'A must read for anyone interested in the emerging ethics of robotics' Irene M. Pepperberg A bold, optimistic exploration of the relationship between robots and humans based on our history with animals, from a renowned MIT researcher The robots are here. They make our cars, they deliver fast food, they mine the sea floor. And in the near-future their presence will increasingly enter our homes and workplaces - making human-robot interaction a frequent, everyday occurrence. What will this future look like? What will define the relationship between humans and robots? Here Kate Darling, a world-renowned expert in robot ethics, shows that in order to understand the new robot world, we must first move beyond the idea that this technology will be something like us. Instead, she argues, we should look to our relationship with animals. Just as we have harnessed the power of animals to aid us in war and work, so too will robots supplement - rather than replace - our own skills and abilities. A deeply original analysis of our technological future and the ethical dilemmas that await us, The New Breed explains how the treatment of machines can reveal a new understanding of our own history, our own systems and how we relate - not just to non-humans, but also to each other.

Contemporary consumer society is increasingly saturated by digital technology, and the devices that deliver this are increasingly transforming consumption patterns. Social media, smartphones, mobile apps and digital retailing merge with traditional consumption spheres, supported by digital devices which further encourage consumers to communicate and influence other consumers to consume. Through a wide range of empirical studies which analyse the impact of digital devices, this volume explores the digitization of consumption and shows how consumer culture and consumption practices are fundamentally intertwined and mediated by digital devices. Exploring the development of new consumer cultures, leading international scholars from sociology, marketing and ethnology examine the effects on practices of consumption and marketing, through topics including big data, digital traces, streaming services, wearables, and social media's impact on ethical consumption. Digitalizing Consumption makes an important contribution to practice-based approaches to consumption, particularly the use of market devices in consumers' everyday consumer life, and will be of interest to scholars of marketing, cultural studies, consumer research, organization and management.

The past decade has witnessed a renaissance in scientific approaches to the study of morality. Once understood to be the domain of moral psychology, the newer approach to morality is largely interdisciplinary, driven in no small part by developments in behavioural economics and evolutionary biology, as well as advances in neuroscientific imaging capabilities, among other fields. To date, scientists studying moral cognition and behaviour have paid little attention to virtue theory, while virtue theorists have yet to acknowledge the new research results emerging from the new science of morality. Theology and the Science of Moral Action explores a new approach to ethical thinking that promotes dialogue and integration between recent research in the scientific study of moral cognition and behaviour-including neuroscience, moral psychology, and behavioural economics-and virtue theoretic approaches to ethics in both philosophy and theology. More particularly, the book evaluates the concept of moral exemplarity and its significance in philosophical and theological ethics as well as for ongoing research programs in the cognitive sciences.

Technological developments move at lightening pace and can bring with them new possibilities for social harm. This book brings together original empirical and theoretical work examining how digital technologies both create and sustain various forms of gendered violence and provide platforms for resistance and criminal justice intervention. This edited collection is organised around two key themes of facilitation and resistance, with an emphasis through the whole collection on the development of a gendered interrogation of contemporary practices of technologically-enabled or enhanced practices of violence. Addressing a broad range of criminological issues such as intimate partner violence, rape and sexual assault, online sexual harassment, gendered political violence, online culture, cyberbullying, and human trafficking, and including a critical examination of the broader issue of feminist 'digilantism' and resistance to online sexual harassment, this book examines the ways in which new and emerging technologies facilitate new platforms for gendered violence as well as offering both formal and informal opportunities to prevent and/or respond to gendered violence.

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008 was a major update to the UK's laws on the use and regulation of reproductive technology and assisted reproduction. Since the enactment of the new law, the sector's regulatory body, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), has also consulted on various related topics including barriers to egg and sperm donation in the UK, multiple births/single embryo transfer and using IVF technology to prevent mitochondrial disease. This book critically considers recent developments in human fertilisation legislation, asking whether the 2008 Act has achieved its stated aim of being fit for purpose. Bringing together a range of international experts, the book evaluates the fresh risks and challenges emerging from both established and existing technologies and techniques in the field of human fertilisation and embryology, as well as offering valuable insights into the social and regulatory challenges that lie ahead. Key topics include problems with DIY assisted conception; the lack of reform in respect of the regulation of surrogacy arrangements; and mitochondrial DNA transfer. As a review of the status of assisted reproduction legislation, this book will be of great use and interest to students, researchers and practitioners in medical law, bioethics, medicine and child welfare.

