Interview on The Fourth Revolution

-
I just received the podcast of an interview I had with Nigel Warburton, you can listen to it by clicking on the title of this blog or visiting www.philosophybites.com "Luciano Floridi on The Fourth Revolution". It is also available from iTunes.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mind the app - considerations on the ethical risks of COVID-19 apps

-
[22 April update: at the Digital Ethics Lab (OII, University of Oxford) we have elaborated a list of 16 questions to check whether an app is ethically justifiable, the full article, open access, is available here ] There is a lot of talk about apps to deal with the pandemic . Some of the best solutions use the Bluetooth connection of mobile phones to determine the contact between people and therefore the probability of contagion. In theory, it may seem simple. In practice, there are several ethical problems, not only legal and  technical ones . To understand them, it is useful to distinguish between the validation and the verification of a system.  The validation of a system answers the question: "are we building the right system?". The answer is no if the app is illegal,  for example, the use of an app in the EU must comply with the GDPR; mind that this is necessary but not sufficient to make the app also ethically acceptable, see below; is unnecessar...
Read more

The Loebner Prize from a judge's perspective

-
Image
This year, for the first time in its history, the Loebner Prize competition was held in England, at the University of Reading to be precise. It was organised by Kevin Warwick and Huma Shah. Independently of whether Turing might have been pleased (he was not well treated in this country, recall?), there was a satisfying sense of “coming home” of the Turing Test (henceforth TT ). Expectations were high, and they very highly advertised too. The meeting was perfectly organised. Having been invited to play the role of a judge, together with several other colleagues, including two members of the IEG , Mariarosaria Taddeo and Matteo Turilli ( here are their pictures and Rosaria's interview ) , I enjoyed the opportunity to see from close-up the machinery and the TT . It was intriguing and great fun. Because there were interviews with the BBC and other things going on, and because we were also supposed to take part in the parallel AISB Symposium on the TT , I had time to test only...
Read more

On the art of biting one's own tongue (series: notes to myself)

-
The art of biting one's own tongue consists in the ability not to engage when someone says something unpleasant, untrue, malicious, or abusive about you. Instead of answering a biased question, arguing against a ludicrous opinion, complaining about an abusive message, correcting a meaningless error, countering a fallacy, explaining a patent mistake, objecting to a groundless criticism, rectifying a willful misrepresentation, rejecting an insinuation, responding to a provocation, retorting to a nasty remark, replying to an offensive allegation, … in short, instead of engaging with your mindless interlocutors you simply ignore them and do absolutely nothing, not even acknowledging that you might have received their communication, not even sharing a “no comment”, just silence. As far as they know, you might have never got the email, read the tweet or the Facebook comment, seen the Instagram picture. If you bite your own tongue appropriately, for them their communication might have nev...
Read more

On the importance of being pedantic (series: notes to myself)

-
Image
They say that to call someone pedantic is an insult. I'm not so sure. True, someone pedantic is obsessed with minor details, small errors, or tiny imperfections. And a pedantic is also someone who cares too much about all such things not to let you know about them, advising or correcting, disagreeing or disapproving. And yes, if you are a pedant, you are more than just occasionally pedantic. This can happen to anybody, the excessive emphasis on some narrow or boring detail being a tendency we all share when it comes to matters about which we care very much. But if you are a pedant, being pedantic is your daily stance, your intrinsic nature, your way of living. You are always, consistently, reliably, systematically pedantic, from the moment you wake up, about the exact place where the slippers should be next to your bed, all the way to the moment you go to sleep, and the exact place where the phone should be placed to recharge. If you are a true pedant, no detail is too trivial, no ...
Read more

"Notes to myself" available on Amazon

-
Image
"Notes to myself" are now available as a little book on Amazon: - ebook shorturl.at/crV09 free for kindle unlimited or  £2.50, lowest rounded price allowed by Amazon - paperback on Amazon: shorturl.at/ahvxY   $4, lowest, rounded prize allowed by Amazon MANY THANKS to everyone who sent suggestions and notes of encouragement.  I hope it won't disappoint you.
Read more

Notes wrapped around a bottle with a rubber band

-
Image
"And I made some notes on a sheet of yellow paper on the nature and quality of being alone. These notes would in the normal course of events have been lost as notes are always lost, but these particular notes turned up long afterward wrapped around a bottle of ketchup and secured with a rubber band." John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley in Search of America After ten years, I decided to re-activate this blog. I started it in 2006 and stopped it in 2010. At the time, it no longer served its purpose, which was to share news and ideas on the philosophy of information. Today, a new need to fix some thoughts in writing, and "secure them with a rubber band" means that it can be revived with a new goal: to make some notes to myself, occasionally, a bit randomly, hopefully unsystematically.
Read more

On the value of taking care of the roses (series: notes to myself)

-
Image
They say that what matters sometimes is not the outcome but the process: not the success or failure of an action, but just the action itself.  Maybe. But I always thought it was a bit of sour grapes. Didn’t really want beautiful roses in my garden, kind of line of thinking. The important thing was gardening. Or so you tell yourself, trying to be convincing.  But I recite this loudly a few times and it still sounds quite lame. It's the philosopher's fault, because he asks the unpleasant questions. Would you have done it anyway, even if the roses had no chance? But above all, what if the process itself is also pointless? Perhaps the gardening is a failure too, like the dead roses.  So you pause, on your way to the roses, and think: if the outcome is not what matters, and the process is not what matters, why caring for the roses? Better stop, or kill the realist awareness that shows the worthless nature of the whole enterprise.  Is there anything left, if all is ...
Read more

The New Morphology of Power in the Infosphere

-
What is the nature of power today, in mature information societies ?  In an article available here , I argue that in liberal societies – awash with cheap goods and services as well as free information – the sociopolitical ability to control or influence people’s behaviour (power) is exercised not so much through the control of things (think of the means of productions of goods and services) or information about things (think of the fourth power), but mainly through the control of the questions that determine the answers that give rise to information about things. And since a question without an answer is just another way of describing uncertainty, I suggest that the new morphology of power is the morphology of uncertainty : those who control the questions shape the answers; and those who shape the answers control the world. If this sounds a bit like 1984 it is because it is just a rephrasing of George Orwell's famous quote: "Who controls the past controls the future:...
Read more

Onlife: Sulla morte di Corman McCarthy e "the best writers" della letteratura americana

-
Image
Corman McCarthy è stato descritto da alcuni come il più grande scrittore americano di [aggiungere qui un numero di secoli, oppure "la nostra epoca", oppure "una generazione" o semplicemente "sempre"]. Siccome sono insipiente, e lo avevo solo sentito nominare ma mai letto (ma i mie amici come mai non me lo hanno mai consigliato? che ci stanno a fare? O almeno Amazon, visto il numero di libri che compro, un "you may also like" lo poteva sputare no?), sono andato a vedere chi fosse. Ho letto un po' di cose su di lui, tutte molto interessanti. E poi mi sono chiesto chi rientra oggi in una lista più o meno accurata degli scrittori americani più importante degli ultimi 100 anni. Insomma, se uno dice, per esempio, "è morto il più grande scrittore americano del secolo" ti viene il dubbio di ricostruire la competizione gli ultimi cento anni. Le posizioni sono ovviamente e come sempre discutibili, ma mi è stato utile ricordare a chi si sta co...
Read more