56 research outputs found
A Phenomenological âAesthetics of Isolationâ as Environmental Aesthetics for an Era of Ubiquitous Art
Here the concept of the human being as a ârelatively isolated systemâ developed in Ingardenâs later phenomenology is adapted into an âaesthetics of isolationâ that complements conventional environmental aesthetics. Such an aesthetics of isolation is especially relevant, given the growing âaesthetic overloadâ brought about by ubiquitous computing and new forms of art and aesthetic experience such as those involving virtual reality, interactive online performance art, and artificial creativity
Cryptocurrency with a Conscience: Using Artificial Intelligence to Develop Money that Advances Human Ethical Values
Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are offering new avenues for economic empowerment
to individuals around the world. However, they also provide a powerful tool that
facilitates criminal activities such as human trafficking and illegal weapons sales
that cause great harm to individuals and communities. Cryptocurrency advocates
have argued that the ethical dimensions of cryptocurrency are not qualitatively new,
insofar as money has always been understood as a passive instrument that lacks
ethical values and can be used for good or ill purposes. In this paper, we challenge
such a presumption that money must be âvalue-neutral.â Building on advances in
artificial intelligence, cryptography, and machine ethics, we argue that it is possible
to design artificially intelligent cryptocurrencies that are not ethically neutral but
which autonomously regulate their own use in a way that reflects the ethical values
of particular human beings â or even entire human societies. We propose a technological framework for such cryptocurrencies and then analyse the legal, ethical, and
economic implications of their use. Finally, we suggest that the development of
cryptocurrencies possessing ethical as well as monetary value can provide human
beings with a new economic means of positively influencing the ethos and values
of their societies
Managing the Ethical Dimensions of Brain-Computer Interfaces in eHealth: An SDLC-based Approach
A growing range of brain-computer interface (BCI) technologies is being employed for purposes of therapy and human augmentation. While much thought has been given to the ethical implications of such technologies at the âmacroâ level of social policy and âmicroâ level of individual users, little attention has been given to the unique ethical issues that arise during the process of incorporating BCIs into eHealth ecosystems. In this text a conceptual framework is developed that enables the operators of eHealth ecosystems to manage the ethical components of such processes in a more comprehensive and systematic way than has previously been possible. The frameworkâs first axis defines five ethical dimensions that must be successfully addressed by eHealth ecosystems: 1) beneficence; 2) consent; 3) privacy; 4) equity; and 5) liability. The second axis describes five stages of the systems development life cycle (SDLC) process whereby new technology is incorporated into an eHealth ecosystem: 1) analysis and planning; 2) design, development, and acquisition; 3) integration and activation; 4) operation and maintenance; and 5) disposal. Known ethical issues relating to the deployment of BCIs are mapped onto this matrix in order to demonstrate how it can be employed by the managers of eHealth ecosystems as a tool for fulfilling ethical requirements established by regulatory standards or stakeholdersâ expectations. Beyond its immediate application in the case of BCIs, we suggest that this framework may also be utilized beneficially when incorporating other innovative forms of information and communications technology (ICT) into eHealth ecosystems
Neural Implants as Gateways to Digital-Physical Ecosystems and Posthuman Socioeconomic Interaction
For many employees, âworkâ is no longer something performed while sitting at a computer in an office. Employees in a growing number of industries are expected to carry mobile devices and be available for work-related interactions even when beyond the workplace and outside of normal business hours. In this article it is argued that a future step will increasingly be to move work-related information and communication technology (ICT) inside the human body through the use of neuroprosthetics, to create employees who are always âonlineâ and connected to their workplaceâs digital ecosystems. At present, neural implants are used primarily to restore abilities lost through injury or illness, however their use for augmentative purposes is expected to grow, resulting in populations of human beings who possess technologically altered capacities for perception, memory, imagination, and the manipulation of physical environments and virtual cyberspace. Such workers may exchange thoughts and share knowledge within posthuman cybernetic networks that are inaccessible to unaugmented human beings.
