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PHIL202:
PHILOSOPHY, TECHNOLOGY AND
THE FUTURE OF HUMANITY
A/Prof Paul Formosa
Paul.Formosa@mq.edu.au
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TODAY’S LECTURE
• Teaching staff
• What will we be looking at?
• Unit outline
• Unit guide
• Learning outcomes
• Assessment
• Readings
• How the seminars will run
• What you need to do!
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TEACHING STAFF
• Unit convenor and co-Lecturer:
A/Prof Paul Formosa
• Co-Lecturer:
• Dr Alex Gillett
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WHAT IS
TECHNOLOGY?
• “Technology” comes from the Greek “techne” –
“craft” or “art” and “logia” meaning “study of”.
• Roughly: the study of how to apply or do things.
• English prominence of the word begins to emerge
with Industrial revolution.
• E.g. “study of mechanical and industrial
arts”(1859) (Century Dictionary, 1895, gives as
example "spinning, metal-working, or
brewing"). (From etymonline.com).
• Now: application of scientific knowledge for
practical, applied or industrial purposes.
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TECHNOLOGY AND
HUMANITY
• 1. Technology is always good for us and makes us
better.
TECHNOLOGY AND
HUMANITY
• Clearly the same technology (e.g. nuclear technology)
can be put to good (clean energy) or bad (bombs)
uses.
• But technology is not value neutral. Why?
• Values are often embedded in technology. E.g. Think
how privacy is embedded in software – this embeds a
way of thinking about the importance of privacy. Are
there lots of privacy settings? Easy to access? Etc.
• And artificial agents may have to make ethical
decisions or value judgment. E.g. AVs and trolley
problems. Technology as a moral agent.
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TECHNOLOGY AND
HUMANITY
• And some technologies and uses of technologies might
be good for some (e.g. rich white people) and bad for
others (e.g. poorer minorities).
• This raises questions of fairness and justice.
• Or good in some respects and bad in others.
• E.g. Automation might give us more free time but rob
our lives of some meaning.
• Or simply change us in complex ways. E.g. Think of the
way that social media has changed how we think
about privacy, sharing, friendship, etc. Overall, is this
good or bad? How do we even answer that?
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TECHNOLOGY AND
HUMANITY
• We often think of technology as simply a tool we use.
• But this is also becoming too simplistic.
• Algorithms and AIs are making decisions for us. They can
act independently of us in ways we don’t understand.
• Social robots could become our friends or colleagues.
You don’t become attached to a hammer in the same
way.
• Technology could become part of us – or we could
merge with an AI (Human-Brain interfaces) or even
upload ourselves into virtual environments.
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UNIT OUTLINE
• MIND, BODIES AND TECHNOLOGY
• W2 – What is technology? Optimist and pessimist views
of technology. (AG)
UNIT OUTLINE
• W3 - Artificial Intelligence (AI). (AG)
UNIT OUTLINE
• W4 - Mind and technology: co-evolution of mind and
technology (AG)
UNIT OUTLINE
• W5 - The Singularity and Mind-uploading: Will humanity
survive? (PF)
UNIT OUTLINE
• ETHICAL AND SOCIAL ASPECTS OF TECHNOLOGY
• W6 – Artificial moral agents: Can robots be persons? (PF)
UNIT OUTLINE
• W7 - Autonomous Vehicles and Carebots: How to live
with machines (PF)
UNIT OUTLINE
• W8 –Videogames and morality: Do virtual actions
matter? (PF)
UNIT OUTLINE
• W9 – Privacy on the Internet: Do we have any and
should we care? (PF)
• What is privacy?
• Why do we care about privacy?
• Do we have any privacy on the internet? Should we
care how much privacy we have on the internet?
• How can we respect people’s privacy?
• What are the impacts of a lack of privacy?
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UNIT OUTLINE
• TECHNOLOGY AND THE FUTURE OF HUMANITY
• W10 – Economy and politics of cognitive capitalism
(AG)
UNIT OUTLINE
• W11 –Automation: dangers and solutions (AG).
