This paper draws on 10 months of empirical research observing how the Scottish independence movement mobilized during 2020, the unique period of time when the UK was beset with overlapping crises: Brexit and the Covid-19 Pandemic. When the pandemic forced a cessation of physical demonstrations in March, we employed a mixed-methods research design combining manual and automatic classification of tweets with qualitative content analysis of semi-structured interviews, in order to illuminate both how the independence movement responded to the pandemic in organizational and strategic terms, as well as providing a reflection of how activists reflected on the purposes and context of their activities. We conceptualise the cessation of activities as a period of ‘abeyance’ and ask how Scottish independence activists worked to stay mobilized during lockdowns. We found that the movement utilized a variety of strategies, including online events, and by framing independence as a response to these crises. In pointing to the mishandling of the pandemic by the Conservative government in Westminster, and the oncoming end of the Brexit transition period, for example, activists were able to emphasise the importance and urgency of the movement’s cause.
In this paper, we take the position that the ethically important aspect of artificial intelligence (AI) is the entry of unintelligent machines into human affairs. Elaborating upon the views of Luciano Floridi (1999), we show why an effective example of AI is a machine which engages in a simple array of tasks and processes. Intelligent machines, we hold, should be approached from a perspective which recognizes the reality of their lack of human-like intelligence, while still acknowledging their success as companions. The paper begins by explicating Luciano Floridi's critique of Alan Turing in Philosophy and Computing (1999) and advocacy of light artificial intelligence (LAI), and begins to explain some of the full implications of his view by showing the ways in which a passion for non-human intelligence existed even in Turing and his colleagues. In the following section, we move through the assumptions made by Cynthia Breazeal of MIT, and demonstrate social robotics' compatibility with Floridi's ideas. We examine several examples to defend our point about the successes of LAI in social robotics. In the final section, we examine the ethical consequences of LAI in social robotics, such as openness to alterity and realization of the human interrelatedness with technology.
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