Men, Gods and Machines

Positions on digitalisation vary hugely between those who view it with an ecstasy verging on euphoria and those who see it as the apocalypse. The first group live in expectation of the creation on a new being, a creature becoming God. The others live in fear of a loss of freedom and of the intrinsic value of human life. Wolfgang Huber takes the approach of the realist regarding technological progress.

He takes a few questions as his starting point: Is social media really social at all? If a car is created with in-built digital intelligence, is it ‘autonomous’ or simply ‘automated’? Algorithms work by way of pattern recognition – does that mean they’re ‘intelligent’? The exuberance of language can sometimes lead us to forget that however great the performance of a machine, it was in the first place developed by human beings and is, in the end, used by humans. In an emergency someone has to pull the plug. This compelling and impressive piece of work is in prime position when it comes to discussion of ethics and makes clear that we should not give in to digitalisation but instead seize the responsibility for shaping it.