The rise of AI has led many regulators around the world to realize that they need to intervene an... more The rise of AI has led many regulators around the world to realize that they need to intervene and safeguard their citizens from the potential harms of this technology. The “posterchild” of the regulatory efforts is the EU’s AI Act, with the first draft published in April 2021. The Act employs a risk-based approach, listing specific AI applications and ranking them according to their potential harm. The fast adoption of ChatGPT signaled to the legislators that generative AI should not be left outside the Act. The changes that were introduced to the 2021 draft consumed intensive negotiations ending only in December 2023. A new risk arises, namely that the regulation will become outdated even before the relevant law is enacted, as newer forms of AI are likely to require additions and amendments to the AI Act. This is the challenge to be addressed by this article. The aim is to suggest a map of AI risks to be answered by future AI regulation to ensure it can handle new risks, potential and actual alike. The proposed mapping of AI risks is based on the postphenomenological relations originally developed by Ihde and their variations as developed in the context of AI. The variation assumes that the intentionality arrow, usually pointing from the experiencing “I”, is likely to be reversed in the presence of AI. Each AI-oriented relation is discussed via an ethical-political analysis in light of the works of Robert Rosenberger and Peter-Paul Verbeek. The result is recommendations for new legislation on AI.
The paper proposes a framework for thinking about digital technologies, including AI, in educatio... more The paper proposes a framework for thinking about digital technologies, including AI, in education. The framework combines Don Ihde’s postphenomenology and Seymour Papert’s constructionism. The former is rooted in the philosophy of technology, the latter – in education and technology. The intersections between the two theories have been mentioned but not explored. There are biographical affinities between the two thinkers, and their ground-breaking works were published in adjacent years – Ihde’s Technics and Praxis in 1979 and Papert’s Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas in 1980. The intersection between the two theories is examined through a review of constructionism through the prism of the Ihde’s four postphenomenological relations showing how each relation matches a major constructionist thread: for embodiment relations, personalization fits; for hermeneutic relations – computational thinking; for alterity relations – microworld; and for background relations – democratization. The paper shows how the two theories contribute to each other and enrich the analysis.
This article suggests several design principles intended to assist in the development of ethical ... more This article suggests several design principles intended to assist in the development of ethical algorithms exemplified by the task of fighting fake news. Although numerous algorithmic solutions have been proposed, fake news still remains a wicked socio-technical problem that begs not only engineering but also ethical considerations. We suggest employing insights from ethics of care while maintaining its speculative stance to ask how algorithms and design processes would be different if they generated care and fight fake news. After reviewing the major characteristics of ethics of care and the phases of care, we offer four algorithmic design principles. The first principle highlights the need to develop a strategy to deal with fake news on the part of the software designers. The second principle calls for the involvement of various stakeholders in the design processes in order to increase the chances of successfully fighting fake news. The third principle suggests allowing end-users to report on fake news. Finally, the last principle proposes keeping the end-user updated on the treatment in the suspected news items. Implementing these principles as care practices can render the developmental process more ethically oriented as well as improve the ability to fight fake news.
This article suggests several design principles intended to assist in the development of ethical ... more This article suggests several design principles intended to assist in the development of ethical algorithms exemplified by the task of fighting fake news. Although numerous algorithmic solutions have been proposed, fake news still remains a wicked socio-technical problem that begs not only engineering but also ethical considerations. We suggest employing insights from ethics of care while maintaining its speculative stance to ask how algorithms and design processes would be different if they generated care and fight fake news. After reviewing the major characteristics of ethics of care and the phases of care, we offer four algorithmic design principles. The first principle highlights the need to develop a strategy to deal with fake news on the part of the software designers. The second principle calls for the involvement of various stakeholders in the design processes in order to increase the chances of successfully fighting fake news. The third principle suggests allowing end-users to report on fake news. Finally, the last principle proposes keeping the end-user updated on the treatment in the suspected news items. Implementing these principles as care practices can render the developmental process more ethically oriented as well as improve the ability to fight fake news.
