TATuP – Zeitschrift für Technikfolgenabschätzung in Theorie und Praxis
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When technology learns to speak: Artificial communication as a cultural challenge for mediatized societies
Get PDFWir scheinen am Anfang einer Ära kommunizierender Technik zu stehen. Amazons Sprachassistenzsystem Alexa ist in Millionen von privaten Haushalten eingezogen, Chatbots gehören heute zu den Standardanwendungen im Kundenservice und der Einsatz von Algorithmen zur Erzeugung von Texten ist in die Praxis professionellen Publizierens integriert worden. An kommunizierenden Maschinen zeigen sich kontroverse Deutungen von Autonomie, Kreativität, Komplexität und Opazität von Mensch und Maschine wie in einem Brennglas. Der Beitrag argumentiert, dass kommunizierende Technik eine eigenständige kulturelle Herausforderung für mediatisierte Gesellschaften darstellt, der sich eine reflexive Technikfolgenabschätzung hermeneutisch zu stellen hat.We are at the dawn of an era of communicating technology. Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant system has entered millions of private households, chatbots have become a standard application in customer service, and the use of algorithms to generate texts has been integrated into the practice of professional publishing. Communicating machines reveal controversial interpretations of autonomy, creativity, complexity, and opacity of humans and machines. The article argues that artificial communication represents a cultural challenge for mediatized societies that reflexive technology assessment should address hermeneutically
Co-constructing ancestry through direct-to-consumer genetic testing: Challenges and implications
Get PDFDirekt an Konsument*innen (direct-to-consumer, DTC) über das Internet vermarktete genealogische Gentests sollen die Abstammung der Getesteten aufzeigen. Während diese Gentests als Mittel verstanden werden können, die biologisch fixierte Herkunft zu bestimmen, untersucht der vorliegende Artikel, wie Unternehmen und Kund*innen die Abstammung mittels dieser Gentests ko-konstruieren. Die Studie stützt sich auf eine Analyse relevanter Literatur, qualitative Interviews mit Expert*innen und Stakeholder*innen, Webseitenanalysen und eine autoethnographische Selbstbeobachtung. Es wird gezeigt, wie DTC-Gentestunternehmen durch ihr Marketing, die Entwicklung spezifischer Datenbanken und die Präsentation der Testresultate bestimmte Konzepte von Herkunft kreieren, aber auch, wie die Kund*innen ihre Testergebnisse interpretieren und in ihre Biographien und ihr Leben einbauen. Mit Blick auf die möglichen sozialen Auswirkungen von DTC-Gentests wird ihre Einstufung als Unterhaltung hinterfragt.Direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic ancestry tests offered via the internet supposedly uncover the ancestry of those tested. While these tests might be seen as a means to find a biologically inscribed and fixed genealogy, this paper explores how companies and customers co-construct ancestry through genetic ancestry testing. The study draws on a review of relevant literature, qualitative interviews with experts and stakeholders, a website analysis, and an autoethnographic self-observation. It shows how DTC genetic testing companies create specific concepts of ancestry in their marketing, development of specific databases, and presentation of results, but also how users interpret and incorporate their results into their own genealogies and lives. Looking at the potential social impact of DTC ancestry testing, the paper questions its categorization as recreational activity or entertainment
Critical political economy of the public infrastructure crisis in Lebanon: Interview with Karim Eid-Sabbagh
No full textIn this interview, Karim Eid-Sabbagh and Ulrich Ufer discuss how the case of the public infrastructure crisis in Lebanon highlights the importance of including analytical dimensions of critical political economy and global financial dynamics in technology assessment alongside a technology-society-governance perspective – in particular when focusing on the Global South. The Lebanese crisis has built up through long-term structural problems that include the legacies of colonialism, the country’s peripheral position in global capital relations, elite nepotism, sectarian strife, and the state’s dependency on international donor funding to build and maintain public infrastructure. These have coincided with short-term disintegration and disaster events over the past two years: mass migration, countrywide anti-government protests in fall 2019, the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020, the destruction of large parts of the country’s capital by the devastating explosion in the port of Beirut in August 2020, and the spiraling devaluation of the Lebanese currency.In this interview, Karim Eid-Sabbagh and Ulrich Ufer discuss how the case of the public infrastructure crisis in Lebanon highlights the importance of including analytical dimensions of critical political economy and global financial dynamics in technology assessment alongside a technology-society-governance perspective – in particular when focusing on the Global South. The Lebanese crisis has built up through long-term structural problems that include the legacies of colonialism, the country’s peripheral position in global capital relations, elite nepotism, sectarian strife, and the state’s dependency on international donor funding to build and maintain public infrastructure. These have coincided with short-term disintegration and disaster events over the past two years: mass migration, countrywide anti-government protests in fall 2019, the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020, the destruction of large parts of the country’s capital by the devastating explosion in the port of Beirut in August 2020, and the spiraling devaluation of the Lebanese currency
Climate-neutral and intelligent cities in Europe: Mission statements, paths, risks
No full textDie große Transformation zu klimaneutralen Städten in Europa steht, obwohl oft gefordert und vielfach befürwortet, noch aus. Dieses TATuP-Thema unterstreicht die Notwendigkeit integrativer Ansätze, die smarte und intelligente urbane Technologien mit soziokulturellen Innovationen verbinden, um Wege zur urbanen Klimaneutralität zu eröffnen.
Herausgegeben von Cordula Kropp (ZIRIUS/Universität Stuttgart), Astrid Ley (SI/Universität Stuttgart), Sadeeb Simon Ottenburger (ITES/Karlsruher Institut für Technologie), Ulrich Ufer (ITAS/Karlsruher Institut für Technologie)The great transformation to climate-neutral cites in Europe, though often called for and widely advocated, is yet to come. This TATuP special topic underscores the necessity of integrative approaches that combine smart and intelligent urban technologies with socio-cultural innovations to open up paths towards urban climate neutrality.
Edited by Cordula Kropp (ZIRIUS/University of Stuttgart), Astrid Ley (SI/University of Stuttgart), Sadeeb Simon Ottenburger (ITES/Karlsruhe Institute of Technology), Ulrich Ufer (ITAS/Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
Is this technology or can it be thrown away? About the reversibility of technologies
Get PDFGerman abstractVersion 2Reversible technologies are those that can be taken back, i.e., they can be switched off, dismantled, and, if necessary, replaced by existing new technologies. Irreversible technologies are a burden. A typology of take back or reversibility is developed and discussed on the basis of irreversible technologies. It is proposed to include reversibility as a value criterion for technology assessment. Some considerations on the design of reversible technologies are presented