Perspectives on Digital Humanism

Table of Contents

1. Frontmatter

   Download PDF-version

2. Artificial Intelligence, Humans, and Control

   1. Frontmatter

   2. Are We Losing Control?

      • Open Access

      Edward A. Lee

      Abstract

      This chapter challenges the predominant assumption that humans shape technology using top-down, intelligent design, suggesting that technology should instead be viewed as the result of a Darwinian evolutionary process where humans are the agents of mutation. Consequently, we humans have much less control than we think over the outcomes of technology development.

      Download PDF-version

   3. Social Robots: Their History and What They Can Do for Us

      • Open Access

      Nadia Magnenat Thalmann

      Abstract

      From antiquity to today, some scientists, writers, and artists are passionate about representing humans not only as beautiful statues but as automatons that can perform actions. Already in ancient Greece, we can find some examples of automatons that replaced servants. In this chapter, we go through the development of automatons until the social robots of today. We describe two examples of social robots, EVA and Nadine, that we have been working with. We present two case studies, one in an insurance company and the other one in an elderly home. We also mention the limits of the use of social robots, their dangers, and the importance to control their actions through ethical committees.

      Download PDF-version

   4. Artificial Intelligence and the Problem of Control

      • Open Access

      Stuart Russell

      Abstract

      A long tradition in philosophy and economics equates intelligence with the ability to act rationally—that is, to choose actions that can be expected to achieve one’s objectives. This framework is so pervasive within AI that it would be reasonable to call it the standard model. A great deal of progress on reasoning, planning, and decision-making, as well as perception and learning, has occurred within the standard model. Unfortunately, the standard model is unworkable as a foundation for further progress because it is seldom possible to specify objectives completely and correctly in the real world. The chapter proposes a new model for AI development in which the machine’s uncertainty about the true objective leads to qualitatively new modes of behavior that are more robust, controllable, and deferential to humans.

      Download PDF-version

   5. The Challenge of Human Dignity in the Era of Autonomous Systems

      • Open Access

      Paola Inverardi

      Abstract

      Autonomous systems make decisions independently or on behalf of the user. This will happen more and more in the future, with the widespread use of AI technologies in the fabric of the society that impacts on the social, economic, and political sphere. Automating services and processes inevitably impacts on the users’ prerogatives and puts at danger their autonomy and privacy. From a societal point of view, it is crucial to understand which is the space of autonomy that a system can exercise without compromising laws and human rights. Following the European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies 2018 recommendation, the chapter addresses the problem of preserving the value of human dignity in the context of the digital society, understood as the recognition that a person is worthy of respect in her interaction with autonomous technologies. A person must be able to exercise control on information about herself and on the decisions that autonomous systems make on her behalf.

      Download PDF-version

3. Participation and Democracy

   1. Frontmatter

   2. The Real Cost of Surveillance Capitalism: Digital Humanism in the United States and Europe

      • Open Access

      Allison Stanger

      Abstract

      Shoshana Zuboff’s international best seller, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the Frontier of Power, has rightfully alarmed citizens of free societies about the uses and misuses of their personal data. Yet the concept of surveillance capitalism, from a global perspective, ultimately obscures more than it reveals. The real threat to liberal democracies is not capitalism but the growing inequalities that corporate surveillance in its unfettered form both reveals and exacerbates. By unclearly specifying the causal mechanisms of the very real negative costs she identifies, Zuboff creates the impression that capitalism itself is the culprit, when the real source of the problem is the absence of good governance.

      Download PDF-version

   3. Democratic Discourse in the Digital Public Sphere: Re-imagining Copyright Enforcement on Online Social Media Platforms

      • Open Access

      Sunimal Mendis

      Abstract

      Within the current European Union (EU) online copyright enforcement regime—of which Article 17 of the Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive [2019] constitutes the seminal legal provision—the role of online content-sharing service providers (OCSSPs) is limited to ensuring that copyright owners obtain fair remuneration for content shared over their platforms (role of “content distributors”) and preventing unauthorized uses of copyright-protected content (“Internet police”). Neither role allows for a recognition of OCSSPs’ role as facilitators of democratic discourse and the duty incumbent on them to ensure that users’ freedom to engage in democratic discourse are preserved. This chapter proposes a re-imagining of the EU legal framework on online copyright enforcement—using the social planning theory of copyright law as a normative framework—to increase its fitness for preserving and promoting copyright law’s democracy-enhancing function.

