The presence of predictive AI has steadily expanded into ever-increasing aspects of civil society. I aim to show that despite reasons for believing the use of such systems is currently problematic, these worries give no indication of their future potential. I argue that the absence of moral limits on how we might manipulate automated systems, together with the likelihood that they are more easily manipulated in the relevant ways than humans, suggests that such systems will eventually outstrip the human ability to make accurate judgments and unbiased predictions. I begin with some reasonable justifications for the use of predictive AI. I then discuss two of the most significant reasons for believing the use of such systems is currently problematic before arguing that neither provides sufficient reason against such systems being superior in the future. In fact, there’s reason to believe they can, in principle, be preferable to human decision makers.

This article aims to introduce English-speaking readers to a still little-known tradition of French philosophy of technology: the “biological philosophy of technology.” As recognized by Georges Canguilhem, this philosophy was initiated by Henri Bergson, who conceived of technology as an extension of life, which in its evolution, creates natural tools (organs) and artificial ones (technical objects). The paleontologist André Leroi-Gourhan took up this thesis and put it to the test of archaeological data to demonstrate, on the one hand, the biological basis of technical evolution and on the other hand, the importance of technics for human evolution. Finally, Gilbert Simondon extended Leroi-Gourhan’s scientific technology from the study of tools to that of machines, providing yet another fruitful example of the biological philosophy of technology.

In this paper, I develop a concept of “good food” by placing in dialogue Albert Borgmann’s notions of focal things and practices with the experiences of two Lumad groups in Mindanao, Philippines, the Manobos and the Blaans. The “availability” of contemporary food, resulting from the “device paradigm,” creates an atrophic existence rooted in social and material disengagement with food production. I argue that the experiences of these two Lumad groups offer rich examples of Borgmann’s focal practices that show how to conceptualize good food in a technological world. This concept can be concretely realized through practices of food and technical democracy which institutionalize the values of the communalist and collectivist experiences of these Lumad groups.

Digital technology has prompted philosophers to rethink some of the fundamental categories we use to make sense of the world and ourselves. Particularly, the concept of ‘identity’ and its reconfiguration in the digital age has sparked much debate in this regard. While many studies have addressed the impact of the digital on personal and social identities, the concept of ‘collective identity’ has been remarkably absent in such inquiries. In this article, I take the context of social movements as an entry point to discuss the reconfiguration of collective identity in social media environments. I do so by introducing a narrative approach to collective identity. I argue that Twitter’s affordances invite new ways of constructing collective identities and imply a shifting relationship between the individual and the collective.

This article calls into question the simplistic identification of modern technology with quantitative efficiency in order to develop three main themes. First, I establish that technology, broadly construed, is the use of knowledge and resources to meet specific human needs. Accordingly, dominant technical practice that favors efficiency and numerical criteria and discriminates against other technologies should more appropriately be called “technology of technology.” Second, I delineate how dominant practice in engineering is an exemplar of technology of technology, when it becomes socially ambitious while remaining technically provincial and bears upon our personal and institutional life. Third, I illustrate what I call the “subjugated technical practice,” which exists under the rule of the dominant technical practice. Recognizing the importance of subjugated technical practices to engineering, I propose the concept of “critical technology of technology,” which is intended to advance technological alternatives and make critique an essential part of our technological world.

Sustainable technology is a microcosm that illuminates the relationship between technology and human agency. We tend to think about sustainability in terms of the properties of things. However, technology is not just things but techniques which have their own bearing on sustainability, for users may employ sustainable technologies in unsustainable ways. Clueless or stymied users may be managed through education or redesign; however, there are intractable users who cannot be managed through either approach. I trace the cause of this intractability to interaction between the improvisational nature of human agency and the multiple realizability of artifact functions. I argue that managing intractable users requires going with the flow of their relationship to technology rather than trying to control it through education or redesign, and that democratizing the development and distribution of technology is the best way to do this. Finally, these results easily generalize to technologies not aimed at sustainability.