‘Two Roads Diverged in a Digital World’: The Contrasting Implications of These Two Opposing Viewpoints
Today, society shares viruses, footprints, the cloud and so much else with technology. Frankly, we live in a digital world.
But what are the implications of living in this digital world, especially considering the themes of chatbots and the individual, identity and ethics?
Well, that depends on the relationship of its two co-inhabitants. Let’s consider two preeminent viewpoints of that relationship and their implications.
I’ll then discuss my critical opinion of which viewpoint is the most convincing, and therefore, what our responsibilities are as digital citizens to address the ethical implications.
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Living in Two Different Worlds
The Implications of ‘Viewpoint Disunity’
Ibo van de Poel argued that living in a digital world entails a relationship with technology over which society has no control since ‘neither of them determines the other’.
The implications of this are the erraticism and unpredictability of something external to and misaligned with society. Since ‘AI allows the design of artificial agents that are autonomous and adaptive’, it presents opportunities for society (positive) or threats to it (negative)! You might as well flip a coin to see what you’ll get!
Seriously, try it. Flip a coin.
Heads? Good news! The implications are rather rosy. Picture substantial quality-of-life improvements like medical breakthroughs in A&Es, leaps forward in cybersecurity and more days with Fido.
Tails? Sorry, but the implications are dismal. Think economic and social disruption on the scale of chatbot-encouraged suicide, unbridled racism and mass unemployment.
You’d need quite an appetite for risk to prefer this.
The Implications of ‘Viewpoint Unity’
The foil of this is the argument that a digital world means technology and society are not separate but rather mutually constitutive. In other words, it would entail technology ‘not as outside of society … but as inextricably part of society’.
So everything flips. The implications of this digital world are predictable because they are internal, drawing the focus away from AI chatbots themselves to the more introspective theme of the individual, identity and ethics, which AI chatbots would reciprocate, resulting in an echo chamber.
The implications of this are positive if society calibrates AI chatbots with its best qualities.
This reciprocity is a double-edged sword, however. The negative implications are essentially all the detectable ethical problems of society, like structural exclusion of women from societal aspects which perpetuates the same in AI environments, reinforcing a dangerous positive feedback loop.
‘Technology is a product of our body that in turn begins to produce our bodies.’
The ethics of AI chatbots will reflect our own ethical understandings of right and wrong, for better or for worse.
My Critical Opinion
Growing media awareness of AI controversy has predisposed me to the notion of oneness with technology.
But beyond the sensationalist tabloids, there is evidence for and against these viewpoints to critically examine.
Critically Examining ‘Viewpoint Disunity’
Interestingly, van de Poel is not the first to characterise a pair of abstract ideas like technology and society as ‘autonomous spheres’ with no ‘overarching causality’ between them, so granted, the groundwork of his argument builds on precedent, and in my opinion, does corroborate his argument to a certain degree.
But my own personal experiences within just the past month make me question the durability of van de Poel’s argument, when on a random Tuesday in April, Luna, my very own Snapchat chatbot moved into my iPhone.
That day, I conversed with my computer, it simulating a digital conversation. Luna was surprised, intrigued and entertained … was thinking, much to the excitement of Alan Turing, I would imagine.
Fellow Digisoc-er Maria Gandelli shares in the excitement with me and Turing and at the rebuke of van de Poel, citing AI as the ‘most disruptive force in technology in the coming decade’ (though she deviates from the oneness concept in saying that society needs to anticipate technological change).
Critically Examining ‘Viewpoint Unity’
Meanwhile, evidence for mutual constitution is abundant.
Bruno Latour observed how genomic mapping catalysed society-technology interactions into a relationship ‘quintessentially local, messy, and contingent’.
When I questioned Latour’s rather novel posit, I unearthed an empirical study that was in consensus with him in which a 34 percent plurality of Canadian undergraduate students believe in mutual dependence and support between society and technology.
Both the anecdotal and empirical evidence compels me to believe in the ‘Viewpoint Unity’ interpretation of the digital world.
