Contemporary youth are navigating a significant developmental transition, moving from a context defined by social media into an era characterized by the integration of artificial intelligence (AI). This paper undertakes a philosophical and critical exploration of the ethical and ontological questions arising as AI expands its role in shaping how youth perceive themselves and their placement within the world. Using the concept of the "algorithmic mirror" as an analytical framework, we argue that AI systems function not as passive reflectors, but as active co-constructors of identity. We first operationalize this framework by examining the mechanics of reinforcement and categorization processes that distort self-perception. We then analyze deepening concerns regarding the erosion of authenticity and the rise of a hyper-performative self-exemplified through platforms such as BeReal and generative AI tools, alongside heightened ontological insecurity presented by AI companions like Replika. The paper delineates pressing ethical imperatives related to algorithmic bias, the commodification of behavioral data, and the evolving concept of cognitive self-determination. We conclude by advocating for the development of proactive, multi-layered frameworks, proposing strategies for critical digital pedagogy, ethical design principles centered on a fiduciary duty to youth, and nuanced governance structures. This endeavor is presented as a fundamental societal imperative for safeguarding autonomous identity development in an increasingly AI-saturated landscape.
This article introduces the concept of percolated subjectivity to explore how telepresence avatars mediate the presence and agency of chronically ill or long-term absent students in educational settings. Using ethnographic and autoethnographic methods, including interviews and observations, the study examines how subjectivity is not simply extended but co-constituted through human-technology-human interactions. Empirical cases from Denmark - such as a class mourning a deceased peer through an offline avatar or a child feeling forgotten when their avatar is left behind - reveal how avatars become sites of emotional, social, and cognitive entanglement - sometimes perceived as subjects or at least quasi-subjects. All cases are from 2023 onward. Drawing on postphenomenology, new materialism, and poststructuralist theory, the article conceptualizes percolated subjectivity as a process through which human subjectivity seeps into and is reflected by non-human entities. This challenges binaries of presence/absence and human/machine, framing subjectivity as dynamic, shared, and potentially cyborgian. The metaphor of percolation captures this fluid, reciprocal process, offering a nuanced lens for analyzing mediated identity and agency. The article concludes by suggesting broader applications of the concept in contexts of vulnerability, care, and social inclusion related to technology, including implications for educational practice, technological design, and future research into mediated human experiences - such as gaming or AI-assisted communication.
This article explores the evolving dynamics between writers and their tools within the framework of AI-driven generative word processors, employing a post-phenomenological approach. It argues that despite the shift in complexity from user to tool—facilitated by advancements in technology such as Large Language Models (LLMs)—the interaction between writer and tool remains deeply reciprocal and co-constitutive. This relationship challenges traditional dichotomies of user versus tool, ancient versus contemporary, and digital versus non-digital, advocating for a nuanced understanding that transcends binary categorizations. Drawing upon post-phenomenology, the paper illustrates how even conventional technologies like pens engage writers in a mutual shaping process, suggesting that the essence of writing technology is not in the tool itself but in the relationality it fosters. This interaction suggests a move towards a livelier and less humanist ontology that embraces the complex intimacies and capacities of machine-human connections. We advocate for a framework that permits post-optimal analyses of relationality and fosters extended interactions across diverse milieus. Ultimately, the paper calls for a reconsideration of digital creation stewardship, emphasizing the need for an ethical framework that accommodates the profound implications of AI integration in writing and beyond, highlighting the capacity of writing machines for prodigious generation within these intimate and unfolding encounters.
This research expands the phenomenologically-inspired HCI branch with an original design ethics framework that reconceptualizes user interfaces as service interfaces. This shift towards services is deemed necessary to grasp how people can be oppressed by designers while trying to use computing services such as artificial intelligence. Drawing on the critical integration of Peter-Paul Verbeek’s theory of technology-mediated morality with Georg W. F. Hegel’s master-slave dialectic, we examine a particular aspect of user oppression: coerced recognition. This entails the phenomenological-dialectical process in which users are coerced to recognize themselves as lesser beings compared to designers when giving form to service interfaces. The phenomenon of coerced recognition unveils how user oppression can be produced by design while pointing towards the possibility of liberation through mutual recognition between users and designers.