Is human imagination a stable faculty that operates the same way across generations? Do we produc... more Is human imagination a stable faculty that operates the same way across generations? Do we produce new ideas and new images in the same way as our ancestors? In this article, I seek to show how imagination has been transformed in the passage from the twentieth century to the twenty-first, how it reflects the technologies of the relevant periods, and how it is shaped by these technologies. My claim is that modern imagination consists of searching after new points of view, as reflected in the operations of photography and cinema. It follows Heidegger’s concept of “world picture” and it is demonstrated by Walter Benjamin’s work on mechanical reproduction. Contemporary imagination, which I term posthuman imagination, functions in layers presented over the real, similarly to augmented reality technologies. My notion of posthuman imagination is based on the theories of Don Ihde and N. Katherine Hayles, according to which our bodily perceptions are technologically saturated and our cogniti...
a conference paper given at Well Being in Digital Media Conference, Beer Sheba & Herzelia, 17... more a conference paper given at Well Being in Digital Media Conference, Beer Sheba & Herzelia, 17-19 February 2015
Deleuze and Guattari's Thousand Plateaus includes some useful concepts to understand tech... more Deleuze and Guattari's Thousand Plateaus includes some useful concepts to understand technologies and their relations to humans as individuals and as a society. This article provides an introduction to their notions of machine and becoming and places them in the context of technological use in general, with a special focus on the cellphone. The concept of machine exceeds the technological context, yet it can be still relevant to technologies, especially digital ones. The concept of becoming assists in better understanding co-shaping processes in which a technology and its users change in tandem. Becoming is analyzed as a set of five characteristics: [1] transduction, a change process in both the user and the technology; [2] rhizome, no starting or end point; [3] molecularity, small movement or change that can create a big difference; [4] partial simulation, creating a non-identical copy; and [5] antimemory, forgetting the past. Based on this analysis, the concept of becoming-mobile is introduced as a new way of understanding the interrelations between humans and their cellphones. Becoming-mobile can be further developed either with Deleuze and Guattari's own concepts such as nomadicism or with "external" concepts such as postphenomenology's embodiment and new mobility studies' virtual mobility. Machine, becoming, and becoming-mobile address some basic questions in philosophy of technology, thereby enabling us to refer to Deleuze and Guattari as philosophers of technology.
The question of whether animals have technologies is studied in this article in three genealogica... more The question of whether animals have technologies is studied in this article in three genealogical steps according to the development of human technologies: tools, machines and digital technologies. In the age of tools animals were regarded as lacking technologies. In the age of machines, observations in animals show tool usage. However Marx attributes both machines and tools only to humans in order to avoid a break between premodern humanity that had only tools to modern humanity that invented and used machines. In the age of digital technologies animals have been observed using and inventing tools as well as complex technics like language and agriculture. These genealogical steps conform to Calarco’s mapping of animality into identity, difference and indifference, which allow us to think of not only the identity between humans’ and animals’ technologies but also of the differences.
The rise of AI-based systems has been accompanied by the belief that these systems are impartial ... more The rise of AI-based systems has been accompanied by the belief that these systems are impartial and do not suffer from the biases that humans and older technologies express. It becomes evident, however, that gender and racial biases exist in some AI algorithms. The question is where the bias is rooted—in the training dataset or in the algorithm? Is it a linguistic issue or a broader sociological current? Works in feminist philosophy of technology and behavioral economics reveal the gender bias in AI technologies as a multi-faceted phenomenon, and the linguistic explanation as too narrow. The next step moves from the linguistic aspects to the relational ones, with postphenomenology. One of the analytical tools of this theory is the “I-technology-world” formula that models our relations with technologies, and through them—with the world. Realizing that AI technologies give rise to new types of relations in which the technology has an “enhanced technological intentionality”, a new formula is suggested: “I-algorithm-dataset.” In the third part of the article, four types of solutions to the gender bias in AI are reviewed: ignoring any reference to gender, revealing the considerations that led the algorithm to decide, designing algorithms that are not biased, or lastly, involving humans in the process. In order to avoid gender bias, we can recall a feminist basic understanding—visibility matters. Users and developers should be aware of the possibility of gender and racial biases, and try to avoid them, bypass them, or exterminates them altogether.
