Rethinking autonomy in the digital age
Between human exceptionalism, hybridity and conviviality
Publication date
2024-01-01
Document type
Forschungsartikel
Author
Organisational unit
Publisher
Communication and Social Robotics Labs, Western Michigan University
Series or journal
Human-Machine Communication
ISSN
Periodical volume
9
First page
51
Last page
62
Peer-reviewed
✅
Part of the university bibliography
✅
Language
English
Abstract
In the humanities and social sciences, there is a long tradition of discourses on the relationship between automats and human autonomy. Socio-technological transformation processes of the past decades have revitalized related discussions. At the same time, based on ideas of either human exceptionalism or hybridity, current debates tend to focus on ontological questions and comparisons between humans and machines. This paper aims to widen recent discursive foci by introducing Ivan Illich’s work which highlights institutions, power structures, and the social shaping of technology as key factors of humanartifact relations and autonomous action. It will be argued that Illich’s approach contributes to rethinking autonomy in the digital age by integrating issues of technology design and regulation and by providing a normative framework that allows for assessing autonomy as conviviality in sociotechnical constellations.
Description
Published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0).
Version
Published version
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