The advent of opaque assistive AI in courtrooms has raised concerns about the contestability of these systems, and their impact on procedural justice. The right to an explanation under the GDPR and the AI Act could address the inscrutability of judicial AI for litigants. To substantiate this right in the domain of justice, we examine utilitarian, rights-based (including dignitarian and Dworkinian approaches), and relational theories of procedural justice. These theories reveal diverse perspectives on contestation, which can help shape explainability rights in the context of judicial AI. These theories respectively highlight different values of litigant contestation; it has instrumental value in error correction, and intrinsic value in respecting litigants’ dignity, either as rational autonomous agents or as socio-relational beings. These insights help us answer three central and practical questions on how the right to an explanation should be operationalized to enable litigant contestation: should explanations be general or specific, to what extent do explanations need to be faithful to the system’s internal behavior or merely provide a plausible approximation, and should more interpretable systems be used, even at the cost of accuracy? These questions are not strictly legal or technical in nature, but also rely on normative considerations. Finally, this paper also evaluates what theory of procedural justice could best safeguard contestation effectively in the age of judicial AI. Thereto, it provides the first building blocks of an AI-responsive theory of procedural justice.
In this paper I assess the ethical and epistemic utility of explainable AI algorithms. I first distinguish between different types of outputs that AI can have. The first class of outputs are verifiable (either through a third-party or in virtue of contributing to a win in a game scenario) – that is, there is a way to independently verify the outputs of the model. The second class of outputs are non-verifiable and include outputs like ideals (finding the best of something) and generative AI. While there is some epistemic value gained by explaining the outputs of verifiable AI, there is no intersection between explanations offered by xAI and ethically useful explanations. Therefore, if there is an ethical problem with the use of opaque AI systems, explainable AI won’t be able to help solve it.
The integration of AI-driven solutions in healthcare is revolutionizing various domains, spanning from pathology and radiology to neonatal intensive care and homecare. This transformative shift not only alters the workflows of healthcare professionals but also reshapes the experience of patients and informal caretakers. Amidst this development, an often-overlooked facet is the impact on emotional relationships among the diverse stakeholders in healthcare. This paper aims to cover this gap by combining insights from the theory of technological mediation and philosophy of emotions: by using the introduction of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the healthcare field as an example, we showcase how the technological mediation approach has so far overlooked the role of moral emotions in the analysis of how technologies mediate moral life. By building on the concept of emotional attunement, we present an understanding of emotions as practices, where technologies act as mediators of the way in which subjects emotionally attune to each other. We subsequently argue that this mediation is revealed the moment technologies come to create frictions in the attuned emotional practice. These perturbations of emotional attunements are what we call ‘emotional glitches’. It is through glitches that moral and emotional mediation of technologies is revealed, thereby also highlighting normative aspects. We argue that studying moral technological mediation through emotional glitches can provide insightful observations on how these technologies should be developed and deployed.
I present a sociologically informed case against human-robot friendships. Some philosophers have attempted to use the sociology of everyday life to draw the opposite conclusion. They suggest that our friends are characters according to the sociological definition of this term (character). When someone plays this character, they regularly conceal their mental states from us to appears friendly. Therefore, we can relate to robots as friends if they competently play the character of a friend. I argue that this position misinterprets the social theory its uses. I examine the sociological literature on passing to forward this claim. People who practice passing play characters that do not accurately represent who they are. Crucially, they stop performing as characters to enter friendships. I argue that this shows that friendships center around the absence of character performances. Therefore, we should reject the idea that we can relate to robots that play the character of a friend a friend – as a friend is not character anyone or anything can play. Additionally, I identify two privacy issues the abovementioned way of interpreting supposed human-robot friendships excuses. And explain how we could accurately use character-focused social theory to describe why some people mistakenly believe robots are their friends.
