Technology, Ethics, and Human Experience: A Philosophical Exploration
Actants and Essence
Actants are anything that modifies other actors through a series of actions. For example, vinegar poured into baking soda causes the baking soda to react in a way it wouldn’t otherwise (vinegar is the actant).
Essence is the property or set of properties that make an entity or substance what it fundamentally is, and which it has by necessity and without which it loses its identity.
Scripts and Mediation
An actant has a program or script. A car is programmed to run. A script is a typical situation, a sequence of actions.
Mediation, as presented by Verbeek, aims to systematically analyze the influence of technology on human behavior in terms of the role technology plays in human-world relations.
Types of Human-Technology-World Relations:
- Embodiment Relations: Technology doesn’t call attention to itself but to aspects of the world given through it (e.g., glasses).
- Hermeneutic Relations: Technology represents a certain aspect of the world (e.g., a thermometer).
- Background Relations: Technology shapes the experiential context, going beyond conscious experience (e.g., room temperature through a central heating system).
- Alterity Relations: Technology presents itself as quasi-other to the subject (e.g., an ATM).
Inscriptions and Technological Neutrality
Inscriptions: Scripts are the products of inscriptions by designers. Designers anticipate how users will interact with the product and, implicitly or explicitly, build prescriptions for use into the materiality of the product.
Latour describes this inscription process in terms of ‘delegation‘: designers delegate specific responsibilities to artifacts, like the responsibility to make sure nobody drives too fast, which is delegated to a speed bump.
Technological Neutrality: The neutrality thesis holds that technology is a neutral instrument that can be put to good use by its users. However, according to Actor Network Theory (ANT), technology is not neutral and plays an active role in shaping human behavior and society.
Actor Network Theory (ANT)
According to ANT, science does not happen inside the head of a single scientist. ANT is more of an attitude than a theory, less concerned with why something happens than how different things come together as a network. The aim of ANT is to understand the creation of knowledge of science and technology.
Don Ihde’s Phenomenology of Ethics
Ihde’s phenomenology of ethics differentiates between technologies to understand how different embodiment and mediation types work. He argues that we can’t make generalized claims about technology because it is not monolithic. His four types of embodiment are different ways of revealing technology (mediations).
Ihde uses the example of HD TV and advancements in resolution and size as a way of Gestell – focusing on better specs instead of making the show better. He argues that TV shows give us a false sense of experience, a prejudice of presence because we are not really there but we “think” we are (visually).
Bruno Latour’s Laboratories and Mediation
Latour describes how science works in laboratories, emphasizing the process involving engineers, scientists, and the publication of papers for a public audience. He introduces the concept of the ‘black box‘ – where we only see the input and output, not the process in between. The prejudice of presence can only apply when you black box something because otherwise, it wouldn’t reveal itself to you.
Latour’s Four Meanings of Mediation:
- Translation: When a technology mediates, it involves the “translation” of a “program of action.”
- Composition: Action is not a property of humans but of an association of actants.
- Reverse Black Boxing: Making the joint production of actors and artifacts entirely opaque, rendering invisible the network of relations that contribute to the entity.
- Delegation: Designers delegate specific responsibilities to artifacts.
Hans Jonas’s Ethics of Technology
Jonas argues that our conception of ethics is tied to our concept of human nature, which is often considered fixed. He challenges this notion, stating that human nature isn’t fixed and that the human good isn’t readily determinable. He emphasizes the importance of making ethical decisions that are valid in the future, not just in the present (avoiding the prejudice of presence).
Peter-Paul Verbeek’s Postphenomenology
Verbeek’s postphenomenology emphasizes the importance of integrating ethics from the beginning of an engineering design process. He argues that we can never be perfect predictors and that Jonas and Verbeek’s views are closely aligned.
Hubert Dreyfus and Stuart Dreyfus’s Critique of AI
Dreyfus and Dreyfus argue against equating human intelligence with AI, stating that technology is limited by rules while experts defy/bend rules. They believe that computers can’t be as intelligent as humans and that AI is reductive. They emphasize the importance of human touch, concern, and cultural inheritance, which computers cannot replicate.
Mediation and Perception
Mediations have two dimensions: 1. Technologies mediate how human beings are in the world (existential), and 2. How humans perceive and interpret the world (hermeneutic).
Don Ihde distinguishes between micro-perception (senses) and macro-perception (understanding). Technologies affect both, helping us see, feel, and understand the world in new ways. Examples include ultrasound technology and scientific instruments like fMRI imaging, which have significantly impacted our understanding of the fetus and the human brain, respectively.
Ultimately, technology plays a crucial role in shaping our perception and understanding of the world, raising important ethical considerations that need to be addressed in the design and implementation of new technologies.