Ethics of Socially Disruptive Technologies

In this episode, Jeroen Hopster speaks with Ben Hofbauer about his dissertation.

Caroline Bollen is a Postdoc at Technical University of Eindhoven, and she was a PhD candidate at Delft University of Technology (Ethics & Philosophy of Technology). She has an interdisciplinary background in medical biology, neuroscience, and science in society. In this episode, she is interviewed by Bouke van Balen about her PhD project, that centred around the question: what does it mean to be empathetic in a diverse and digital world? Check out the papers that she published as part of her dissertation: A reflective guide on the meaning of empathy in autism research, published in Methods in Psychology, 2023 Towards a Clear and Fair Conceptualization of Empathy, published in Social Epistemology, 2023 A Conceptual and Ethical framework for Empathy and Communication Technologies, published in Technology and Society, 2023

Janna van Grunsven is assistant professor in TU Delft’s ethics and philosophy of technology section. With the support of a Veni personal grant from the Dutch Research Council, she conducts research at the intersection of embodied cognition, philosophy and ethics of technology, and disability studies. In this episode, she is interviewed by Bouke van Balen about moral visibility and technology. Check out these papers if you want to read more about Janna's work: Enactivism and the Paradox of Moral Perception. Published in Topoi, 2021. Technosocial disruption, enactivism, & social media: On the overlooked risks of teenage cancel culture. Published in Technology in Society, 2024. Disabled Body-Minds in Hostile Environments: Disrupting our Cartesian Sociotechnical Imagination with Enactive Embodied Cognition and Critical Disability Studies. Published in Topoi, 2024.

Alessio Gerola is a doctoral researcher at Wageningen University. His research is about the ethical and philosophical implications of biomimicry. In this episode, Patricia Reyes interviews Alessio about his work. If you want to know more, you can find a paper of Alessio here.

Recent enhancements such as brain stimulation technologies pose new possibilities to enhance soldiers. But what happens when these “enhanced” soldiers need therapy?  Our guest for this episode is Dr. Adam Henschke from the University of Twente. In this episode, we discuss Dr. Henschke’s article “When Enhancements need Therapy: Disenhancements, Iatrogenesis, and the Responsibility of Military Institutions”. The article can be found here: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40592-022-00169-1 We also refer to the article “Can a Soldier Say No to an Enhancing Intervention?” co-written by Adam and Sahar Latheef. This article can be found at https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies5030013 We hope that you enjoy the episode!

Elena Ziliotti is an Assistant Professor of Ethics and Political Philosophy at Delft University of Technology (TU Delft). In this episode, Elena shares some insights into how Confucianism can shape our thinking about Social Media Technologies. We also discuss the article “Living Well Together Online: Digital Wellbeing from a Confucian Perspective” which she co-wrote with Matthew Dennis.

Philip Brey is a professor of Philosophy of Technology at the University of Twente and the current programme leader of the ESDiT consortium. His research includes a wide variety of topics, including the ethical assessment of emerging technologies, the ethics of AI and robotics, innovative approaches to research ethics, and the ethics of the (future) internet. He is the former president of the International Society for Ethics and Information Technology (INSEIT) and of the Society for Philosophy and Technology (SPT). He has coordinated European Union funded projects like SATORI and SIENNA, led NWO projects and was the former scientific director of the 4TU.Centre for Ethics of Technology. Professor Brey is also the most recent recipient of the prestigious Weizenbaum Award for his significant contribution to the field of information and computer ethics, to be awarded at the upcoming International Conference on Computer Ethics: Philosophical Enquiry (CEPE 2023).  In this episode, Kristy Claassen interviews him about the “ethics of the Metaverse”. This episode also includes a discussion about the ESDiT consortium, how it came to be and the aims of the programme. 

Guido Löhr is a postdoctoral researcher at Technical University Eindhoven. Their research focuses on the notions like meaning, concept, and commitment and their roles in neuroscience, psychology, philosophy, and linguistics. The past two years they have also been working on philosophy of technology and AI.  In this episode, Bouke van Balen speaks with Guido about conceptual disruption. The backbone of their discussion is a recent paper from Guido titles "Do socially disruptive technologies really change our concepts or just our conceptions?" You can find it here 

Sven Nyholm is an associate professor at the Ethics Institute of Utrecht University. His main areas of research are applied ethics (especially the ethics of technology), ethical theory, and the history of ethics. Nyholm’s research covers a wide range of topics in ethics, including well-being and meaning in life, the philosophy of love and sex, agency and moral responsibility, the concept of the self, and the ethics of human-robot interaction.  In this episode, Bouke van Balen interviews Sven on the topic of robot-ethics. The backbone of their discussion is a paper Sven recently published: "A new control problem? Humanoid robots, artificial intelligence, and the value of control." You can find it here.