The death algorithm and other digital dilemmas / Roberto Simanowski ; translated by Jefferson Chase.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Simanowski, Roberto, author.

Contributor:

Chase, Jefferson S., translator.

Series:

Untimely meditations ; 14.

Untimely meditations ; 14

Standardized Title:

Essays. Selections. English

Language:

English

German

Subjects (All):

Internet--Moral and ethical aspects.

Internet.

Telecommunication--Philosophy.

Telecommunication.

Telematics--Moral and ethical aspects.

Telematics.

Digital media--Social aspects.

Digital media.

Philosophy.

Physical Description:

xxxi, 174 pages ; 18 cm.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Massachusetts : The MIT Press, [2018]

Summary:

In 'The Death Algorithm and Other Digital Dilemmas', Roberto Simanowski wonders if we are on the brink of a society that views social, political, and ethical challenges as technological problems that can be fixed with the right algorithm, the best data, or the fastest computer. For example, the "death algorithm " is programmed into a driverless car to decide, in an emergency, whether to plow into a group of pedestrians, a mother and child, or a brick wall. Can such life-and-death decisions no longer be left to the individual human? In these incisive essays, Simanowski asks us to consider what it means to be living in a time when the president of the United States declares the mainstream media to be an enemy of the people-while Facebook transforms the people into the enemy of mainstream media. Simanowski describes smartphone zombies (or "smombies") who remove themselves from the physical world to the parallel universe of social media networks; calls on Adorno to help parse Trump's tweeting; considers transmedia cannibalism, as written text is transformed into a postliterate object; compares the economic and social effects of the sharing economy to a sixteen-wheeler running over a plastic bottle on the road; and explains why philosophy mat become the most important element in the automotive and technology industries.0Translated by Jefferson Chase.

Contents:

Introduction: coming predicaments

1. Bullshit and fast food

2. Smartphone zombies

3. Marshmallow culture

4. Traffic cops and media education

5. Cannibalism and new media

6. Uber-drive

7. The death algorithm.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN:

9780262536370

0262536374

OCLC:

1029808568