This book offers a detailed exploration of three examples of humanitarian uses of new technology, employing key theoretical insights from Foucault. We are currently seeing a humanitarian turn to new digital technologies, such as biometrics, remote sensing, and surveillance drones. However, such humanitarian uses of new technology have not always produced beneficial results for those at the receiving end and have sometimes exposed the subjects of assistance to additional risks and insecurities. Engaging with key insights from the work of Foucault combined with selected concepts from the Science and Technology Studies literature, this book produces an analytical framework that opens up the analysis to details of power and control at the level of materiality that are often ignored in liberal histories of war and modernity. Whereas Foucault details the design of prisons, factories, schools, etc., this book is original in its use of his work, in that it uses these key insights about the details of power embedded in material design, but shifts the attention to the technologies and attending forms of power that have been experimented with in the three humanitarian endeavours presented in the book. In doing so, the book provides new information about aspects of liberal humanitarianism that contemporary critical analyses have largely neglected. This book will be of interest to students of humanitarian studies, peace and conflict studies, critical security studies, and IR in general.

From Deliveroo to Amazon, digital platforms have drastically transformed the way we work. But how are these transformations being received and challenged by workers? This book provides a radical interpretation of the changing nature of worker movements in the digital age, developing an invaluable approach that combines social movement studies and industrial relations. Using case studies taken from Europe and North America, it offers a comparative perspective on the mobilizing trajectories of different platform workers and their distinct organizational forms and action repertoires. This is an innovative book that offers a complete view of the new labour conflicts in the platform economy.

Is the metaverse a brave new world? An immersive digital playground? The next generation of online gaming? Or just the latest manifestation of our human tendency to create other realities? Herman Narula argues that it is all of these things. His vision of the metaverse, deeply rooted in history and psychology, looks to the Egyptians, whose conception of death inspired them to build the pyramids, to modern-day sports fans whose fantasy leagues are as competitive as the real thing, and finds that humanity has always sought to supplement our day-to-day lives with a rich diversity of alternative immersive experiences. Rigorously researched, passionately argued, and written by a tech founder and creator of digital worlds, Virtual Society reveals why the metaverse offers a new universe of ideas that offers users unprecedented opportunities to create, explore and find meaning. It's an essential guide for anyone who wants to get beyond superficial headlines and understand the true shape of our virtual future.

First published in 2003. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This book reflects on the many contributions made in and to European bioethics to date, in various locations, and from various disciplinary perspectives. In so doing, the book advances understanding of the academic and social status of European bioethics as it is being supported and practiced by various disciplines such as philosophy, law, medicine, and the social sciences, applied to a wide range of areas. The European focus offers a valuable counter-balance to an often prominent US understanding of bioethics. The volume is split into four parts. The first contains reflection on bioethics in the past, present and future, and also considers how comparison between countries and disciplines can enrich bioethical discourse. The second looks at bioethics in particular locations and contexts, including: policy, boardrooms and courtrooms; studios and virtual rooms; and society, while the third part explores the translation of theories and concepts of bioethics into the clinical setting. The fourth and final section focuses on academic expressions of bioethics, as it is theorised in various disciplines and also as it is taught, whether in classrooms or at the patient's bedside. The book features unique contributions from a range of experts including: Alastair V Campbell; Ruth Chadwick; Angus Dawson; Raymond G. De Vries; Suzanne Ost; Renzo Pegoraro; Rouven Porz; Paul Schotsmans; Jochen Vollmann; Guy Widdershoven and Hub Zwart. Chapter 10 of this book ''You Don't Need Proof When You've Got Instinct!': Gut Feelings and Some Limits to Parental Authority' by Giles Birchley is available under an open access CC BY NC ND license and can be viewed at: http://www.tandfebooks.com/userimages/ContentEditor/1438250845242/9780415737197_chapter10.pdf .

What does God's creation of humanity through the process of evolution mean for human flourishing? The emerging field of evolutionary psychology remains controversial, perhaps especially among Christians. Yet according to Justin Barrett and Pamela Ebstyne King it can be a powerful tool for understanding human nature and our distinctively human purpose. Thriving with Stone Age Minds provides an introduction to evolutionary psychology, explaining key concepts like hyper-sociality, information gathering, and self-control. Combining insights from evolutionary psychology with resources from the Bible and Christian theology, Barrett and King focus fresh attention on the question, What is human flourishing? When we understand how humans still bear the marks of our evolutionary past, new light shines on some of the most puzzling features of our minds, relationships, and behaviors. One key insight of evolutionary psychology is how humans both adapt to and then alter our environments, or "niches." In fact, we change our world faster than our minds can adapt-and then gaps in our "fitness" emerge. In effect, humans are now attempting to thrive in modern contexts with Stone Age minds. By integrating scientific evidence with wisdom from theological anthropology, we can learn to close up nature-niche gaps and thrive, becoming more what God has created us to be. BioLogos Books on Science and Christianity invite us to see the harmony between the sciences and biblical faith on issues including cosmology, biology, paleontology, evolution, human origins, the environment, and more.