Abstract This commentary is an attempt to rethink the ethics of taking care in posthumanist times... more Abstract This commentary is an attempt to rethink the ethics of taking care in posthumanist times. It is an effort to combine ethics, posthumanism and psychological theories. I examine how the psychological notion of long-term well-being can serve as an ethical yardstick and how it can be relevant to non-humans.
Paper given at Yakutsk Third International Conference on Linguistic and Cultural Diversity in Cyb... more Paper given at Yakutsk Third International Conference on Linguistic and Cultural Diversity in Cyberspace, July 2014
The rise of AI has led many regulators around the world to realize that they need to intervene an... more The rise of AI has led many regulators around the world to realize that they need to intervene and safeguard their citizens from the potential harms of this technology. The “posterchild” of the regulatory efforts is the EU’s AI Act, with the first draft published in April 2021. The Act employs a risk-based approach, listing specific AI applications and ranking them according to their potential harm. The fast adoption of ChatGPT signaled to the legislators that generative AI should not be left outside the Act. The changes that were introduced to the 2021 draft consumed intensive negotiations ending only in December 2023. A new risk arises, namely that the regulation will become outdated even before the relevant law is enacted, as newer forms of AI are likely to require additions and amendments to the AI Act. This is the challenge to be addressed by this article. The aim is to suggest a map of AI risks to be answered by future AI regulation to ensure it can handle new risks, potential and actual alike. The proposed mapping of AI risks is based on the postphenomenological relations originally developed by Ihde and their variations as developed in the context of AI. The variation assumes that the intentionality arrow, usually pointing from the experiencing “I”, is likely to be reversed in the presence of AI. Each AI-oriented relation is discussed via an ethical-political analysis in light of the works of Robert Rosenberger and Peter-Paul Verbeek. The result is recommendations for new legislation on AI.
The paper proposes a framework for thinking about digital technologies, including AI, in educatio... more The paper proposes a framework for thinking about digital technologies, including AI, in education. The framework combines Don Ihde’s postphenomenology and Seymour Papert’s constructionism. The former is rooted in the philosophy of technology, the latter – in education and technology. The intersections between the two theories have been mentioned but not explored. There are biographical affinities between the two thinkers, and their ground-breaking works were published in adjacent years – Ihde’s Technics and Praxis in 1979 and Papert’s Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas in 1980. The intersection between the two theories is examined through a review of constructionism through the prism of the Ihde’s four postphenomenological relations showing how each relation matches a major constructionist thread: for embodiment relations, personalization fits; for hermeneutic relations – computational thinking; for alterity relations – microworld; and for background relations – democratization. The paper shows how the two theories contribute to each other and enrich the analysis.
This article suggests several design principles intended to assist in the development of ethical ... more This article suggests several design principles intended to assist in the development of ethical algorithms exemplified by the task of fighting fake news. Although numerous algorithmic solutions have been proposed, fake news still remains a wicked socio-technical problem that begs not only engineering but also ethical considerations. We suggest employing insights from ethics of care while maintaining its speculative stance to ask how algorithms and design processes would be different if they generated care and fight fake news. After reviewing the major characteristics of ethics of care and the phases of care, we offer four algorithmic design principles. The first principle highlights the need to develop a strategy to deal with fake news on the part of the software designers. The second principle calls for the involvement of various stakeholders in the design processes in order to increase the chances of successfully fighting fake news. The third principle suggests allowing end-users to report on fake news. Finally, the last principle proposes keeping the end-user updated on the treatment in the suspected news items. Implementing these principles as care practices can render the developmental process more ethically oriented as well as improve the ability to fight fake news.
This article suggests several design principles intended to assist in the development of ethical ... more This article suggests several design principles intended to assist in the development of ethical algorithms exemplified by the task of fighting fake news. Although numerous algorithmic solutions have been proposed, fake news still remains a wicked socio-technical problem that begs not only engineering but also ethical considerations. We suggest employing insights from ethics of care while maintaining its speculative stance to ask how algorithms and design processes would be different if they generated care and fight fake news. After reviewing the major characteristics of ethics of care and the phases of care, we offer four algorithmic design principles. The first principle highlights the need to develop a strategy to deal with fake news on the part of the software designers. The second principle calls for the involvement of various stakeholders in the design processes in order to increase the chances of successfully fighting fake news. The third principle suggests allowing end-users to report on fake news. Finally, the last principle proposes keeping the end-user updated on the treatment in the suspected news items. Implementing these principles as care practices can render the developmental process more ethically oriented as well as improve the ability to fight fake news.
