Agency
‘We shape our tools, and thereafter our tools shape us.’ We are the technology of our tools: they shape and form us. Our tools have agency, and thus a claim upon the more-than-human world as well. This realization allows us to begin the core task of a technological ecology: the reintegration of advanced human craft with the nature it sprung from… We think of technology primarily as a solution to problems that we face (including, all too often, those we have created). But Walter and Ashby and the other early cyberneticians thought of technology as something very different: something with its own agency and abilities, whose reactions were uncertain and whose behaviour should reflect its own encounters with the world. Ways of Being - Animals, Plants, Machines
The above way of thinking about tools & technology in general underscores the conversations about AI, whether or not it has agency, and if it does how we should incorporate and act on that. Maybe this is a question we should be asking of all our tools.
The word tool itself, specially when applied to humans, means something that is being used without any agency or input, synonymous to a puppet. But what if we thought of tools as active participants? When we use nature as our ‘tool,’ for example by training trees to act as bridges, or using swamps as water cleaning infrastructure, does that change the way we perceive the agency of our tools in a similar way as AI does? key_questions
Values
At this moment in history, it is essential that we adopt an approach to design that accounts for how tech affects the way people think and behave. This is axiological design. Axiology is the philosophical study of value, including both ethics and philosophy of mind…Tech affects power dynamics in society, forms ecologies and habitats, and shapes the thoughts, values, and relationships of those using it. We must start to take tech seriously, before it changes our world in ways that may not be easy to repair. Technology is Not Values Neutral: Ending the Reign of Nihilistic Design
The root of modern problems with AI is its applicability to and immediate alignment with neoliberal and far-right ideologies… It is related to Langdon Winner’s conception of some technologies being “inherently political” because of the social arrangements they require to function (e.g. a nuclear plant requires extensive centralization and administration). Resisting AI ft. Dan McQuillan
Blockchain is a fascist technology because it only allows to a single truth to exist. - Heard in person. (This is related to logical centralization.)
Technologies always create the potential for new forms of behavior, values, and thought, even when the technology is not explicitly made to do so. Technology is Not Values Neutral: Ending the Reign of Nihilistic Design
The widespread and easy availability of doing so, through a simple advance in technology, made it possible to value body weight in a way that was not possible before. The scale increased the salience and visibility of body weight, changing the ways in which it could be valued, thought about, and otherwise related to psychologically. This had unforeseen outcomes. Technology is Not Values Neutral: Ending the Reign of Nihilistic Design
Dive Deeper
Topic relates to:
AI Algorithms Blockchains Technosolutionism for Good Value & Values
Further reading:
Ways of Being - Animals, Plants, Machines Technology is Not Values Neutral: Ending the Reign of Nihilistic Design