# Website to see who has signed up for the exams
https://servizionline.unige.it/webdocenti/#/agenda
# Student Essays January 2025
- Margherita: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GaK5X3xG3Zp4Uwjt1SPMTd8zy7nESDEB/edit?usp=drive_web&ouid=111827102490015367916&rtpof=true
# Slides for the chatgpt class
**Neutral Instrumental View**
- **Neutral Instrumental Approach:**
- ChatGPT is seen as a neutral tool for generating text.
- Responsibility and morality remain solely with human users.
- **This is the intuitive view of AI:**
- AI systems are tools we use to achieve goals (e.g., drafting emails, writing essays).
---
**Mediation Theory**
- **Concept:**
- Studies how technologies like ChatGPT mediate human experiences and actions.
- **Focus:**
- The roles of AI systems in shaping human understanding, perception, and behavior.
---
**Mediation Theory**
- **Examples:**
- **ChatGPT assisting in medical diagnoses:** Influences decisions in healthcare.
- **ChatGPT generating personalized news:** Shapes political opinions.
- **AI in education:** Alters learning experiences and methods.
- **View:**
- AI technologies are intrinsically involved in moral decision-making.
- [[Moral agency]] is fundamentally hybrid, involving both humans and AI systems.
---
**Mediation Theory**
- **[[Technological mediation]]:**
- ChatGPT influences and shapes human experiences, decisions, and actions.
- **Hybrid entities:**
- Combinations of humans and AI that constitute [[moral agency]].
- **Moral mediation:**
- AI's role in shaping moral actions, decisions, and responsibility.
- **Morality as a co-production of humans and AI**
- Not autonomous subjects, but not determined objects either.
- Moral decisions are shaped in technologically mediated relations with AI.
---
**ChatGPT**
- **Advanced AI language model developed by OpenAI.**
- **Capable of generating human-like text based on prompts.**
- **Used in various applications:** customer service, content creation, education, etc.
---
**ChatGPT on the Instrumental View**
- **Instrumental Perspective:**
- ChatGPT is a tool for generating text.
- Provides responses based on user inputs.
- Responsibility and [[moral choices]] remain with individuals.
---
**ChatGPT on the Mediate View**
- **Transformation:**
- Shapes how information is produced and consumed.
- **[[Moral Choices]] Introduced:**
- Influences decisions based on the content it generates.
- **[[Technological Mediation]]:**
- ChatGPT shapes user experiences and responsibilities.
- Morality is a co-production of humans and AI technologies.
---
**ChatGPT on the Mediate View**
- **Personalization of Information:**
- Tailors responses that can influence beliefs and decisions.
- **Ethical Considerations:**
- Potential to spread misinformation or biased content.
- **User Interactions:**
- Influences how users think and act based on its outputs.
- *"We do not make moral decisions as autonomous subjects, but neither are we steered by AI as if we were determined objects. Morality is technologically mediated: it takes shape in technologically mediated relations between humans and AI."*
---
**ChatGPT on the Mediate View**
- **Implications:**
- Alters how we access and interpret information.
- Influences our decision-making processes.
- Changes the dynamics of communication and interaction.
---
**Do Artifacts Have Agency?**
---
**Do Artifacts Have Agency?**
- **[[Central Question]]:**
- Can AI technologies like ChatGPT be considered [[moral agents]]?
- **Common Misconception:**
- Attributing human-like agency to AI systems.
- **Alternative View:**
- Rethinking agency itself given human-AI interconnections.
---
**Latour's Symmetrical Approach**
- **No A Priori Distinction:**
- Rejects inherent separation between humans and nonhumans.
- **Nonhumans Shape Social World:**
- AI systems influence social and moral realms.
- **Examples:**
- **ChatGPT influencing public opinion.**
- **AI systems affecting decision-making in organizations.**
- **Active Mediators:**
- AI systems are active participants, not neutral tools.
---
**Latour on Relational Agency**
- **Agency Emerges from Networks:**
- Relations between humans and AI create agency.
- **Distributed Morality:**
- Morality is spread across human-AI networks.
- **Criticism:**
- Does this imply equivalence between human and AI agency?
---
**Verbeek's Mediation Theory**
- **Distinction Maintained:**
- Differentiates between human and AI agency.
- **Agency as Interaction:**
- Emerges from interactions, with humans and AI contributing differently.
- **Human Contributions:**
- Intentionality and interpretive capacity.
- **Technological Contributions:**
- Material influence and shaping of actions.
---
**Verbeek on [[Technological Mediation]]**
- **Co-Shaping Morality:**
- AI technologies influence moral perceptions, decisions, and actions.
- **Not Deterministic:**
- Structure possibilities without fully determining actions.
- **Constitutive Relation:**
- Mediation shapes both human subjectivity and objectivity.
