Friends or Foes? AI Techno-Sphere and Impact on Humanity

Abstract

Humanity"Artificial intelligence (AI) is at the cutting edge of technological development and has the potential to profoundly and incomparably influence humankind's future" (Rawas, 2024, p. 1). In this issue, there are three exciting articles published around the theme "Rethinking Humanities in the Era of Digital and Artificial Intelligence." First of all, Professor Françoise Paquienseguy, a senior French scholar and 2023 Lyon IAMCR Conference host, presents the featuring article entitled "Digital: The Promise of the Unlimited?" (Paquienseguy, 2024) followed by two other articles responding to the questions and issues discussed in Paquienseguy's work. The first of these two articles is "The 'Boundary' of Technology, Culture and Digitalization" written by Shilian Shan (Shan, 2024).Shan's argument basically echoes Paquienseguy's thesis by extending the discussions on different aspects of humanity-including human, non-human, and inhuman. Both articles provide suspicious and critical attitudes toward "the digital regime." Risks and threats coming from the "alien" forces of technocratic supremacy are addressed.There has been a debate regarding how to deal with the rising tensions between natural humans and smart machines. Some project the future outcomes to be more optimistic, and "other thinkers advocate for quite skeptic and even alarmist and pessimistic approach" (Silichev et al., 2019, p. 699). Scholars such as Paquienseguy and Shan suggest that a new moral standard needs to be