Books are solid. This is at once a physical description and a metaphysical one, and it is on this metaphysical solidity that we ought to ground our loyalty to the book over and against the allure of the ever-changing screen. A book is solid in the warm way a friend is solid: direct, dependable, . . . . Continue Reading »
I recently attended a small conference in Washington, DC, co-sponsored by the New America Foundation (NAF), a think tank that describes itself as “dedicated to the renewal of American politics, prosperity, and purpose in the digital age, through big ideas, technological innovation, next generation politics, and creative engagement with broad audiences.” The conference was entitled “The Future of Reproduction” and was troubling in all manner of ways, not least because it was unclear whether I was witnessing a naïve attempt to really speak about the renewal of American culture, or a cynical undertaking to destroy the whole enterprise from within. Continue Reading »
Transhumanists insist that we are quickly approaching [R1] the moment at which technology will become an unstoppable and self-directing power that will usher in the “post-human” era. To get us from here to there requires the invention of “artificial intelligence” (AI), computers and/or robots that become “conscious” and self-programming, independent of human control. Actually, these advocates would say “who” become conscious: Transhumanists believe that AI contraptions would become self-aware and thus deserve human rights. Continue Reading »
In Technopoly, Neil Postman says that overly technological cultures, “driven by the impulse to invent, have as their aim a grand reductionism in which human life must find its meaning in machinery and technique.”
In the debate over the plusses and minuses of social media, it is common to hear a point that changes the terms completely. I’ve witnessed it in forums dozens of times: “We have to remember that these are just tools. It all depends on how you use them.” Continue Reading »
In remarks delivered at the University of Santo Tomas in Manila last week, the Pope received a question about information technology in young people’s lives. Continue Reading »
In December, Slate dubbed 2014 “the Year of Outrage.” Their extensive documentation makes it easy to see why. Of the hundreds of examples to choose from, some trivial and some much more serious, none was more convoluted or unexpected than the controversy that came to be known as “Gamergate.” Continue Reading »
Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies by nick bostrom oxford, 352 pages, $29.95 Since cofounding the World Transhumanist Association in 1998, the Swedish-born Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom has attempted to give a serious academic mien to the movement known as transhumanism. Transhumanists . . . . Continue Reading »
Cybertheology: Thinking Christianity in the Era of the Internet by antonio spadaro fordham, 160 pages, $24 The New Digital Age: Transforming Nations, Businesses, and Our Lives by eric schmidt and jared cohen random house, 368 pages, $15.95 To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological . . . . Continue Reading »
In defense of a rigorously selective form of nostalgia. Continue Reading »
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