The conventional discourse on existential risks (x-risks) from AI typically focuses on abrupt, dire events caused by advanced AI systems, particularly those that might achieve or surpass human-level intelligence. These events have severe consequences that either lead to human extinction or irreversibly cripple human civilization to a point beyond recovery. This discourse, however, often neglects the serious possibility of AI x-risks manifesting incrementally through a series of smaller yet interconnected disruptions, gradually crossing critical thresholds over time. This paper contrasts the (...) conventional "decisive AI x-risk hypothesis" with an "accumulative AI x-risk hypothesis". While the former envisions an overt AI takeover pathway, characterized by scenarios like uncontrollable superintelligence, the latter suggests a different causal pathway to existential catastrophes. This involves a gradual accumulation of critical AI-induced threats such as severe vulnerabilities and systemic erosion of economic and political structures. The accumulative hypothesis suggests a boiling frog scenario where incremental AI risks slowly converge, undermining societal resilience until a triggering event results in irreversible collapse. Through systems analysis, this paper examines the distinct assumptions differentiating these two hypotheses. It is then argued that the accumulative view can reconcile seemingly incompatible perspectives on AI risks. The implications of differentiating between these causal pathways --- the decisive and the accumulative --- for the governance of AI as well as long-term AI safety are discussed. (shrink)

Each new decade brings ‘advances’ in technology that are more capable of collecting, aggregating, organizing, and deploying data about human practices. Where we go, what we buy, what we say online, and the people with whom we connect, are captured with ever more sophistication by governmental and corporate institutions. Data are increasingly being sold to schools to help them ‘manage’ teaching and administration tasks. Of course, at the same time, schools, teachers, and students are generating data that further advances the (...) goals of data aggregators. After some discussion regarding data’s philosophical dimensions, this chapter examines the benefits and drawbacks of surveillance and datafication in present educational contexts. In addition, this chapter raises ethical and pragmatic questions related to how datafication often reshapes or redefines agency, choice, personal relationships, and individuality. In response to some of the ethical qualms raised by these questions, a vision (imaginary) is proposed to help conserve some of the educational values threatened by datafication, including values related to genuine interest, sociality, and transformative, and qualitative experiences. -/- CITATION: Hildebrand, D.L. (2024). What are Data and Who Benefits?. In: Buch, A., Lindberg, Y., Cerratto Pargman, T. (eds) Framing Futures in Postdigital Education. Postdigital Science and Education . Springer, Cham. doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-58622-4_5 -/- . (shrink)

AI-powered technology can both promote accuracy and hide the standards of measurement and circulation of information. It can also produce models that are opaque and hard to access. As such, the new paradigm of AI asks to pounder about societal values and sets of priorities we want to promote, especially as these technologies are further deployed in times of warfare. The systemic tracking of people’s life and the opaqueness of the models designate a new paradigm in the formation of truth, (...) as censorship is enabled on a new scale. (shrink)

In the age of surveillance capitalism, the prevailing business model underlying the use of social media applications (“apps”) foresees the exchange of personal data for the allowance to use an online service. Such a data business model comes with many potential negative side effects ranging from violation of privacy issues to election manipulation. Therefore, it is of utmost importance to think of alternatives to the current data business model. The present study investigated how strong the support would be for a (...) monetary payment model among a sample of 210 participants. Participants were asked about their willingness to pay for social media, if in turn their data would be private and other problems concerning social media use would be tackled. Only one-fifth of participants (21.43%) supported such a model. From the Big Five Personality traits, Agreeableness was positively associated with support of such a model. Finally, data are also provided on how much participants would be willing to pay for social media on a monthly basis. The present study’s findings are of a preliminary nature and will contribute to the start of an important discussion. (shrink)

This dissertation consists of five chapters, each written as independent research papers that are unified by an overarching concern regarding information privacy and machine learning-based artificial intelligence (AI). This dissertation addresses the issues concerning privacy and AI by responding to the following three main research questions (RQs): RQ1. ‘How does an AI system affect privacy?’; RQ2. ‘How effectively does the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) assess and address privacy issues concerning both individuals and groups?’; and RQ3. ‘How can the value (...) of privacy be embedded into systems?’ -/- To respond to the RQs, this dissertation adopts the privacy impact assessment (PIA) as the overall methodology. A PIA encompasses three distinct stages; the first, the analytical stage, concerns the analysis of how AI (particularly focusing on inference as a process that includes inferred information, AI models’ performance, and accessing information uncovered by AI models) impacts privacy. Second, the legal assessment stage concerns whether AI that processes personal information and develops models complies with the GDPR. Finally, the design requirements stage features proposals for design requirements for systems aimed at protecting privacy. Accordingly, this dissertation is structured in three parts, each corresponding to a specific stage of a PIA and responding to one of the RQs. -/- Part I, which addresses the first stage of the PIA, comprises three chapters that altogether respond to RQ1. Chapter 2 analyses how AI impacts the descriptive aspect of privacy; this part argues that AI challenges the current definitions of privacy and that the ‘source control’ and ‘actual access’ definitions of privacy, once revised in the face of counter-examples involving inferred information, converge. Chapter 3, which considers how AI impacts the normative aspect of privacy, particularly the value of privacy, argues that AI affects the social value of privacy, which depends on trust, as this dimension of privacy is constituted when AI models perform accurately. Chapter 4 examines how AI impacts the normative aspect of privacy, particularly the right to privacy, and it argues that, although accessing information uncovered by AI models raises concerns about the privacy of algorithmically designed groups, the right to privacy cannot be recognised for such groups. This is the disruptive feature of AI that has led to consideration of new approaches other than the traditional one, which involves recognising the right to privacy, to protect the privacy of these groups. Instead of recognising the right to privacy for algorithmically designed groups, this chapter suggests taking a moral principle for the moral obligation of protecting vulnerable groups within an ethics of vulnerability. -/- Part II concerns the second stage of the PIA and consists of one chapter that responds to RQ2. Chapter 5, in addition to evaluating whether AI that processes personal information and develops models complies with the GDPR, also assesses whether the GDPR adequately addresses the privacy issues raised by AI. It specifically focuses on group privacy and argues that GDPR has limitations in protecting the privacy of algorithmically designed groups and that the privacy of such vulnerable entities must be considered in the context of privacy and data protection. -/- Part III, which is related to the third stage of the PIA, also consists of one chapter that responds to RQ3. Chapter 6 proposes design requirements to protect privacy by integrating privacy into systems and argues that privacy is instrumentally valuable for the sake of autonomy. Accordingly, to embed the value of privacy into systems, design requirements are articulated through the translation of norms that promote and protect autonomy. (shrink)

