Collection
AI, robotics, virtual reality, Oh My! Assessing the philosophy and ethics of the digital technologies of our time
Digital technologies are increasingly implemented and used in different sections of public life. Although these technologies have been implemented and used in settings as diverse as policy, jurisprudence, healthcare or administration, we have arrived at a moment that they are entering people’s individual lives. Developments in artificial intelligence (AI), such as ChatGPT or, in robotics, such as Boston Dynamics’ Spot or Tesla’s autonomous vehicles, or in virtual and augmented reality, such as Meta’s Metaverse, are prospected to have a significant impact on people’s lives.
With this new phase of implementation of digital technologies, we are increasingly confronted with their possible disruptive impacts, be it on people’s individual lives, societal and global settings, or the earth itself. Hence, it is paramount to create insight into the philosophical and ethical underpinnings of digital technologies from an individual, societal, and global point of view.
The collection aims to promote an informed debate on the ethical impact and philosophical consequences of the continued and changing use of digital technologies in a global society. It focusses on how modern digital technologies, including AI, robotics, virtual reality, augmented reality, etc. influence, impact, and change conceptions of, as well as our ability to achieve, a good life and a good society. Moreover, focus lies on the analysis of philosophical issues related to ontologies of digital objects; epistemological consequences of using digital technologies in science, law, and other social areas; and changes of the interrelation between the global society and nature due to these technologies.
The collection encourages submissions that challenge accepted philosophical traditions (e.g., idealism, critical theory), concepts (e.g., community, good life), etc. due to emerging digital technologies. Vice versa, articles that critique or challenge digital technologies and our understanding of them via established philosophical traditions and concepts are also accepted. Empirical research that directly impacts philosophical reflection and analysis of digital technologies is also welcomed.
With inviting these three different kinds of research, we hope to develop a deeper understanding of different digital technologies to so create different pathways to and ideas of the good life and a good society with these technologies.
Editors
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Aimee van Wynsberghe
Aimee van Wynsberghe is the Alexander von Humboldt Professor for Applied Ethics of Artificial Intelligence at the University of Bonn in Germany. She is director of the Institute for Science and Ethics and the Bonn Sustainable AI lab, co-director of the Foundation for Responsible Robotics, and member of the European Commission's High-Level Expert Group on AI. She is author of the book Healthcare Robots: Ethics, Design, and Implementation (2015). In her work, Aimee aims to uncover the ethical risks associated with emerging robotics and AI.
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Tijs Vandemeulebroucke
Tijs Vandemeulebroucke is a postdoctoral researcher at the Bonn Sustainable AI lab of the Institute for Science and Ethics of the University of Bonn, Germany. He researches the ethical tension between the use of AI in healthcare settings and the environmental, health, and the social impact of the development, use, and recycling of AI technologies. In 2020, Tijs won the 2020 Doctoral Dissertation Award on Artificial Intelligence & Ethics jointly given by the Microsoft Corporation and the Pontifical Academy for Life.
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Larissa Bolte
Larissa Bolte is a PhD student at the Bonn Sustainable AI Lab of the Institute for Science and Ethics at the University of Bonn, Germany, under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Aimee van Wynsberghe. She holds an MA degree in philosophy (University of Bonn, 2021). For her PhD project, she examines how sustainability, construed as a theoretical lens, can inform AI ethics. She focusses on the intersection of normativity and technology and works from a critical theory perspective.
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Sophia Falk
Sophia Falk is a PhD student at the Bonn Sustainable AI Lab of the Institute for Science and Ethics of the University of Bonn, Germany. She has an MSc in Environmental and Resource Economics (University of Kiel, 2022). Her project focusses on an integrated approach to Sustainable AI, addressing socio-environmental justice issues. Based on an analytical methodological approach and climate policy, she questions whether technological fixes, as AI, to the climate crisis contribute to sustainable sociotechnical transformations.