In spite of the debate about secularization or de-secularization, the existential-bodily need for religion is basically the same as always. What have been changed are the horizons within which religions are interpreted and the relationships within which religions are integrated. This book explores how religions continue to challenge secular democracy and science, and how religions are themselves being challenged by secular values and practices. All traditions - whether religious or secular - experience a struggle over authority, and this struggle seems to intensify with globalization, as it has brought people around the world in closer contact with each other. In this book internationally leading scholars from sociology, law, political science, religious studies, theology and the religion and science debate, take stock of the current interdisciplinary research on religion and open new perspectives at the cutting edge of the debate on religion in the 21st century.

Scientists, historians, philosophers and theologians often engage in debates on the limitations and mutual interactions of their respective fields of study. Serious discussions are often overshadowed by the mass-produced popular and semi-popular literature on science and religion, as well as by the political agendas of many of the actors in these debates. For some, reducing religion and science to forms of social discourse is a possible way out from epistemological overlapping between them; yet is there room for religious faith only when science dissolves into one form of social discourse? The religion thus rescued would have neither rational legitimisation nor metaphysical validity, but if both scientific and religious theories try to make absolute claims on all possible aspects of reality then conflict between them seems almost inevitable. In this book leading authors in the field of science and religion, including William Carroll, Steve Fuller, Karl Giberson and Roger Trigg, highlight the oft-neglected and profound philosophical foundations that underlie some of the most frequent questions at the boundary between science and religion: the reality of knowledge, and the notions of creation, life and design. In tune with Mariano Artigas's work, the authors emphasise that these are neither religious nor scientific but serious philosophical questions.

This is a study of science in Muslim society from its rise in the 8th century to the efforts of 19th-century Muslim thinkers and reformers to regain the lost ethos that had given birth to the rich scientific heritage of earlier Muslim civilization. The volume is organized in four parts; the rise of science in Muslim society in its historical setting of political and intellectual expansion; the Muslim creative achievement and original discoveries; proponents and opponents of science in a religiously oriented society; and finally the complex factors that account for the end of the 500-year Muslim renaissance. The book brings together and treats in depth, using primary and secondary sources in Arabic, Turkish and European languages, subjects that are lightly and uncritically brushed over in non-specialized literature, such as the question of what can be considered to be purely original scientific advancement in Muslim civilization over and above what was inherited from the Greco-Syriac and Indian traditions; what was the place of science in a religious society; and the question of the curious demise of the Muslim scientific renaissance after centuries of creativity. The book also interprets the history of the rise, achievement and decline of scientific study in light of the religious temper and of the political and socio-economic vicissitudes across Islamdom for over a millennium and integrates the Muslim legacy with the history of Latin/European accomplishments. It sets the stage for the next momentous transmission of science: from the West back to the Arabic-speaking world of Islam, from the last half of the 19th century to the early 21st century, the subject of a second volume.

This book is highly interdisciplinary and this increases the probability that it will be of interest not only to scholars but as a course text in Science & Technology Studies, Science Communication, Science Policy, Visual Culture, and Art Studies. This book has a relatively low degree of competition, because other texts in the area have been written for advanced scholars focuses on the bridge between two fields (biology and dance or physics and photography) rather than a broad text which coalesces the broader Science Studies and Art landscape. The book is timely and has general appeal and could appear in science or art museum bookstores because of its introductory level and the excitement from the public for art-science work. The editors represent the first generation of scholars to receive their PhDs in this area and thus have a comprehensive understanding of the field, emerging work in this area, and the uses of such a handbook in the classroom. This book is unique the variety of methods from ethnographies to histories to curation practices to outreach activities that will be covered, so portions of the book will likely be applicable to many practitioners outside of academia. Outlets like A2RU, Leonardo, and SLSA conferences and listings will likely sales targets, but so will organizations like science centers with visiting artists, communication and outreach conferences sponsored by science societies, OBSF Environmental and Biological field stations which teach art and humanities courses, the NSF-funded LTER network which supports "Ecological Reflections," a major humanities and arts component, as well as art collectives and galleries that host science and technology shows and residencies.

