Sete notas soltas sobre sonhos e pesadelos das tecnologias contemporâneas

Mendo Castro Henriques

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Abstract

The purpose of these notes is to confront us with the dizzying advances of contemporary technologies that can be / are perverted to radically modify human condition. The questions os Plato's cave and Descartes' deceptive god – Who we are? Where are we? Who put us here?– are resurging, powered by technology and in an anxiety environment; the Matrix fiction puts the question “are we living in a simulacrum created by a computer? Are we witnessing the collapse of human autonomy and ethics? Are we allowing technology to determine human condition? Are we allowing artificial added value to be greater than human added value? These notes underline how some capabilities of medical technologies, genetic manipulation, technological improvement and cyborgs, artificial intelligence, robotics and big data are at the root of some of the open wounds of contemporary societies and how humanism and technocracy confront each other. Our situation is similar to what John von Neumann characterized: «In mathematics, we do not understand things. We just get used to them»
Original languagePortuguese
Pages (from-to)31-51
Number of pages21
JournalRevista Metalinguagens
Volume7
Issue number3
Publication statusPublished - Dec 2020

Keywords

  • Technology
  • Science
  • Ethics
  • Theory
  • Research
  • Development
  • Genetic manipulation
  • Technological improvement and cyborgs
  • Artificial intelligence
  • Big data

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