Trusting Our Selves to Technology

Abstract

Trust is a central dimension in the relation between human beings and technologies. In many discourses about technology, the relation between human beings and technologies is conceptualized as an external relation: a relation between pre-given entities that can have an impact on each other but that do not mutually constitute each other. From this perspective, relations of trust can vary between reliance, as is present for instance in technological extensionism, and suspicion, as in various precautionary approaches in ethics that focus on technological risks. Against these two interpretations of trust, this article develops a third one. Based on a more internal account of the relations between human beings and technologies, it becomes possible to see that every technological development puts at stake what it means to be a human being. Using technologies, then, implies trusting ourselves to technologies. We argue that this does not imply an uncritical subjection to technology. Rather, recognizing that technologies help to constitute human subjectivity implies that human beings can get actively involved in processes of technological mediation. Trust then has the character of confidence: deliberately trusting oneself to technology

Can we trust robots?

“…And recently Kiran and Verbeek have argued that technology puts at stake what it is to be a human being: humans and technologies have an 'intimate' and 'internal' relation and as we trust ourselves to technology we shape our existence. Rather than reliance, trust then takes on the character of confidence (Kiran and Verbeek 2010). 9 Thus, from a social-phenomenological (and from an existential-phenomenological) perspective I conclude that we already trust ourselves to technologies and depend on them.…”

Responsible Design. A Conceptual Look at Interdependent Design–Use Dynamics

“…The aim of this article is to outline a conceptual framework in manner that creates a link between a theoretical Philosophy of Technology to more practical-empirical fields. 26 See Kiran and Verbeek (2010) for an elaboration of what the different approach to the ethical dimension implies. See also Verbeek (2011) for more on what an interdependent view of technology implies for an ethics of technology.…”

“…Relating ethically sound or socially responsible to the technologies would then no longer be a matter of saying 'yes' or 'no' to them, but a matter of relating, actively, to them, in order to give the values and norms (and other trajectories) a shape (Kiran and Verbeek 2010;Verbeek 2006a;.…”

“…Emphasising the first characteristic in relation to telecare technologies can lead to situations of distrust; where the telecare device appears as intruding, a strange presence in the patient identity, and thus invite alienation. Emphasising the second, on the other hand, sees the technology as allowing latitude for the patient to construct a patient identity with the equipment as an integral part (Kiran and Verbeek 2010). In reality, though, it will not be a matter of either/or since different people react differently to the technological presence in their illness.…”

Posthumanism and somatechnologies : exploring the intimate relations between humans and technologies

“…That is, walking and learning to walk with a prosthesis not merely implies trusting the latter but trusting oneself to the prosthesis (Kiran and Verbeek 2010). Trust does not reside with the person living with the prosthesis nor with the latter.…”