Nearly seventy years ago, Gilbert Simondon introduced a transformative perspective on the relationship between technology and culture, emphasizing the need for a “technical mentality” arising from a renewed awareness of and engagement with technical objects. This article revisits the notions of technical object, technical mentality and open machine, in order to analyze explainable artificial intelligence (XAI). Our central question is: under what conditions can XAI be conducive to a technical culture? It is argued that XAI may contain an embryo of technical openness applied to algorithmic systems, fostering greater proximity and dialogue with humans as mediators of technical activity. However, XAI also embeds the tensions between openness and closure that characterize digital technology: while it may enable greater human understanding and intervention, it can also enhance elements of opacity and automatism. It is concluded that XAI has the potential to assist in promoting a broader and more participatory technical culture, conditional on integrating technology into human culture in a reflective and critical manner, provided that, as with any technical deployment, the ethical and structural challenges it entails are taken into account at its conception and not after the fact.
Technology co-shapes interpretations of, and practices pertaining to, moral values and normative frameworks. In this article, we explore the mediating role of the Danish contact tracing technology “Smitte|Stop’s” role in shaping the value of civic consciousness. We empirically investigate through interviews with (non-)users how the meaning of the Danish notion of samfundssind, a compound word of samfund (society) and sind (spirit/mind/soul) - what we refer to as civic consciousness - takes on contextual meanings in relation to Smitte|Stop. We conceptualize two ways that Smitte|Stop does this: by mediating intersubjective responsibility, where the civic is interpreted as other people of flesh and blood, one’s community; and by mediating between individual and state, where the civic is the state and its authorities. Thus, Smitte|Stop mediates the meaning of civic consciousness by putting at stake what the “civic” is, and thus how one is “conscious” for such a particular civic.
Artefacts mediate human perception and behaviour for sure, but what is less clear is the way their mediation is exerted. The reason for the ambiguity lies partially in the fact that artefacts work differently in different contexts. Ihde has invented the term multistability to address this characteristic inherent to artefacts. So, there might be various types of mediation conceivable based on such a multitude of stabilities a given artefact could take on. In this article, I try to shed some light on the phenomenon of multistability to see how particularly religious stability may emerge from an otherwise profane artefact. To that end, I will place my focus on the tradition of Islamic calligraphy and the pivotal role reed pens have played in it and explore accordingly how both secular and religious stability might arise from the seemingly same physical object. To that purpose, I will suggest drawing on MacIntyre’s views on three notions of practice, narrative, and tradition, and will argue that these three notions may spotlight how an artefact could receive varying stabilities.
This research expands the phenomenologically-inspired HCI branch with an original design ethics framework that reconceptualizes user interfaces as service interfaces. This shift towards services is deemed necessary to grasp how people can be oppressed by designers while trying to use computing services such as artificial intelligence. Drawing on the critical integration of Peter-Paul Verbeek’s theory of technology-mediated morality with Georg W. F. Hegel’s master-slave dialectic, we examine a particular aspect of user oppression: coerced recognition. This entails the phenomenological-dialectical process in which users are coerced to recognize themselves as lesser beings compared to designers when giving form to service interfaces. The phenomenon of coerced recognition unveils how user oppression can be produced by design while pointing towards the possibility of liberation through mutual recognition between users and designers.