---
**Implications for Responsibility**
- **Expanded Moral Consideration:**
- Includes AI technologies in ethical reflections.
- **Human Responsibility:**
- Humans bear ultimate responsibility, but it’s mediated by AI technologies.
- **Design and Development:**
- Recognizing mediation enables intentional AI development.
---
**Summing Up**
- **Challenging Traditional Agency:**
- Agency is not an intrinsic human property but relational.
- **Verbeek's Distinction:**
- Maintains human and AI contributions are distinct.
- **Basis for Responsibility:**
- Provides grounds for human responsibility in shaping AI technologies.
---
**Two Aspects of [[Moral Agency]]**
- **Intentionality:**
- Capacity to have intentions and act purposively.
- **Freedom:**
- Ability to act without coercion.
- **Traditional View:**
- Both aspects are exclusively human.
- **Verbeek's Aim:**
- Reconceptualize both in a hybrid way.
---
**Technological Intentionality**
---
**Two Types of Intentionality**
1. **Intentionality (a philosophical term for directedness)**
2. **Purposive Intentionality (more like the normal way we speak)**
---
**Intentionality**
- **Humans cannot just 'think'; they always think *of* something.**
- **This directedness is intrinsic to human relations with the world.**
---
**Phenomenological Intentionality and AI**
- **AI like ChatGPT can mediate this intentional directedness by shaping how the world appears to and is interpreted by the user.**
- We can have new thoughts, about new things, facilitated by AI outputs.
- We can perceive new information or perspectives.
- **Examples:**
- **ChatGPT providing new insights or interpretations.**
- **AI-generated content influencing human thinking.**
---
**Purposive Intentionality**
- **The normal way of thinking about 'intention'.**
- "I intended to" (wanted to/aimed to) do this or that.
- **In [[this view]], intentions are [[mental states]] that guide and motivate human actions towards desired ends.**
- "I didn't mean to"
---
**Purpose and AI**
- **AI technologies can shape or mediate these purposive intentions by altering how humans frame choices and reason about goals.**
- **ChatGPT might encourage users to approach problems differently based on its suggestions.**
- **AI recommendations influencing consumer behavior.**
---
**Freedom and Technology**
---
**Freedom**
- **Intuitions:**
- Freedom seems to be a requirement for [[moral agency]].
- But if our moral decision-making is influenced by AI, are we less free?
- **"AI doesn't make decisions for people; people make decisions for themselves."**
- Verbeek: Not Necessarily.
- **Negative Freedom:**
- Absence of external constraints or interference in an individual's choices and actions.
- **Positive Freedom:**
- Capacity to act autonomously and to realize one's goals, desires, or values.
---
**Freedom**
- **Verbeek: Not Necessarily.**
- **Negative Freedom:** Absence of external constraints.
- **Positive Freedom:** Capacity to act autonomously.
---
**Freedom**
*"Technological mediations, after all, do not make human beings powerless. On the contrary: they make it possible to live [[our lives]] in specific ways, while we also have the ability to develop an active and critical relation to these mediations."*
---
**Positive Freedom and AI**
- **AI technologies can increase positive freedom by providing more opportunities.**
- **AI enables agency rather than undermines it:**
- **ChatGPT provides access to information and knowledge.**
- **AI tools enhance creativity and problem-solving.**
---
**Negative Freedom & AI**
- **AI technologies can enhance negative freedom by removing constraints and barriers.**
- **But can reduce negative freedom by creating new dependencies or limitations.**
---
**Implications**
- **Recognizing the mediating role of AI like ChatGPT helps us understand our own [[moral agency]].**
- **Need to critically engage with AI technologies.**
- **Responsibility in the design, deployment, and use of AI systems.**
---
**Conclusion**
- **AI technologies like ChatGPT are not mere tools but active mediators of human experience.**
- **Understanding the mediating role of AI is essential for responsible technology development.**
- **Morality is a co-production of humans and AI technologies.**
- **We must reconsider traditional notions of agency, intentionality, and freedom in the context of AI.**
---
# Day to Day Stuff
## To Do
- [x] send the slides for 7 and 8. 🆔 5ojTSi ✅ 2024-10-22
- [x] send the reading for this week 🆔 bHJ2Az ✅ 2024-10-22
- [x] send the recorded stuff to max 🆔 BebXgW ✅ 2024-10-22
# Admin
# Exams
## exam website
https://servizionline.unige.it/webdocenti/#/agenda
### Suggested Exam Dates
- 18/12/24
- 14/01/25
- 04/02/25
- 26/05/25
- 16/06/25
- 07/07/25
### Guide Pdf
![[attachments/Exam Calendar Guide.pdf]]
### Students
https://2024.aulaweb.unige.it/user/index.php?id=2349
### Timetable
https://easyacademy.unige.it/portalestudenti/index.php?view=easycourse&_lang=en&include=attivita&anno=2024&attivita=EC108721
### Aulaweb for this year
https://2024.aulaweb.unige.it/mod/forum/view.php?id=2356
### Aulaweb from Last Year
https://2023.aulaweb.unige.it/mod/forum/view.php?id=9111
### Lesson Notes
```dataview
LIST WITHOUT ID file.link
FROM #teaching/technology-course
SORT file.ctime DESC
```
### Essay Questions and Reading Suggestions
1. Is there any difference between aesthetically appreciating a work of art vs aesthetically appreciating a designed object.
