’s argument to accounts of cryonic suspension, or “cryonics,” the practice of freezing human corpses, by way of gradually subjecting them, at the moment of legal death, to extremely low temperatures in (...) hopes that medicine will at some future point achieve the necessary kinds and levels of technology to facilitate “reanimation.” The author maintains that, analogous to Ellul’s treatment of science fiction, most extant accounts of cryonic suspension, by focusing almost exclusively on issues pertaining to the scientific legitimacy and technological feasibility of the practice, fall prey to the performative conventions of a discursive- cum-epistemic trap, one that ultimately works to facilitate the acceptance of and adjustment to technology as it otherwise presently is. (shrink)

La arquitectura digital ha alterado de manera decisiva la sociedad y, en consecuencia, demanda respuestas legales. De la Internet desarrollada en la década de 1970 con fines militares, casi nada permanece igual. La plataforma ha otorgado un poder sin igual a las empresas de tecnología, cambiando la forma en que nos comunicamos, abordamos la política, negociamos y también cómo nos relacionamos. En la economía digital actual, la atención de los usuarios es el principal producto, y estos usuarios también (...) son productores de contenido. En este modelo, se facilita la propagación de información falsa, lo que pone en riesgo la democracia y la ciencia. Para abordar estos fenómenos, es fundamental desarrollar y aplicar mecanismos adecuados de regulación de las plataformas para proteger a la sociedad y la libertad. Este estudio se basa en este contexto para analizar algunas respuestas regulatorias que se están debatiendo en Brasil. (shrink)

It is becoming increasingly common for authoritarian regimes to leverage digital technologies to surveil, repress and manipulate their citizens. Experts typically refer to this practice as “digital authoritarianism” (DA). Existing definitions of DA consistently presuppose a politically repressive agent intentionally exploiting digital technology in pursuit of authoritarian ends. I refer to this as the "intention-based definition." This paper argues that this definition is untenable as a general description of DA. I begin by illustrating the current predominance of (...) the intention-based definition (Section 1). Section 2 then presents four counterexamples to this definition: benign surveillance; digital sovereignty; attention-harvesting algorithms; and tech-induced loneliness. In each case, we witness authoritarianism being promoted by digital technologies without any evidence of this being intentionally caused by politically repressive agents. Based on these observations, I contend that the intention-based definition is underinclusive and therefore unsustainable. Section 3 then outlines an improved definition of DA – what I call the "promotion-based definition." Since this more expansive definition does not posit intentional, politically repressive agency as a precondition of DA, it can accommodate the counterexamples discussed in Section 2. Moreover, it enables us to catch a broader spectrum of cases of DA, such as tech-induced loneliness, which those adhering to the intention-based definition are prone to overlook. After outlining further practical benefits of the promotion-based definition, I argue that we still need to distinguish between intentional and unintentional forms of DA since they call for distinct types of remedial action. (shrink)