UNIT OUTLINE
• W12 - Human enhancement. (AG)
WEEKLY READINGS
• Required readings: available via Leganto.
• See the unit guide and iLearn for details about the
required readings each week.
• Read these BEFORE the seminar.
• No printed unit reader or textbook to buy.
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WEEKLY SEMINARS
• We are a bit too big now for a seminar (especially an
online one).
• So we will:
• 1) prerecord some lecture-style content (about 1 hour
or less).
• 2) break up into two 50 minute tutorial groups for the
special circumstances (synchronous mode) students.
These will run from 4:05-4:55 (for A-K surnames) and
5:05-5:55 (for L-Z) on Wednesday (i.e. during our 4-6pm
seminar slot).
• 3) You must attend your assigned group. ONLY for
special circumstances (synchronous mode) students.
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ASSESSMENT
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ASSESSMENT
• 2000-word research essay. Worth 40%.
• Essay questions and rubric are out now.
• Due by 11:59PM on November 5.
• Weekly online quiz. Worth 15%. There will be 10 weekly
on-line quizzes worth a total of 15% (or a maximum of
1.5% for each of the 10 quizzes). Start week 3.
• Quizzes cover content covered in required readings
and/or seminars. Quizzes open after the seminar and all
close Friday November 4 at 11:59 PM. One go only. 5
questions. 10 minutes. Don’t leave it to the last minute!
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ASSESSMENT
• Participation – worth 15%
• Internal/Special circumstances/synchronous mode
students: participate in synchronous zoom discussion.
Attendance will be noted.
• EXTERNAL/online/asynchronous mode students: Post at
least TWO contributions to the appropriate forum within
a week of the relevant lecture/seminar.
• Your contribution should include BOTH a direct
response to the discussion questions for each week
AND a contribution that seeks to engage in a dialogue
with the views of other students.
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ASSESSMENT
• Length: Your weekly post/s should total between, very
roughly, 200-300 words.
• There is no strict upper word limit on the length or
number of weekly contributions
• Due date: on-going. All forums will close one week after
the final lecture in week 12.
• Late forum posts (i.e. posted more than 7 days after the
relevant lecture/seminar) will lose marks for a lack of
timeliness. Keep up with the discussion!
• I’ll post discussion questions after the lecture content
goes up.
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ASSESSMENT
• Reflective Blog – worth 30%
• Due Date: 11/9/2020.
• Submission: ‘Reflective Blog’ link
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ASSESSMENT
• Format and length: Each blog post should take the form
of a short video/audio discussion. You can also include
a poster, slide, image, or links as part of your post.
• Each entry should strictly be a maximum of 3 minutes in
total. (So three entries of 3 minutes each).
• You can be creative if you want to!
• Note: if you cannot record video or audio, you can
upload a written blog post of equivalent length.
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ILEARN SITES
• Please log in and have a look around
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QUESTIONS
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NEXT LECTURE
• W2 – What is technology? Optimist and pessimist views
of technology (AG)
• Reading 1: Mary Tiles and Hans Oberdiek, “Conflicting
Visions of Technology,” in Living in a Technological
Culture (London: Routledge, 1995), pp. 12–31.
• Reading 2: Andrew Feenberg, “What is the Philosophy
of Technology?”, in Defining Technological Literacy.
Towards An Epistemological Framework, J. Dakers (ed.),
(Palgrave McMillan, 2006), 5-16.
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REFERENCES
• https://www.etymonline.com/word/technology
• Kitchin, R. (2014b). The Data Revolution: Big Data, Open
Data, Data Infrastructures and Their Consequence.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
• Anna Hoffmann (2017). “Data, Technology, and
Gender Thinking About (and From) Trans Lives”, Spaces
for the Future: A Companion to Philosophy of
Technology (E.g. Pitt & Shew). Routledge.
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PHIL202:
PHILOSOPHY, TECHNOLOGY AND
THE FUTURE OF HUMANITY
A/Prof Paul Formosa
Paul.Formosa@mq.edu.au