"Με την τεράστια ανάπτυξη της τεχνολογίας, μια εντελώς νέα φτώχεια έχει επέλθει στην ανθρωπότητα. Και η ανάποδη πλευρά αυτής της φτώχειας είναι ο καταπιεστικός πλούτος των ιδεών που έχουν εξαπλωθεί μεταξύ των ανθρώπων, ή μάλλον τους έχουν κατακλύσει εντελώς - ιδέες για την αναβίωση της αστρολογίας και τη σοφία της γιόγκα.... Πράγματι (ας το παραδεχτούμε), η φτώχεια της εμπειρίας μας δεν είναι απλώς σε προσωπικό επίπεδο, αλλά φτώχεια της ανθρώπινης εμπειρίας εν γένει. Ως εκ τούτου, ένα νέο είδος βαρβαρότητας... Και (...) τώρα πρέπει να κάνουμε ένα βήμα πίσω και να κρατήσουμε τις αποστάσεις μας. " Οι παραπάνω λέξεις γράφτηκαν από τον Walter Benjamin το 1933. Τώρα ακούγονται σαν καθυστερημένη προειδοποίηση, καθώς το τεχνολογικό σύστημα έχει αποικίσει κάθε πτυχή της ζωής μετά την ψηφιακή οντολογική επανάσταση. Μα είναι και μια προτροπή για εμάς, τους κατοίκους ενός ψηφιακού κόσμου που μας είναι συνάμα οικείος και ανοίκειος. Ας ακολουθήσουμε την προτροπή του, ας κάνουμε ένα βήμα πίσω και ας κρατήσουμε τις αποστάσεις μας για να διακρίνουμε τους μετασχηματισμούς που φέρνει η πιο προκλητική όψη της σύγχρονης τεχνολογίας, η Τεχνητή Νοημοσύνη. Άραγε φτάσαμε στην εποχή της τεχνολογικής αναπαραγωγιμότητας του προσώπου; Μήπως η Τεχνητή Νοημοσύνη είναι η τεχνολογική μοναδικότητα που θα αντικαταστήσει τη συνείδηση; Μήπως το ανθρώπινο υποκείμενο καταστεί περιττό; Αλλά ποιος το κρίνει αυτό, αν όχι το ανθρώπινο υποκείμενο; Η απόκριση στο αίνιγμα της τεχνολογικής σφίγγας είναι φιλοσοφική και πολιτική. Η κριτική του ψηφιακού λόγου περνά από την κριτική της Τεχνητής Νοημοσύνης, δηλαδή την αυτοκριτική της ανθρώπινης υποκειμενικότητας στον ορίζοντα του δημοκρατικού ψηφιακού ανθρωπισμού. (shrink)

Political economy has two major concepts of capital. In one, capital is defined as money. Adam Smith proposed the other, which considers capital as anything that has a role in the creation of wealth even if peripheral. It includes, for instance, machines, the biosphere (“nature capital” or “natural capital”), and even human beings (“human capital”). The concept of capitalism is generally derived from Smith's overinclusive concept of capital. This led to ambiguity and tautology. However, the pre-Smith concept of capital does (...) not require the concept of capitalism. By removing non-monetary elements from the concept of capital, this study reaches an alternative ‘monetary society in the biosphere’ concept, which avoids confusion regarding monetary and non-monetary flows. This new concept integrates the economic and societal production in the biosphere. Furthermore, it recognizes that various monetary flows can be detrimental to ecological crises. Abandoning the concept of capitalism can contribute to conceptual precision in addressing the political economy of societal, environmental, and green development phenomena. (shrink)

The article explores the links between cyborgisation and biopolitics, examining the impact of technology on the mechanisms of power and control in society. The author analyses how the integration of digital technologies into the human body and consciousness transforms traditional forms of biopolitical control. The paper uses the concepts of Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze to analyse the transformation of power and its forms in the context of blurring boundaries between man and machine. At the same time, the author analyses (...) existing and promising forms of resistance to total technological control, such as hacktivism and various social movements, particularly for digital rights. The paper also argues for the need for further interdisciplinary research on the social and psychological implications of integrating technological solutions into human nature. // В статье исследуются связи между киборгизацией и биополитикой, рассматривается влияние технологий на механизмы власти и контроля в обществе. Автор анализирует, как интеграция цифровых технологий в человеческое тело и сознание трансформирует традиционные формы биополитического контроля. В работе используются концепции Мишеля Фуко и Жиля Делеза для анализа трансформации власти и ее форм в условиях размывания границ между человеком и машиной. Вместе с этим автор анализирует существующие и перспективные формы сопротивления тотальному технологическому контролю, такие как хактивизм и разнообразные общественные движения, в частности, за цифровые права. Также в работе доказывается необходимость проведения дальнейшего междисциплинарного исследования по вопросам социальных и психологических последствий интеграции технологических решений в человеческую природу. (shrink)