Is human imagination a stable faculty that operates the same way across generations? Do we produc... more Is human imagination a stable faculty that operates the same way across generations? Do we produce new ideas and new images in the same way as our ancestors? In this article, I seek to show how imagination has been transformed in the passage from the twentieth century to the twenty-first, how it reflects the technologies of the relevant periods, and how it is shaped by these technologies. My claim is that modern imagination consists of searching after new points of view, as reflected in the operations of photography and cinema. It follows Heidegger’s concept of “world picture” and it is demonstrated by Walter Benjamin’s work on mechanical reproduction. Contemporary imagination, which I term posthuman imagination, functions in layers presented over the real, similarly to augmented reality technologies. My notion of posthuman imagination is based on the theories of Don Ihde and N. Katherine Hayles, according to which our bodily perceptions are technologically saturated and our cogniti...
a conference paper given at Well Being in Digital Media Conference, Beer Sheba & Herzelia, 17... more a conference paper given at Well Being in Digital Media Conference, Beer Sheba & Herzelia, 17-19 February 2015
Deleuze and Guattari's Thousand Plateaus includes some useful concepts to understand tech... more Deleuze and Guattari's Thousand Plateaus includes some useful concepts to understand technologies and their relations to humans as individuals and as a society. This article provides an introduction to their notions of machine and becoming and places them in the context of technological use in general, with a special focus on the cellphone. The concept of machine exceeds the technological context, yet it can be still relevant to technologies, especially digital ones. The concept of becoming assists in better understanding co-shaping processes in which a technology and its users change in tandem. Becoming is analyzed as a set of five characteristics: [1] transduction, a change process in both the user and the technology; [2] rhizome, no starting or end point; [3] molecularity, small movement or change that can create a big difference; [4] partial simulation, creating a non-identical copy; and [5] antimemory, forgetting the past. Based on this analysis, the concept of becoming-mobile is introduced as a new way of understanding the interrelations between humans and their cellphones. Becoming-mobile can be further developed either with Deleuze and Guattari's own concepts such as nomadicism or with "external" concepts such as postphenomenology's embodiment and new mobility studies' virtual mobility. Machine, becoming, and becoming-mobile address some basic questions in philosophy of technology, thereby enabling us to refer to Deleuze and Guattari as philosophers of technology.
The question of whether animals have technologies is studied in this article in three genealogica... more The question of whether animals have technologies is studied in this article in three genealogical steps according to the development of human technologies: tools, machines and digital technologies. In the age of tools animals were regarded as lacking technologies. In the age of machines, observations in animals show tool usage. However Marx attributes both machines and tools only to humans in order to avoid a break between premodern humanity that had only tools to modern humanity that invented and used machines. In the age of digital technologies animals have been observed using and inventing tools as well as complex technics like language and agriculture. These genealogical steps conform to Calarco’s mapping of animality into identity, difference and indifference, which allow us to think of not only the identity between humans’ and animals’ technologies but also of the differences.
The rise of AI-based systems has been accompanied by the belief that these systems are impartial ... more The rise of AI-based systems has been accompanied by the belief that these systems are impartial and do not suffer from the biases that humans and older technologies express. It becomes evident, however, that gender and racial biases exist in some AI algorithms. The question is where the bias is rooted—in the training dataset or in the algorithm? Is it a linguistic issue or a broader sociological current? Works in feminist philosophy of technology and behavioral economics reveal the gender bias in AI technologies as a multi-faceted phenomenon, and the linguistic explanation as too narrow. The next step moves from the linguistic aspects to the relational ones, with postphenomenology. One of the analytical tools of this theory is the “I-technology-world” formula that models our relations with technologies, and through them—with the world. Realizing that AI technologies give rise to new types of relations in which the technology has an “enhanced technological intentionality”, a new formula is suggested: “I-algorithm-dataset.” In the third part of the article, four types of solutions to the gender bias in AI are reviewed: ignoring any reference to gender, revealing the considerations that led the algorithm to decide, designing algorithms that are not biased, or lastly, involving humans in the process. In order to avoid gender bias, we can recall a feminist basic understanding—visibility matters. Users and developers should be aware of the possibility of gender and racial biases, and try to avoid them, bypass them, or exterminates them altogether.