      Download PDF-version

   4. The Internet Is Dead: Long Live the Internet

      • Open Access

      George Zarkadakis

      Abstract

      Social exclusion, data exploitation, surveillance, and economic inequality on the web are mainly technological problems. The current web of centralized social media clouds delivers by design a winner-takes-all digital economy that stifles innovation and exacerbates power asymmetries between citizens, governments, and technology oligopolies. To fix the digital economy, we need a new, decentralized web where citizens are empowered to own their data, participate in disintermediated peer-to-peer marketplaces, and influence policy-making decisions by means of innovative applications of participatory and deliberative democracy. By reimagining “web 3.0” as a cloud commonwealth of networked virtual machines leveraging blockchains and sharing code, it is possible to design new digital business models where all stakeholders and participants, including users, can share the bounty of the Fourth Industrial Revolution fairly.

      Download PDF-version

   5. Return to Freedom: Governance of Fair Innovation Ecosystems

      • Open Access

      Hans Akkermans, Jaap Gordijn, Anna Bon

      Abstract

      The Vienna Manifesto on Digital Humanism attaches great importance to the innovation processes shaping the digital society. The digital humanism question we pose in this chapter is: if innovation is a shaping force, can it itself be shaped by humans and based on human values of a just and democratic society? Nowadays, innovation is commonly theorized in policy and academic research in terms of ecosystems. Although this framing makes room for multiple stakeholders and their interaction, it is limited as it still positions innovation as a natural process. Thus, it underplays the human value and societal design dimensions of technosocial innovation. We discuss some ideas and proposals for the governance of digital innovation ecosystems such that they are fair and equitable. Design-for-fairness has as its basis a just and democratic societal conception of freedom.

      Download PDF-version

   6. Decolonizing Technology and Society: A Perspective from the Global South

      • Open Access

      Anna Bon, Francis Dittoh, Gossa Lô, Mónica Pini, Robert Bwana, Cheah WaiShiang, Narayanan Kulathuramaiyer, André Baart

      Abstract

      Despite the large impact of digital technology on the lives and future of all people on the planet, many people, especially from the Global South, are not included in the debates about the future of the digital society. This inequality is a systemic problem which has roots in the real world. We refer to this problem as “digital coloniality.” We argue that to achieve a more equitable and inclusive global digital society, active involvement of stakeholders from poor regions of the world as co-researchers, co-creators, and co-designers of technology is required. We briefly discuss a few collaborative, community-oriented technology development projects as examples of transdisciplinary knowledge production and action research for a more inclusive digital society.

      Download PDF-version

4. Ethics and Philosophy of Technology

   1. Frontmatter

   2. Digital Humanism and the Limits of Artificial Intelligence

      • Open Access

      Julian Nida-Rümelin

      Abstract

      This chapter is programmatic in style and content. It describes some patterns and one central argument of that, what I take as the view of digital humanism and which we exposed in our book (Nida-Rümelin and Weidenfeld 2018). The central argument regards the critique of strong and weak AI. This chapter does not discuss the logical and metaphysical aspects of digital humanism that I take to be part of the broader context of the theory of reason (Nida-Rümelin 2020, Chaps. VI and VII).

      Download PDF-version

   3. Explorative Experiments and Digital Humanism: Adding an Epistemic Dimension to the Ethical Debate

      • Open Access

      Viola Schiaffonati

      Abstract

      The rise of Digital Humanism calls for shaping digital technologies in accordance with human values and needs. I argue that to achieve this goal, an epistemic and methodological dimension should be added to the ethical reflections developed in the last years. In particular, I propose the framework of explorative experimentation in computer science and engineering to set an agenda for the reflection on the ethical issues of digital technologies that seriously considers their peculiarities from an epistemic point of view. As the traditional epistemic categories of the natural sciences cannot be directly adopted by computer science and engineering, the traditional moral principles guiding experimentation in the natural sciences should be reconsidered in the case of digital technologies where uncertainty about their impacts and risks is very high.

