“Who are we, and how do we relate to each other?
‘Luciano Floridi, one of the leading figures in contemporary
philosophy, argues that the explosive developments in Information and
Communication Technologies (ICTs) is changing the answer to these fundamental
human questions.
‘As the boundaries between life online and offline break down, and we
become seamlessly connected to each other and surrounded by smart, responsive
objects, we are all becoming integrated into an "infosphere".
‘Personas we adopt in social media, for example, feed into our 'real'
lives so that we begin to live, as Floridi puts in, "onlife".
‘Following those led by Copernicus, Darwin, and Freud, this
metaphysical shift represents nothing less than a fourth revolution.
"Onlife" defines more and more of our daily activity - the
way we shop, work, learn, care for our health, entertain ourselves, conduct
our relationships; the way we interact with the worlds of law, finance, and
politics; even the way we conduct war.
‘ In every department of life, ICTs have become environmental forces
which are creating and transforming our realities.
‘How can we ensure that we shall reap their benefits?
‘What are the implicit risks?
‘Are our technologies going to enable and empower us, or constrain
us?
“Floridi argues that we must expand our ecological and ethical
approach to cover both natural and man-made realities, putting the 'e' in an
environmentalism that can deal successfully with the new challenges posed by
our digital technologies and information society. ‘”
--Floridi, Luciano (2014). The Fourth Revolution. How the Infosphere is Reshaping Human Reality.. Oxford University Press.
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