Abstract This commentary is an attempt to rethink the ethics of taking care in posthumanist times... more Abstract This commentary is an attempt to rethink the ethics of taking care in posthumanist times. It is an effort to combine ethics, posthumanism and psychological theories. I examine how the psychological notion of long-term well-being can serve as an ethical yardstick and how it can be relevant to non-humans.
Paper given at Yakutsk Third International Conference on Linguistic and Cultural Diversity in Cyb... more Paper given at Yakutsk Third International Conference on Linguistic and Cultural Diversity in Cyberspace, July 2014
Phenomenology and the Philosophy of Technology, 2024
Technologies have always inspired our conceptualization of human life and its various aspects, su... more Technologies have always inspired our conceptualization of human life and its various aspects, such as regarding life as a book in the middle ages, or Marx's fascination from machines as equivalent to the human body (Wendling 2009). Likewise, AI systems are framed as adopting human traits, starting already in the Cybernetics' concepts of machine learning and artificial intelligence. No wonder that recently a Google employee named Blake Lemoine who worked with an AI algorithm came to believe that the algorithm reached a level of a person and hence deserves some rights. My claim is that AI technologies require us to rethink basic human capacities like imagination (Wellner 2018, 2022) because these technologies implement the modernist definitions of such traits. Instead of arguing that technologies became so powerful that they can replace humans, I suggest that we redefine our capacities. Postphenomenology has already done that with the notion of embodiment, that takes into account the technologies around us and reveals how we produce a new body scheme (Ihde 1990). The role of phenomenology in this process is crucial, as it offers a methodology and theory that focuses on the human lived experience. This direction should be further developed to better understand our relations with contemporary technologies while avoiding both the utopian and dystopian arguments.
The links between a Personal Health Record (PHR) and an Electronic Health Record (EHR) have influ... more The links between a Personal Health Record (PHR) and an Electronic Health Record (EHR) have influences beyond the technical tethering. It should in-volve an analysis of the relations between users, healthcare professionals and technology. In order to provide fresh perspectives, the postphenomenological relations of embodiment, hermeneutic and alterity are analyzed and developed into augmented embodiment and quasi-doctor terminology.
The 3rd Medicine-Humanities Colloquium will start on March 17. This series will include talks on ... more The 3rd Medicine-Humanities Colloquium will start on March 17. This series will include talks on sustainability, big data and mentality - all the details in the attached poster. Attendance is free of charge.
Genomics, Public Domain and Privacy – Int’l Workshop, 2019
My academic interest in privacy raised when I started studying a type of cellphone apps known as ... more My academic interest in privacy raised when I started studying a type of cellphone apps known as the quantified self. Their origin is a movement consisting of artists and technology developers who aimed at measuring every aspect in their lives. They called their projects:
מארגנים: ד"ר גלית ולנר, פרופ' נועם שומרון, פרופ' קרן אברהם
מדע הרפואה ומדעי הרוח חולקים עניין משו... more מארגנים: ד"ר גלית ולנר, פרופ' נועם שומרון, פרופ' קרן אברהם מדע הרפואה ומדעי הרוח חולקים עניין משותף – האדם. ההבדל הבסיסי והמהותי הוא באופני החקירה, ואלו מובילים לעיתים למסקנות שונות, ולעיתים לדומות. בסדרת ההרצאות נבחן כיצד שני התחומים מתמודדים עם סוגיות ובעיות מורכבות, וכיצד ההבדל יכול לתרום לתוצאות מחקר עשירות יותר, יעילות יותר ומדוייקות יותר. ההרצאות יתקיימו בסמסטר ב תשע"ט (2017-8) פעם בחודש (פעמיים בחודש מאי), בימי שלישי או רביעי, בהשתתפות מרצים מהארץ ומחו"ל. המפגשים ייערכו באולם יגלום שבבניין הסנאט, אוניברסיטת תל אביב. לפני כל הרצאה יוגש כיבוד קל בחסות Biomed@TAU Research Hubs ו-Adelis. ההרצאות יתקיימו בשפה העברית, אלא אם כן צויין אחרת. הכניסה חופשית.