Scholars note that despite their potential benefits, such neuroprosthetic devices may create numerous problems for their users, including a sense of alienation, the threat of computer viruses and hacking, financial burdens, and legal questions surrounding ownership of intellectual property produced while using such implants. Moreover, different populations of human beings may eventually come to occupy irreconcilable digital ecosystems as some persons embrace neuroprosthetic technology, others feel coerced into augmenting their brains to compete within the economy, others might reject such technology, and still others will simply be unable to afford it.
In this text we propose a model for analyzing how particular neuroprosthetic devices will either facilitate human beingsâ participation in new forms of socioeconomic interaction and digital workplace ecosystems â or undermine their mental and physical health, privacy, autonomy, and authenticity. We then show how such a model can be used to create device ontologies and typologies that help us classify and understand different kinds of advanced neuroprosthetic devices according to the impact that they will have on individual human beings
Organizational Posthumanism
Building on existing forms of critical, cultural, biopolitical, and sociopolitical posthumanism, in this text a new framework is developed for understanding and guiding the forces of technologization and posthumanization that are reshaping contemporary organizations. This âorganizational posthumanismâ is an approach to analyzing, creating, and managing organizations that employs a post-dualistic and post-anthropocentric perspective and which recognizes that emerging technologies will increasingly transform the kinds of members, structures, systems, processes, physical and virtual spaces, and external ecosystems that are available for organizations to utilize. It is argued that this posthumanizing technologization of organizations will especially be driven by developments in three areas: 1) technologies for human augmentation and enhancement, including many forms of neuroprosthetics and genetic engineering; 2) technologies for synthetic agency, including robotics, artificial intelligence, and artificial life; and 3) technologies for digital-physical ecosystems and networks that create the environments within which and infrastructure through which human and artificial agents will interact.
Drawing on a typology of contemporary posthumanism, organizational posthumanism is shown to be a hybrid form of posthumanism that combines both analytic, synthetic, theoretical, and practical elements. Like analytic forms of posthumanism, organizational posthumanism recognizes the extent to which posthumanization has already transformed businesses and other organizations; it thus occupies itself with understanding organizations as they exist today and developing strategies and best practices for responding to the forces of posthumanization. On the other hand, like synthetic forms of posthumanism, organizational posthumanism anticipates the fact that intensifying and accelerating processes of posthumanization will create future realities quite different from those seen today; it thus attempts to develop conceptual schemas to account for such potential developments, both as a means of expanding our theoretical knowledge of organizations and of enhancing the ability of contemporary organizational stakeholders to conduct strategic planning for a radically posthumanized long-term future
Utopias and Dystopias as Cybernetic Information Systems: Envisioning the Posthuman Neuropolity
While it is possible to understand utopias and dystopias as particular kinds of sociopolitical systems, in this text we argue that utopias and dystopias can also be understood as particular kinds of information systems in which data is received, stored, generated, processed, and transmitted by the minds of human beings that constitute the systemâs ânodesâ and which are connected according to specific network topologies. We begin by formulating a model of cybernetic information-processing properties that characterize utopias and dystopias. It is then shown that the growing use of neuroprosthetic technologies for human enhancement is expected to radically reshape the ways in which human minds access, manipulate, and share information with one another; for example, such technologies may give rise to posthuman âneuropolitiesâ in which human minds can interact with their environment using new sensorimotor capacities, dwell within shared virtual cyberworlds, and link with one another to form new kinds of social organizations, including hive minds that utilize communal memory and decision-making. Drawing on our model, we argue that the dynamics of such neuropolities will allow (or perhaps even impel) the creation of new kinds of utopias and dystopias that were previously impossible to realize. Finally, we suggest that it is important that humanity begin thoughtfully exploring the ethical, social, and political implications of realizing such technologically enabled societies by studying neuropolities in a place where they have already been âpre-engineeredâ and provisionally exist: in works of audiovisual science fiction such as films, television series, and role-playing games
