The Broader Perspective: Human Embedded Technologies
Our concerns regarding technological acceleration go even deeper and wider, for in recent years, there has been a revolution in the presence of technologies inside or closely associated with human beings and their immediate environment. It is not just a matter of what technology has begun to offer us and has the potential of interacting with us. It is the matter of technological intimacy” –what we will refer to as technology embedment. We might even want to dust off an old word—“propinquity”—and invest this word with the special (and diverse) relationships that now exist and will increasingly exist between humans and technology.
Most importantly, there are many profound implications associated with this propinquity – which, in turn, point to the need for not only greater understanding of these implications but also the educating and training of people to more fully understand and work with this technological propinquity. The challenges inherent in living with technologies that are deeply embedded in our head and heart move us beyond just critical thinking and the discernment of misinformation. As with anything that is intimate, it is hard to think rationally about our relationship with this intimate object. Intimacy is necessarily addressed in a subjective rather than objectivity manner—for we are studying a part of “us” rather than something “else” that resides outside our self.
The Varieties of Embedded Technologies
What are we talking about here? These embedded technologies range from health monitoring devices (that can sample, for instances, heart rate on a device taped to the body for a one-month period of time or the sleep monitoring devices that can now be monitored with a device that is taken home) to devices that continuously supply information to us visually while we are perceiving and navigating through the world. Human-embedded technologies range from the now universal hand-held devices that provide us with any information we need and GPS systems that guide us through the city streets to now envisioned (but soon accessible) devices that we have already identified.
These “empathic” (theory of mind) technologies will meet many of our emotional as well as cognitive needs (by tracking all of our decisions and preferences) (as captured in the movie titled Her). Human embedded technologies can translate our spoken word into written word and soon might even be able to translate our thoughts into words (Artificial intelligence translates thoughts into text using brain implant | The Independent | The Independent). Our thoughts are suddenly available to our technologies. We can be assisted by an internal secretary and transcriber.
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