2. 'We have to perceive the function of an object in order to aesthetically appreciate it'. Do you agree?
3. What determines the proper function of an artifact?
4. Is it fatal for a theory of ‘Proper Function’ if it cannot account for novel artifacts?
5. Do the designer's intentions determine the proper function of an artifact?
6. Apart from user safety, what moral responsibilities do product designers have?
7. Can technological artifacts embody moral values? If so, how? If not, why not?
8. 'Natural kinds exist but artifacts do not'. To what extent do you agree with this statement?
9. 'Values motivate our actions, but technologies motivate certain actions over others.' To what extent do you agree?
10. What is the proper function of ChatGPT?
11. 'Modernism cannot be correct because some people like very ornately designed products'. To what extent do you agree with this claim? Why?
### Reading List
A good starting place (and a good place to find references) is
_Parsons, G. (2015). The Philosophy of Design. Polity Press_
#### Metaphysics of Artifacts
1. van Inwagen, P. (1990). Material Beings. Cornell University Press
2. Houkes, W., & Vermaas, P. E. (2010). Technical Functions: On the Use and Design of Artefacts. Springer, Dordrecht.
3. Thomasson, A. L. (2007). Ordinary Objects. Oxford University Press.
4. Baker, L. R. (2007). The Metaphysics of Everyday Life: An Essay in Practical Realism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
5. Lowe, E. J. (2014). How real are artefacts and artefact kinds?. Artefact kinds: Ontology and the human-made world, 17-26.
#### Function
1. Preston, B. (2012). A Philosophy of Material Culture: Action, Function, and Mind (1st ed.). Routledge.
2. Houkes, W., & Vermaas, P. E. (2010). Technical Functions: On the Use and Design of Artefacts. Springer, Dordrecht.
3. Kroes, P., Vermaas, P. E., Light, A., & Moore, S. A. (Eds.). (2008). Philosophy and Design: From Engineering to Architecture.
4. Vermaas, P. E., & Houkes, W. (2003). Ascribing Functions to Technical Artefacts: A Challenge to Etiological Accounts of Functions. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science,
5. Vega-Encabo, J., & Lawler, D. (2014). Creating artifactual kinds. Artefact kinds: Ontology and the human-made world, 105-124.
#### Aesthetics
1. Parsons, G., & Carlson, A. (2008). Functional Beauty. Oxford University Press.
2. Houkes, W. (2019). Functions and the Aesthetics of Technical Artefacts. Philosophy & Technology, 32(1), 157-178.
3. Forsey, J. (2013). The Aesthetics of Design. Oxford University
4. Hekkert, P. (2006). Design aesthetics: principles of pleasure in design. Psychology science, 48(2), 157.
5. Stecker, R. (2019). The interactions of function and aesthetic value in artifacts. grazer philosophische studien, 96(1), 19-36.
#### Ethics
1. Kroes, P., & Verbeek, P. (Eds.). (2014). The Moral Status of Technical Artefacts. Springer, Dordrecht.
2. Friedman, B., & Hendry, D. G. (2019). Value Sensitive Design: Shaping Technology with Moral Imagination. The MIT Press
3. van den Hoven, Jeroen, Pieter E. Vermaas and Ibo van de Poel (eds), 2015, Handbook of Ethics and Values in Technological Design: Sources, Theory, Values and Application Domains, Dordrecht: Springer.
4. Davis, J., & Nathan, L. P. (2015). Value Sensitive Design: Applications, Adaptations, and Critiques. In J. van den Hoven, P. E. Vermaas, & I. van de Poel (Eds.), Handbook of Ethics, Values, and Technological Design (pp. 11-40). Springer Netherlands.
5. Van de Poel, I., & Kroes, P. (2013). Can technology embody values?. In The moral status of technical artefacts (pp. 103-124). Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands.
NEED TWO MORE AT LEAST FROM IRENE
### Exam Dates
## Spring 2024 Course
#### Lesson Notes
```dataviewjs
dv.list(dv.pages('#lesson')
.where(page => page.file.name.includes('Technology'))
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