A high heat flux experiment for verification of thermostructural analysis
A major concern in advancing the state of the art technologies for hypersonic vehicles is the development of an aeropropulsion system capable of handling the high heat fluxes during flight. The leading edges of such systems must not only tolerate the maximum heating rates, but must also minimize distortions to the flow field due to excessive blunting and/or thermal warping of the compression surface to achieve the high inlet performance required. A combined analytical and experimental effort to study the aerothermodynamic loads on actively cooled structures for hypersonic applications was established. A hydrogen/oxygen rocket engine was modified to establish a high enthalpy high heat flux environment. The facility provides heat flux levels from about 200 up to 10000 Btu/sq ft/sec. Cross flow and parallel flow regeneratively cooled model can be tested and analyzed by using cooling fluids of water and hydrogen. Results are presented of the experiment and the characteristics of the Hot Gas Test Facility. The predicted temperature results of the cross flow model are compared with the experimental data on the first monolithic specimens and are found to be in good agreement. Thermal stress analysis results are also presented
A unique high heat flux facility for testing hypersonic engine components
A major concern in advancing the state-of-the-art technologies for hypersonic vehicles is the development of an aeropropulsion system capable of withstanding high thermal loads expected during hypersonic flights. Consequently, there is a need for experimental facilities capable of providing a high heat flux environment for testing compound concepts and verifying analyses. A hydrogen/oxygen rocket engine was developed to provide a high enthalpy/high heat flux environment for component evaluation. This Hot Gas Facility is capable of providing heat fluxes ranging from 200 (on flat surfaces) up to 8000 Btu per sq ft per sec (at a leading edge stagnation point). Gas temperatures up to 5500 R can be attained as well as Reynolds numbers up to 360,000 per ft. Test articles such as cowl leading edges, transpiration-cooled seals, fuel injectors, and cooled panel concepts can be evaluated with gaseous hydrogen as coolant. This facility and its configuration and test capabilities are discussed. Results from flow characterization experiments are also shown and their implications considered
Managerial Robotics: a Model of Sociality and Autonomy for Robots Managing Human Beings and Machines
Background. The development of robots with increasingly sophisticated decision-making and social capacities is opening the door to the possibility of robots carrying out the management functions of planning, organizing, leading, and controlling the work of human beings and other machines. Research aims. In this paper we study the relationship between two traits that impact a robotâs ability to effectively perform management functions: those of autonomy and sociality. Method. Using an assessment instrument we evaluate the levels of autonomy and sociality of 35 robots that have been created for use in a wide range of industrial, domestic, and governmental contexts, along with several kinds of living organisms with which such robots can share a social space and which may provide templates for some aspects of future robotic design. We then develop a two-dimensional model that classifies the robots into 16 different types, each of which offers unique strengths and weaknesses for the performance of management functions. Key findings. Our data suggest correlations between autonomy and sociality that could potentially assist organizations in identifying new and more effective management applications for existing robots and aid roboticists in designing new kinds of robots that are capable of succeeding in particular management roles
Thermal/structural analyses of several hydrogen-cooled leading-edge concepts for hypersonic flight vehicles
The aerodynamic heating at high flight Mach numbers, when shock interference heating is included, can be extremely high and can exceed the capability of most conventional metallic and potential ceramic materials available. Numerical analyses of the heat transfer and thermal stresses are performed on three actively cooled leading-edge geometries (models) made of three different materials to address the issue of survivability in a hostile environment. These analyses show a mixture of results from one configuration to the next. Results for each configuration are presented and discussed. Combinations of enhanced internal film coefficients and high material thermal conductivity of copper and tungsten are predicted to maintain the maximum wall temperature for each concept within acceptable operating limits. The exception is the TD nickel material which is predicted to melt for most cases. The wide range of internal impingement film coefficients (based on correlations) for these conditions can lead to a significant uncertainty in expected leading-edge wall temperatures. The equivalent plastic strain, inherent in each configuration which results from the high thermal gradients, indicates a need for further cyclic analysis to determine component life
- âŠ