Cover of Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology
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Displaying: 1-7 of 7 documents


1. Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology: Volume > 20 > Issue: 1
Henry Moss Genes, Affect, and Reason: Why Autonomous Robot Intelligence Will Be Nothing Like Human Intelligence
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Many believe that, in addition to cognitive capacities, autonomous robots need something similar to affect. As in humans, affect, including specific emotions, would filter robot experience based on a set of goals, values, and interests. This narrows behavioral options and avoids combinatorial explosion or regress problems that challenge purely cognitive assessments in a continuously changing experiential field. Adding human-like affect to robots is not straightforward, however. Affect in organisms is an aspect of evolved biological systems, from the taxes of single-cell organisms to the instincts, drives, feelings, moods, and emotions that focus human behavior through the mediation of hormones, pheromones, neurotransmitters, the autonomic nervous system, and key brain structures. We argue that human intelligence is intimately linked to biological affective systems and to the unique repertoire of potential behaviors, sometimes conflicting, they facilitate. Artificial affect is affect in name only and without genes and biological bodies, autonomous robots will lack the goals, interests, and value systems associated with human intelligence. We will take advantage of their general intelligence and expertise, but robots will not enter our intellectual world or apply for legal status in the community.
2. Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology: Volume > 20 > Issue: 1
Leandro Gaitán, Luis Echarte Transforming Neuroscience into a Totalizing Meta-Narrative: A Critical Examination
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The present work is developed within the frame of so-called critical neuroscience. The aim of this article is to explain the transition from a kind of neuroscience understood as a strict scientific discipline, possessing a methodology and a specific praxis, to a kind of neuroscience that has been transformed into a meta-narrative with totalizing claims. In particular, we identify and examine eleven catalysts for such a transition: 1) a lack of communication between scientists and journalists; 2) the abuse of information by the sensational press; 3) the acceptance of specific philosophical approaches (like eliminative materialism) by a wide range of scientists; 4) the widespread transmission of two conceptual mistakes: a) an identification between methodological and ontological reductionism and b) the mereological fallacy; 5) the influence of post-Cartesian philosophical thinking in the scientific community; 6) an overwhelming scientific hyper-specialization; 7) the illegitimate transfer of authority from humanities to the sciences; 8) an inbuilt human preference for visual data; 9) economic interests; 10) scientific utopianism; and 11) the new self-help movements and their alliance with neuro-enhancement. Finally, our essay seeks to draw attention to the most damaging consequences for both science and human ways of living.
3. Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology: Volume > 20 > Issue: 1
Christopher Ryan Maboloc On Technological Rationality and the Lack of Authenticity in the Modern Age: A Critique of Andrew Feenberg’s Notion of Adaptability
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I will argue in this paper that Andrew Feenberg has erred in his claim on technological adaptability. Adapting to modern technology may not always be liberating. Drawing from his reflections on Heidegger and Marcuse, I will explain why Feenberg thinks that adaptability has a redemptive role in the midst of technological domination. I will also show why technological domination still characterizes human relations in the modern age. Advanced technologies including social media, have continued to manipulate people and as such, diminish rather than deepen the authenticity of human life. For instance, two people in a café sometimes spend more time on their smartphones rather than valuing their face-to-face encounter; here, one can point out the lack of authenticity in human relations. This clearly manifests how consumer culture has taken over human life. In addition, it can be said that the notion of adaptability also fails to account for the hegemonic social relations created by modern technological innovations, since these gadgets remain beyond the reach of the masses, thus broadening the divide between classes of people in society. In order to address this, I propose that people should use technology in a socially sensitive way in order to truly give meaning to their lives and to effectively resist the totalitarian tendency of the modern age.
4. Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology: Volume > 20 > Issue: 1
Michael Falgoust Data Science and Designing for Privacy
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Unprecedented advances in the ability to store, analyze, and retrieve data is the hallmark of the information age. Along with enhanced capability to identify meaningful patterns in large data sets, contemporary data science renders many classical models of privacy protection ineffective. Addressing these issues through privacy-sensitive design is insufficient because advanced data science is mutually exclusive with preserving privacy. The special privacy problem posed by data analysis has so far escaped even leading accounts of informational privacy. Here, I argue that accounts of privacy must include norms about information processing in addition to norms about information flow. Ultimately, users need the resources to control how and when personal information is processed and the knowledge to make information decisions about that control. While privacy is an insufficient design constraint, value-sensitive design around control and transparency can support privacy in the information age.
5. Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology: Volume > 20 > Issue: 1
Joshua Penrod Be(ing) the Machine: Seeing Like a Rover: How Robots, Teams, and Images Craft Knowledge of Mars, by Janet Vertesi
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6. Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology: Volume > 20 > Issue: 1
Joshua Earle An Excellent Start, but Ironically Lacks Diversity: Keywords for Disability Studies, edited by Rachel Adams, Benjamin Reiss, and David Serlin
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7. Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology: Volume > 20 > Issue: 1
Alberto Romele Toward a Digital Hermeneutics: Virtual Worlds as Philosophical Tools: How to Philosophize with a Digital Hammer, by Stefano Gualeni
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