Philosophical Issues in High-Tech Sport and Leisure

Abstract

This paper examines several philosophical issues related to emerging technologies in sport and leisure. There are a range of technologies that will likely be offered to boost performance in sport, ranging from prosthetic devices and cyborg-like implants to gene therapy and enhancement. Computer generated simulations are already in use in work and leisure, and are expected to be pervasive in the future. Technological developments such as these present a challenge to some of the traditional assumptions and cherished beliefs not only about the nature of sport and leisure and how they should be conducted, but also about the very nature of reality and what it means to be human. It is hoped that this paper can shed some light on the challenges and possibilities focing sport and leisure in the upcoming high-tech future.

Assessing the Acceptance of Cyborg Technology with a Hedonic Technology Acceptance Model

“…Because medical implants can improve or even completely restore the capabilities of a person with a given disability, there is no reason why their implantation cannot improve the capabilities of a standard human [9] or even achieve some form of immortality [10]. These enhanced capabilities can occur in an intellectual plane, for example, by increasing the memory or calculation capacity [11], or an exclusively physical plane [12]. These potentialities lead [13] us to speculate on the possibility of frontline service employees who, by using insideable tech, take advantage of being, in part, robots (for example, with an increased data-handling capability) but also offer complete human assistance.…”