Robotopias: mapping utopian perspectives on new industrial technology

Abstract

PurposeThis paper maps utopian theories of technological change. The focus is on debates surrounding emerging industrial technologies which contribute to making the relationship between humans and machines more symbiotic and entangled, such as robotics, automation and artificial intelligence. The aim is to provide a map to navigate complex debates on the potential for technology to be used for emancipatory purposes and to plot the grounds for tactical engagements.Design/methodology/approachThe paper proposes a two-way axis to map theories into to a six-category typology. Axis one contains the parameters humanist–assemblage. Humanists draw on the idea of a human essence of creative labour-power, and treat machines as alienated and exploitative form of this essence. Assemblage theorists draw on posthumanism and poststructuralism, maintaining that humans always exist within assemblages which also contain non-human forces. Axis two contains the parameters utopian/optimist; tactical/processual; and dystopian/pessimist, depending on the construed potential for using new technologies for empowering ends.FindingsThe growing social role of robots portends unknown, and maybe radical, changes, but there is no single human perspective from which this shift is conceived. Approaches cluster in six distinct sets, each with different paradigmatic assumptions.Practical implicationsMapping the categories is useful pedagogically, and makes other political interventions possible, for example interventions between groups and social movements whose practice-based ontologies differ vastly.Originality/valueBringing different approaches into contact and mapping differences in ways which make them more comparable, can help to identify the points of disagreement and the empirical or axiomatic grounds for these. It might facilitate the future identification of criteria to choose among the approaches.

Towards the Smart Industry for the Sustainability through Open Innovation based on ITSM (Information Technology Service Management)

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From Politics to Ethics: Transformations in EU Policies on Digital Technology

“…Our understanding of AI development, deployment and implementation is informed by a position that emphasises the political and social nature of technology. We start from the perspective of human agency and focus on the relations that create and control AI development [34], the assumptions and interests that motivate technological development, how these are articulated in policy and, thus, their democratic effects. Hence, we operationalise democracy in terms of input and throughput in order to discuss the democratic implications of policy and policy shifts in more detail.…”