A recent interpretation of artificial intelligence (AI) (Floridi 2013, 2022) suggests that the implementation of AI demands the investigation of the binding conditions that make it possible to build and integrate artifacts into our lived world. Such artifacts can successfully interact with the world because our environment has been designed to be compatible with intelligent machines (such as robots). As the use of AI becomes ubiquitous in society, possibly leading to the formation of increasingly intelligent bio-technological unions, there will likely (...) be a coexistence of a plethora of micro-environments wrapped and tailored around humans and basic robots. The key element of this pervasive process will be the capacity to integrate biological realms in an infosphere suitable for the implementation of AI technologies. This process will require extensive datafication. This is because data is the basis of the logical-mathematical codes and models that drive and guide AI. This process will have huge consequences on workplaces, on workers, as well as on the decision-making processes required for the functioning of future societies. In this paper we will offer a comprehensive reflection on the moral and social implications of datafication as well as a set of considerations about its desirability, which will be informed by the following insights: (1) full protection of privacy may become structurally impossible, thus leading to undesirable forms of political and social control; (2) worker’s freedom may be reduced; (3) human creativity, imagination, and even divergence from AI logic might be channeled and possibly discouraged; (4) there will likely be a push towards efficiency and instrumental reason, which will become preeminent in production lines as well as in society. (shrink)

This paper instigates a discourse on the unplanned effects of intelligent agents in the context of their use on the Internet. By utilizing a social informatics framework as a lens of analysis, the study identifies several unanticipated consequences of using intelligent agents for information- and commerce-based tasks on the Internet. The effects include those that transpire over time at the organizational level, such as e-commerce transformation, operational encumbrance and security overload, as well as those that emerge on a cultural level, (...) such as trust affliction, skills erosion, privacy attrition and social detachment. Furthermore, three types of impacts are identified: economic, policy, and social. The discussion contends that economic impacts occur on the organizational level, social effects transpire on a cultural level, and policy impacts take place on both levels. These effects of the use of intelligent agents have seldom been predicted and discussed by visionaries, researchers, and practitioners in the field. The knowledge of these unplanned outcomes can improve our understanding of the overall impacts that innovative agent technologies may potentially have on organizations and individuals. Subsequently, this may help us develop better agent applications, facilitate the formulation of appropriate contingencies, and provide impetus for future research. (shrink)