This article explores the evolving dynamics between writers and their tools within the framework of AI-driven generative word processors, employing a post-phenomenological approach. It argues that despite the shift in complexity from user to tool—facilitated by advancements in technology such as Large Language Models (LLMs)—the interaction between writer and tool remains deeply reciprocal and co-constitutive. This relationship challenges traditional dichotomies of user versus tool, ancient versus contemporary, and digital versus non-digital, advocating for a nuanced understanding that transcends binary categorizations. Drawing upon post-phenomenology, the paper illustrates how even conventional technologies like pens engage writers in a mutual shaping process, suggesting that the essence of writing technology is not in the tool itself but in the relationality it fosters. This interaction suggests a move towards a livelier and less humanist ontology that embraces the complex intimacies and capacities of machine-human connections. We advocate for a framework that permits post-optimal analyses of relationality and fosters extended interactions across diverse milieus. Ultimately, the paper calls for a reconsideration of digital creation stewardship, emphasizing the need for an ethical framework that accommodates the profound implications of AI integration in writing and beyond, highlighting the capacity of writing machines for prodigious generation within these intimate and unfolding encounters.
The rise of ChatGPT affords a fundamental transformation of the dynamics in human-technology interaction, as Large Language Model (LLM) applications increasingly emulate our social habits in digital communication. This poses a challenge to Don Ihde’s explicit focus on material technics and their affordances: ChatGPT did not introduce new material technics. Rather, it is a new digital app that runs on the same physical devices we have used for years. This paper undertakes a re-evaluation of some postphenomenological concepts, introducing the notion of quasi-materiality to better understand the role that user interfaces (UIs) play in affording different stabilities in technological mediation. We propose the term “active User Interface” (aUI) to denote the specifics of how ChatGPT makes use of LLMs within its UI design to afford seamless, intuitive conversations with a quasi-other in what Ihde termed “alterity relations”. Drawing inspiration from Peter-Paul Verbeek’s work on the intelligification of our material world through (AI) technologies, our analysis leads to the formulation of a novel stability afforded through aUIs: “machinic embodiment stability”. This concept sheds light on how ChatGPT’s aUI integrates with our established habits of digitally mediated social communication. As the use of LLMs is expected to become increasingly prevalent, this provides a new perspective on the current evolution of the technological landscape.
Geographic information has become increasingly relied upon in supporting decision-making in public administration as well as humanitarian intervention. One domain where such information has been important is waste management, notably improving the mapping of areas with the highest waste accumulation, finding suitable locations for landfills as well as planning transport routes for collection services. The utility of geographic information here reflects the capacity of visual information to mediate between human actors (e.g. municipal authorities) and the world in which they wish to make changes . In this paper, we shall be presenting insights from five focus groups that were conducted to assess the impact of the visualisation of waste accumulation in the ‘slums’ and informal settlements in Nairobi, Kenya, along with factors that affected the readability and understanding of the visualisations presented in the focus groups. In this paper, we will be considering: i) the impact of design elements (e.g. level of detail and symbology) on raising problem awareness of the participants regarding the waste accumulation; and ii) the ethical and political concerns that arise from the way communities living in the DUAs are perceived from the visualisations.
JHTR Journal of Human-Technology RelationsVol. 2(2024)2Ashley Shew’s Against Technoableismis one of the most important and original works in the philosophy of technology of the current generation. This short and accessible volume offers a clear and sharp-elbowed critique of ablism as it relates to technology, a useful introduction to many ideas from work in disability studies, as well as deeply-penetrating insights into how to think about technology generally. These insights challenge our intuitions about technologies—including those held by engineers, philosophers, and other card-carrying technology experts—about everything from the politics of technology, to the impact of media narratives, to what it means to develop technology to solve a problem for someone. What problem? Whose problem? Framed, defined, and articulated by whom?
We advocate for a philosophizing of cyborg-technology relations that takes account disabled technology users. First, we sketch out how tech-driven ableism (“technoableism”) is present in most discourse about technology, and then address how ableism has shaped accounts of disability in philosophy more broadly too. We examine this in historical and media context, then turn to what an unapologetic disability-forward approach to cyborg-technology relations looks like, and what it means to listen to the cyborgs we know and love. This work draws from the interdisciplinary field of disability studies and STS work on crip technoscience. We situate this work mostly within North American media and history of disability and Silicon Valley boosterism on tech, but accounts of technology and of disability are not unique to these locations.