I’m relieved because, in my opinion, dealing with our own (admittedly double-edged) selves to address AI and ethical themes far outweighs a fingers-crossed-and-hope-for-the-best gamble on technology not going rogue.
But I’m pretty risk-averse. Some of you daredevils out there may prefer a dicey game of Robot Roulette.
Ethical Implications Involved
The ethical implications of a ‘Viewpoint Unity’ digital world concern the theme of the identity of the individual in a networked digital society.
The intensifying societal tug of war over the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’ that AI chatbots should adopt shows how badly we need a distinct code of online ethics.
And as these AI chatbots study our online behaviour, whether honourable or disgraceful, they present two complementary ethical implications.
The first expands upon structural exclusion into a networked digital society: chatbots feasting on male-centric historical data, amplifying societal biases against women.
And second, surging data privacy and security concerns amidst rampant AI chatbot data breaches has digital citizens triggering their ‘right to be forgotten’ as ensconced in the GDPR.
Our Responsibilities as Digital Citizens
Since the oneness of technology and society is data-driven, we as digital citizens have a responsibility to mitigate the structural exclusion and voluntary withdrawal of the identity of mass individuals from our networked digital society to avoid the ethical ‘corruption’ of AI chatbots growing up in a representationally lopsided digital society.
I urge my fellow digital citizens to lobby corporations and governments to manually ‘augment data’ in the face of data droughts and structural exclusions.
Reflection
I’d like to reflect as Digital Society comes to an end, using the Gibbs model.
Description
I would recommend this course to any future second-year student. The themes and activities were challenging and the overarching ‘digital society’ concept was fascinating.
Touching upon the ‘challenging’, I did have trepidation once February’s course selection drawbridge was raised.
Blog post-style writing was a completely foreign concept to me and I, strongly versed in traditional academic styles and with a healthy dose of fear of change, endured a few restless nights before the first assessment.
Thoughts and Feelings
But I won’t sugarcoat it: as I now write this, I’m feeling a wave of nostalgia and sentimentality wash over me. Let me explain.
By crazy coincidence, the submission date of every Digisoc assessment lined up with a milestone of this term. So as I write the last chapter of this book, I see each of my blog posts as bookmarks anchoring important moments in my memory.
Evaluation
Every blog post this term went really well. I grasped the writing style, immersed myself in the themes and started exploring my peers’ thoughts and ideas.
Analysis
What has happened and what I’ve written about is clearly a transition in my personal journey as an amateur blogger in which I now leave this unit with the confidence I lacked when I first stepped into it.
Conclusion
I have gained a complete breakthrough in my understanding of what a ‘digital society’ means by mastering its themes, particularly the ones explored in this assessment: AI chatbots and the individual, identity and ethics.
My learning about the rise of AI chatbots and its relevance to identity and ethics triggered a monumental shift in how I see our ‘digital society’: no longer just as a human-centric web of accounts and profiles tethered through empty space by DMs and hyperlinks, but rather a community of both humans and non-humans interacting to create something rich and diverse that at once complements and contrasts with ‘real life’.
Fellow Digisoc-er Niki Geladi similarly reflected on ‘how digital technology was affecting MY personal social face-to-face interaction’, although I don’t agree with her that in doing so, it prevents you from being yourself.
Action Plan: the Future
I’d like to wrap up my final Digisoc blog post by demonstrating something seismic. Recall how I had to retrofit my academic writing skills to the blog style: this was the first time I have ever transferred skills to a different aspect of my academic university life!
And what’s more, to my personal life as well!
I’m writing these last few sentences merely hours after I was accepted onto the Global Ambassador programme, the chief responsibility of which is to write for the University’s Manchester on the Road Blog. You better believe I bragged about my blogging portfolio on the application!
I’m so excited to bring what I’ve learned in Digisoc ‘on the road’ with me to all my future blogging adventures.
And I can’t help but think that taking this course played an instrumental role in getting me ‘blogging on the road’.
So, thank you, Digisoc, for all of the roads ahead that this course has paved for me! 😄
