Conference Agenda

Socially disruptive technologies like digital technologies (e.g. AI, digital twins, social media etc.) raise societal concerns, such as concerns about surveillance capitalism, instrumentalization of production and consumption, and datafication of virtually all domains of human and non-human life. We can frame these concerns in terms of the disruption of the lifeworld – i.e. the meaningful environment of everyday life experience in which we are at home and live and act together. In this paper, we assume that SDT’s do not only impact those who use them, but also have a broader impact on the lifeworld in which we live and act. That is to say, that it is possible to identify general patterns in the way in which SDT’s disrupt the lifeworld. The question becomes what are these patterns of SDT’s and is it possible to distinguish 21st century SDT’s and previous generations of SDT’s, ranging from the telescope to the printing press to the steam engine?

The central aim of this paper is to reflect on general patterns emerging from 21st century SDT’s. To this end, the paper will consist of three parts. In part one, we will conduct a phenomenological analysis of the concept of “lifeworld” in order to gain an understanding of the World that is disrupted by SDT’s. In this part, the focus will be on an explication of the Husserlian concept of lifeworld. Having gained an understanding of the meaning of lifeworld, we will turn in part two of the paper to general patterns in the way in which modern technologies disrupt the lifeworld. To this end, we consider ‘classical’ philosophers of technology who did not explicitly focus on the specific category of SDT’s in their work, but might nonetheless provide important insights for contemporary debates, for instance societal disruptions associated with scientific method and technization (Husserl), Enframing (Gestell) and cybernetics (Heidegger), device paradigm (Borgmann), concretization (Simondon), and acceleration (Stiegler). After the discussion of general patterns in part two, we will turn to a critical discussion of these philosophical insights in part three of the paper. In this part, we consider the prominent case of AI . The aim of this final part of the paper is to examine whether the general patterns as conceptualized by Husserl/ Heidegger/ Borgmann/ Simondon/ Stiegler suffice to explain the way in which AI can be said to socially disrupt the lifeworld, or whether something is still missing from our explanation. Our hypothesis is that digital technologies like AI are partly covered by these theories, but also constitute a new type of disruption that requires philosophical analysis. In the paper, we provide a framework to study the patterns of disruption of SDT’s.

There has recently been a surge of interest in socially ‘disruptive’ or ‘transformative’ effects of technologies, i.e., changes in “patterns of human communication or interaction … caused by a technological shift” (Carlsen et al. 2010). Discussions often focus on paradigmatic examples, such as green-energy and machine-learning technologies, and relevant societal responses. Some have gone beyond a case-oriented approach to identify shared features and key factors for disruptiveness (e.g., Schuelke-Leech 2018; Hopster 2021) or to bring out the role of conceptual disruption, i.e., challenges to “established classificatory practices and norms” (Löhr 2023). One key factor identified in these more general analyses is the depth or order of magnitude of disruptiveness. It has been emphasized how some disruptions “go to the heart of our human self-understanding” (Hopster 2021: 6) or how a “community is … forced to make a classificatory decision that has severe social ramifications” (Löhr 2023: 5). This still leaves open why and how some technological disruptions have this depth, especially in cases where there are no obvious conceptual conflicts or connections to fundamental ethical concepts.

With this paper, I aim to improve our understanding of these deeply disruptive effects. I do so by analyzing at least some of them as constructions of socially relevant human kinds, where constructions are induced and mediated by technology. A case in point is the human kind ‘influencer’. This proposal builds on recent realist analyses of mind-dependent kinds, in particular Mallon’s (2016) account of stable human kinds, which I modify to include technological change as a driver. Conceptual disruption then pertains to changes in the way in which we classify ourselves and others in relation to technological developments. In some cases, this re-classification leads to stable shifts in patterns of human behavior and interaction. This means that the ‘depth’ of the disruption can be partly understood in terms of the stability of the newly constructed kind and the explanatory depth of generalizations that refer to it. Influencers now feature, for instance, in a wide range of social-scientific explanations and associated interventions. I show how this develops and qualifies Löhr’s characterization of a community being ‘forced’ to make a ‘decision’ with social ‘ramifications’—and how it allows deep conceptual disruptions without conceptual conflict.

References

Carlsen, H., K.H. Dreborg, M. Godman, S.O. Hansson, L. Johansson and P. Wikman- Svahn (2010) “Assessing socially disruptive technological change”, Technology in Society 32: 209–218, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techsoc.2010.07.002

Hopster, J. (2021) “What are socially disruptive technologies?”, Technology in Society 67: 101750, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techsoc.2021.101750

Löhr, G. (2023) “Conceptual disruption and 21st century technology: A framework”, Technology in Society 74: 102327, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techsoc.2023.102327

Mallon, R. (2016) The Construction of Human Kinds. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Schuelke-Leech, B. (2018) “A model for understanding the orders of magnitude of disruptive technologies”, Technological Forecasting and Social Change 129: 261–274 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2017.09.033

Technological innovation and technological products tend to offer new opportunities for action. New artifacts and events can be socially highly disruptive. They can challenge existing social practices and norms. For example, the invention of the internet was immensely disruptive and changed established social practices and structures in fundamental ways that were and continue to be difficult or impossible to predict. For example, the immense potential for online misinformation and its effects on democratic societies remain challenges that we are yet to overcome and even fully comprehend.

Several philosophers of technology and language have recently argued that new technologies don’t only challenge oru disrupt social practices and norms but even our ways of thinking about the world. Löhr (2022, 2023) has coined the term ‘conceptual disruption’ to describe phenomena where our established classifications are no longer unchallenged or even inapplicable due to fundamentally novel artifacts and opportunities for action. For example, many scholars have argued that the invention of the mechanical ventilator, has challenged our concepts of death and alive.

While the notion of conceptual disruption has been discussed by a number of authors in the recent literature, we still need to understand how we can detect and also react to such disruptions. Hopster and Löhr have proposed that we should think about it as a kind of adaptation and the way to adapt to disruption using the method of conceptual engineering. However, what conceptual engineering is and how it could be used for conceptual adaptations remains to be investigated.

In this paper, I will first introduce the conceptual analysis of the concept of conceptual disruption. In the second section, I will introduce the concept of niches and argue that we can think of concepts as niches and of conceptual disruptions as disruptions of said niches. Niches, I argue can most minimally be understood as sets of affordances, whether these affordances are biological or social, i.e., social norms offer or constitute niches and affordances as well. While disruptions eliminate affordances, the aim of adaptations is to regain them. Finally, I show how conceptual engineering can be understood as a form of niche adaptation.