IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - September 2017 - 29
"calculative rationality," and its
associated belief in individuality and
the rigors of reductionist thinking
that has underpinned the scientific
method on which we still rely. The
consequence is a world of knowledge and a way of knowing that
often seems mired in hermetically
sealed domains of deep, but disconnected expertise.
That reflex remains an obstacle
to the kind of joined up, whole systems sensibility demanded by the
connected, complex challenges we
now confront.
All of which makes it an interesting challenge to chart some broad
contours of a "good life" to which a
new settlement between technology,
people, society, and nature might be
directed.
Here are some guides:
■ A sense of freedom from arbitrarily imposed rules and constraints and from too much greed
and corruption by those in positions of power and influence.
■ A similar sense of the "freedom
of self;" an ability for people to
exercise some degree of autonomy and direction over aspects of
their lives, and the choices they
get to make, that are important
to them (which often gets articulated as "I need some sense of
control over my life").
■ Distinguishing between, Maslowlike, some of the lower-order
and higher-order needs that, in
a more digitally infused world of
abundance and apparently limitless choice, we need to make.
Behind this suggestion lies Mr.
Musk's argument, made repeatedly,
that human beings need to embrace
brain implants to stay relevant in a
world which, he believes, will soon
be dominated by artificial intelligence.
The Economist 1 April 2017
and amplification, even if sometimes
that negotiation is unequal and
heavily loaded.
While it may be true that there
are plenty of things at which human
are crap (driving, for example, or
crunching large scads of data), there
are things that humans are especially good at - including being
human. This, somewhere at the core,
means a unique consciousness and
capacity for faith, spirituality, and
an irreducible capacity for imagination and soul which can be approximated, perhaps even imitated, but
never replaced.
And just to reinforce the potential
for the Web Science debate to search
the deepest recesses of human motivation and anxiety, there is plausible
speculation that at least part of the
impetus for smarter and smarter
machines is a fear of death, perhaps
even, by one account at least, man's
irrepressible search for immortality, or divinity (https://en.wikipedia
.org/wiki/Homo_Deus:_A_Brief_
History_of_Tomorrow).
The Good Life
[This section is based on a roundtable session at the "Brave Conversations" conference, moderated
by Simon Longstaff from The Ethics Centre.]
Descartes, Francis Bacon and
Thoma s Hobbes have a lot to
answer for.
At least according to one construction, they and a few other writers and thinkers in the 17th and
18th centuries ushered in much of
SEPTEMBER 2017
"'I' carries the suggestion that I am
somehow individual, independent,
when interdependence is the law."
from Small Arcs of Larger Circles:
Framing Through Other Patterns
Nora Bateson
http://amzn.asia/2oGIpgl
∕
IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE
One of those "needs" choices
that has become more complex,
or at least more nuanced, are
questions of identity, privacy,
and security. These now loom
so large in so much of our lives,
whether in basic transactions or
in more complex relations, and
have gone irretrievably digital.
■ A sense of fairness and equity,
offering the opportunity for
agency and the ability to make
and enjoy some sense of progress and improvement in different dimensions of the quality of
your life.
■ The quality of relationships,
connections with others, and
the ability to contribute to a
larger community or whole, as
a counterpoint to the dominant
"scientific" narrative of isolated,
self-determining individuals.
■ In a world where, increasingly,
algorithms are making important choices or at least "nudging"
us in one direction or another,
there is a growing concern about
the architecture of ethics and
values from which those algorithms, and the choices they reflect, draw and reinforce.
Another dimension of the "good
life" discussion in the age of robots
intruding into more human domains
is care and support for older people
and people with disabilities. What
are the limits that mark off the robot
and the quintessential human experience? To the extent that robots and
other forms of programmed automation allow drudgery to be offloaded,
does that offer the prospect of more
time for humans to do the things
human do best - relate, respond,
empathize, and make judgements
about well-being and happiness?
The conversation about what
constitutes a good life in an age
of more complex machine-human
interactions raises some big questions about the role of government,
■
29
https://www.en.wikipedia
http://www.amzn.asia/2oGIpgl
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