1,721,863 research outputs found
Notes on attitudes to science – let us investigate the ‘longue durée’ in comparison
No full textIn these notes on attitudes to science we consider three questions. Firstly, how did monitoring of public attitudes to science emerge from a malaise of the 1970s? France and the US were the first to do so. While the French focussed on attitudes, the Americans focussed on science literacy and trust in institutions. Secondly, what does the ‘longue-duree’ picture show? France shows increasing ambivalence about science and technology, and a shift from a binary to a triadic image of science. In the US, the last 50 years bring the polarisation of attitudes along partisan lines. This suggests that we need to drop the Miller-Almond model and go back to Merton: attitudes driving knowledge is now more likely than knowledge driving attitudes. Finally, what is the value of continued monitoring of public opinion about science, and what are the institutional arrangements for doing so? The Eurobarometer series since 1975 is thereby in focus, being itself an indicator of institutional attention to attitudes to science
AI with common sense: what concept of common sense?
No full textCommon sense is a theme that is present from the very beginning of artificial intelligence (AI); it was claimed already in 1958 that a particular computer program displayed ‘“common sense’”. However, what is ‘“common sense’” (CS), we must ask? This chapter lists and seeks to clarify eight different concepts of ‘“common sense’”. These historically derive from three historical types: Aristotle's ‘“koine aisthesis’” of sensory integration, the ‘“natural reasoning’” of the Scottish Enlightenment, and Vico's ‘“‘‘un-reflected moral community’’” which is both universal and culturally distinct. We also capture the tension of positioning CS in a vertical hierarchy or on a horizontal continuum of different forms of knowing. Being aware of different concepts of CS will enable us to assess critically claims made as to AI with CS’”: which kind of CS is invoked
Towards a functional analysis of resistance
No full textIn this chapter I develop two ideas about resistance in social processes in a speculative manner, with the help of a functional analogy: (a) resistance is primarily a functional event in social processes – dysfunctionality is possible but secondary; and (b) resistance is a contribution that urges consideration of whether to sustain a process, in analogy to ‘acute pain’, and if so, how. In whatever context, political, technological or economic, resistance is an action attribution, and as such the achievement of a communication system (Heidenscheder 1992). This analysis of resistance is mainly concerned with resistance in areas of present day technology, but makes use of ideas from other historical and political contexts. I explore a discursive schema with two main actors: an innovator and a resistant. Further differentiation is conceivable according to the various roles of the change agency (Ottaway 1983) and resistance (see Bauer, Chapter 1). The innovator proposes a project that is not acceptable and rejected tel-quel by the resistant part; in that mismatch mutually unexpected expectations meet. Concrete actors may change their roles in two ways. First, the innovator resists changes to the project; and resistance may become an initiator. Second, these parts of innovator and resistant are not scripted: they change as they are enacted. Being interested in the function of resistance in a process, I focus on effects: how does resistance affect the process that is its target
Resistance to new technology and its effects on nuclear power, information technology and biotechnology
No full textThe word ‘resistance’ has become unsuitable for use in the context of new technology. The allegation is that it serves mainly to blame those who resist; talking about resistance implies a managerial and technocratic bias. However, in developing the idea for this conference, I was confident that ‘resistance’ would prove ambiguous in meaning and rich in connotations, particularly in the European context. Historians of technology recently rediscovered ‘resistance’ as a ‘force’ that shapes technology which requires an adequate analysis (Mokyr 1990, 1992). For the economist resistance is basically the vested interests of old capital in ideas, skills and machinery. In addition, in the light of the critique of the ‘Whiggish’ historiography of technology (Staudenmaier 1985), it seems reasonable to lift ‘resistance’ from the dustbin of history. Artefacts such as machines, power stations, computers, telephones, broadcasts and genetically engineered tomatoes, and the practice of their production, handling, marketing and use – in other words, technological innovations – are not the only factors of historical change. Technological determinism seems an inadequate account of our history. Various social activities give form to processes and products, facilitate their diffusion and mitigate their consequences. However, technology is not neutral. It creates opportunities and simultaneously constrains human activity. We experience the latter as being paced by ‘machines’ rather than controlling them. The selection of options is not neutral; it is likely to be contested and in need of legitimation
‘Technophobia’: a misleading conception of resistance to new technology
No full textn the history of technology the concept of ‘technophobia’ seems to undergo a periodical revival to deal with people's reactions to innovations. This tendency to detect symptoms of pathology in people's experience of new technologies reappears in public debates. According to the historian Goffi (1988) we may distinguish a universal from a particular form of technophobia. Universal ‘phobia’ is expressed in ancient myths such as Prometheus, The Golem, Dr Faustus or the Greek notion of Hybris. The particular form is the anti-scientific attitudes in the recent industrial age. Often technophobia is part of the larger concept of ‘neophobia’ which refers to people's general aversion against all things new. In the nineteenth century, ‘Siderodromophobia’ subsumed adverse reactions to railway work and railway journeys: fever in the aftermath of journeys; the ‘delirium furiosum’, a mental agitation caused by the mere sight of a locomotive steaming by; and a hysterical aversion to work among locomotive and wagon personnel (Fischer-Homberger 1975, pp. 40f). Mitchell (1984) reports how at times the nuclear debate in the USA was conducted under the heading of ‘nuclear phobia’: images of nuclear power, spread by the media, touch on unconscious motivations, and give rise to an emotional over-reaction which brought the nuclear power industry to a virtual stop. To use the notion of ‘phobia’ to describe people's experience of and behaviour towards new technology is pragmatically not neutral; the psychopathological classification presents the problem through the ‘clinical’ eye
When artificial intelligence meets common sense, frictions will arise
No full textWe introduce this book in three steps. Firstly, there is a history to the encounter between AI and common sense. Common sense was presented from the very beginning in the 1950s as a key challenge for AI. This asks for a clarification of how we can understand “common sense” and whether the operationalisation of common sense in designed AI is exhausting this semantic field. Secondly, we examine the usage of the term “common sense” as part of the English vocabulary. This shows four common uses, a deep ambiguity of the adjective “common”, which in many languages other than English requires two expressions, and a particular historical trajectory of the phase 'in English since the 18th century. Finally, we preview the chapters of this volume which are ordered into four sections examining the cycle of normalisation, assimilation and accommodation of AI and CS
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