      Download PDF-version

   4. Digital Humanism and Global Issues in Artificial Intelligence Ethics

      • Open Access

      Guglielmo Tamburrini

      Abstract

      In the fight against pandemics and climate crisis, the zero hunger challenge, the preservation of international peace and stability, and the protection of democratic participation in political decision-making, AI has increasing – and often double-edged – roles to play in connection with ethical issues having a genuinely global dimension. The governance of AI ambivalence in these contexts looms large on both the AI ethics and digital humanism agendas.

      Download PDF-version

   5. Our Digital Mirror

      • Open Access

      Erich Prem

      Abstract

      The digital world has a strong tendency to let everything in its realm appear as resources. This includes digital public discourse and its main creators, humans. In the digital realm, humans constitute the economic end and at the same time provide the means to fulfill that end. A good example is the case of online public discourse. It exemplifies a range of challenges from user abuse to amassment of power, difficulties in regulation, and algorithmic decision-making. At its root lies the untamed perception of humans as economic and information resources. In this way, digital technology provides us with a mirror that shows a side of what we are as humans. It also provides a starting point to discuss such questions as who would we like to be – including digitally, which purpose should we pursue, and how can we live the digital good life?

      Download PDF-version

5. Information Technology and the Arts

   1. Frontmatter

   2. Fictionalizing the Robot and Artificial Intelligence

      • Open Access

      Nathalie Weidenfeld

      Abstract

      This text explores the contemporary fascination with robots and digitality and points out how this distorts our view on what digitization can do for us. It pleads for a realist and non-fictionalized view on robots and artificial intelligence.

      Download PDF-version

   3. How to Be a Digital Humanist in International Relations: Cultural Tech Diplomacy Challenges Silicon Valley

      • Open Access

      Clara Blume, Martin Rauchbauer

      Abstract

      Digital humanism is often seen as an antidote to the excesses of Silicon Valley and its underlying cultural values. It is however very short-sighted to label big tech exclusively as a threat to our humanistic values, since it has proven to be an essential ally, particularly in the context of the ongoing digital transformation of the international system and its negative impact on human rights and privacy. The emerging field of cultural tech diplomacy has established a new meeting point in the center of global innovation between diplomats, policy makers, artists, and technologists in order to positively shape the future of technology according to our needs and our full potential as human beings. A new digital humanism empowered by artists can serve as a compass for diplomats and technologists alike to serve their citizens and customers while navigating a world radically transformed by artificial intelligence and biotechnology.

      Download PDF-version

   4. We Are Needed More Than Ever: Cultural Heritage, Libraries, and Archives

      • Open Access

      Anita Eichinger, Katharina Prager

      Abstract

      Libraries and archives as institutions of cultural heritage have a long history of and great expertise in collecting, securing, handling, and contextualizing masses of material and data. In the context of digital humanism, these institutions might become essential as a model as well as a field of experimentation. Questioning their own role as gatekeepers and curators, the digital transformation offers them the chance to open up – through both participatory initiatives and inclusive collecting. At the same time, however, it is a matter of preserving the library and archive as a place of encounter and personal dialogue in a human and humanist tradition.

      Download PDF-version

   5. Humanism and the Great Opportunity of Intelligent User Interfaces for Cultural Heritage

      • Open Access

      Oliviero Stock

      Abstract

      In the spirit of the modern meaning of the word humanism, if technology aims at the flourishing of humans, it is of the greatest value to empower each human being with the capability of appreciating culture, in an inclusive, individual-adaptive manner. In particular, in this brief chapter, the case is made for the opportunity that intelligent user interfaces can offer specifically in the area of culture, beyond the obvious infrastructural advantages we are all familiar with. Insight is provided on research aimed at the continuous personal enriching of individuals at cultural sites, approaching the ancient humanistic vision of connecting us to our cultural past, now made possible for all, not just for an elite.

      Download PDF-version