Free Will in the Cyber Age
<p>As Sci-Fi predictions are realized, and we begin to countenance serving under, living with – and even loving – robots, discussion turns to what constitutes “artificial intelligence” and to what extent we are sentient beings or just programmed automatons ourselves.</p> <p>Though we are now completely reliant on machines and have wrought a world where we are helpless without them, we still feel superior to them in that we have “free will”; Meanwhile, the computers, appliances, and gadgets upon which we depend are programmed by those of our creed (i.e. humans).</p> <p>“Free will” would be defined as the ability to choose; what we think, what we do, who we will be, and how we govern our lives. Free will has been a much ballyhooed human conceit since ‘the Enlightenment’ at least, and modern neoliberal ideology hinges on this concept of self-expression and construction of identity as the end goal of our society’s twin obsessions: wealth accumulation and consumerism.</p>
Authors: Ian Svenonius
Translation/Edition: Yamilet Ramírez
Artistic Director: Andreas Töpfer
Editors: Antonia Wright, Marcos Valella, Odalis Valdivieso, Angela Valella, Felice Grodin
Part of: Fall Semester
ISBN: 9781640074460