Medicine and Humanities share a common research subject – humans. The basic and fundamental diffe... more Medicine and Humanities share a common research subject – humans. The basic and fundamental difference is the methodologies and research strategies applied, which could lead to similar or opposing conclusions. In the Colloquium, we will examine how the two disciplines approach the same topic, and discuss how the anomalies might contribute to a richer outcome. The colloquium will take place in the Spring Semester of 2018/9 once a month (twice in May) on Tuesdays or Wednesdays, with lecturers from Israel and abroad. The meetings will be held at the Jaglom Auditorium, the Senate Building, Tel Aviv University. A light breakfast will be served before each meeting, sponsored by the Biomed@TAU Research Hubs & Adelis. Lectures will be held in Hebrew unless stated otherwise. Attendance is free of charge.
A paper presented in Prague, Nov. 2017, at a conference organized by The Philosophical Institute ... more A paper presented in Prague, Nov. 2017, at a conference organized by The Philosophical Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences.
A paper presented in Media and Information Literacy for Building Culture of Open Government, inte... more A paper presented in Media and Information Literacy for Building Culture of Open Government, international conference, Khanty Mansiysk (Russia), 8-9 June 2016
מבוא העורכות לגליון מספר 2 של מחברות לפילוסופיה קונטיננטלית, כתב העת של הסמינר לפילוסופיה קונטיננ... more מבוא העורכות לגליון מספר 2 של מחברות לפילוסופיה קונטיננטלית, כתב העת של הסמינר לפילוסופיה קונטיננטלית תל אביב
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Papers by Galit Wellner
My claim is that AI technologies require us to rethink basic human capacities like imagination (Wellner 2018, 2022) because these technologies implement the modernist definitions of such traits. Instead of arguing that technologies became so powerful that they can replace humans, I suggest that we redefine our capacities. Postphenomenology has already done that with the notion of embodiment, that takes into account the technologies around us and reveals how we produce a new body scheme (Ihde 1990). The role of phenomenology in this process is crucial, as it offers a methodology and theory that focuses on the human lived experience. This direction should be further developed to better understand our relations with contemporary technologies while avoiding both the utopian and dystopian arguments.
מדע הרפואה ומדעי הרוח חולקים עניין משותף – האדם. ההבדל הבסיסי והמהותי הוא באופני החקירה, ואלו מובילים לעיתים למסקנות שונות, ולעיתים לדומות. בסדרת ההרצאות נבחן כיצד שני התחומים מתמודדים עם סוגיות ובעיות מורכבות, וכיצד ההבדל יכול לתרום לתוצאות מחקר עשירות יותר, יעילות יותר ומדוייקות יותר.
ההרצאות יתקיימו בסמסטר ב תשע"ט (2017-8) פעם בחודש (פעמיים בחודש מאי), בימי שלישי או רביעי, בהשתתפות מרצים מהארץ ומחו"ל. המפגשים ייערכו באולם יגלום שבבניין הסנאט, אוניברסיטת תל אביב. לפני כל הרצאה יוגש כיבוד קל בחסות Biomed@TAU Research Hubs ו-Adelis.
ההרצאות יתקיימו בשפה העברית, אלא אם כן צויין אחרת.
הכניסה חופשית.
The colloquium will take place in the Spring Semester of 2018/9 once a month (twice in May) on Tuesdays or Wednesdays, with lecturers from Israel and abroad. The meetings will be held at the Jaglom Auditorium, the Senate Building, Tel Aviv University. A light breakfast will be served before each meeting, sponsored by the Biomed@TAU Research Hubs & Adelis. Lectures will be held in Hebrew unless stated otherwise.
Attendance is free of charge.
במפגש ידברו פרופ' אלכסנדר גולברג וד"ר דניאל מישורי על הקשרים בין רפואה, רוח וקיימות.
המפגש ישודר בזום - https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81382434016
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