Science and Religious Anthropology explores the convergence of the biological sciences, human sciences, and humanities around a spiritually evocative, naturalistic vision of human life. The disciplinary contributions are at different levels of complexity, from evolution of brains to existential longings, and from embodied sociality to ecosystem habitat. The resulting interpretation of the human condition supports some aspects of traditional theological thinking in the world's religious traditions while seriously challenging other aspects. Wesley Wildman draws out these implications for philosophical and religious anthropology and argues that the modern secular interpretation of humanity is most compatible with a religious form of naturalistic humanism. This book resists the reduction of meaning and value questions while taking scientific theories about human life with full seriousness. It argues for a religious interpretation of human beings as bodily creatures emerging within a natural environment that permits engagement with the valuational potentials of reality. This engagement promotes socially borne spiritual quests to realize and harmonize values in everything human beings do, from the forging of cultures to the crafting of personal convictions.

In the 1990s great strides were taken in clarifying how the brain is involved in behaviors that, in the past, had seldom been studied by neuroscientists or psychologists. This book explores the progress begun during that momentous decade in understanding why we behave, think and feel the way we do, especially in those areas that interface with religion. What is happening in the brain when we have a religious experience? Is the soul a product of the mind which is, in turn, a product of the brain? If so, what are the implications for the Christian belief in an afterlife? If God created humans for the purpose of having a relationship with him, should we expect to find that our spirituality is a biologically evolved human trait? What effect might a disease such as Alzheimer's have on a person's spirituality and relationship with God? Neuroscience and psychology are providing information relevant to each of these questions, and many Christians are worried that their religious beliefs are being threatened by this research. Kevin Seybold attempts to put their concerns to rest by presenting some of the scientific findings coming from these disciplines in a way that is understandable yet non-threatening to Christian belief.

This book, first published in 1977, aims to present a Muslim view of development and highlights some of the related issues that were being debated in the Muslim world. The author outlines the parameters of the Muslim world as well as the Muslim world-view, and provides an analysis of science, science policy and Muslim culture. This title will be of interest to students of economic and social policy, as well as students of Middle Eastern studies.

We are living in algorithmic times. From machine learning and artificial intelligence to blockchain or simpler newsfeed filtering, automated systems can transform the social world in ways that are just starting to be imagined. Redefining these emergent technologies as the new systems of knowing, pioneering scholar David Beer examines the acute tensions they create and how they are changing what is known and what is knowable. Drawing on cases ranging from the art market and the smart home, through to financial tech, AI patents and neural networks, he develops key concepts for understanding the framing, envisioning and implementation of algorithms. This book will be of interest to anyone who is concerned with the rise of algorithmic thinking and the way it permeates society.

Humans are unique in their ability to reflect on themselves. Recently a number of scholars have pointed out that human self-conceptions have a history. Ideas of human nature in the West have always been shaped by the interplay of philosophy, theology, science, and technology. The fast pace of developments in the latter two spheres (neuroscience, genetics, artificial intelligence, biomedical engineering) call for fresh reflections on what it means, now, to be human, and for theological and ethical judgments on how we might shape our own destiny in the future. The leading scholars in this book offer fresh contributions to the lively quest for an account of ourselves that does justice to current developments in theology, science, technology, and philosophy.

New Technologies and Emerging Spaces of Care provides the latest practice-oriented qualitative research and innovative conceptual discussions of how health and health care systems are currently dealing with complex transformations and varied reforms. Exploring and analysing the social and cultural impact of new technologies, this book examines the societal relevance of new technologies of care and the manner in which technological innovations configure and reconfigure institutionalized spaces of care. It addresses issues of social control, accountability, surveillance and disciplining; diverging patterns of inclusion and exclusion; new relations and subjectivities of patients and care givers; the relation between private and public forms of care and the practices and concerns generated by new technologies at the individual as well as the societal level. Presenting sophisticated theoretical discussions and detailed empirical case studies, New Technologies and Emerging Spaces of Care analyses, compares and evaluates on a transnational level the role and impact of (assistive) technologies for elderly and disabled people on the concepts and practices of spaces of care. A critical understanding of contemporary practices of care, that cuts through the growing conceptual barriers between social and medical models of care studies, this book will be of interest to those interested in new technologies, health care and social space of care. Specifically, it will appeal to scholars of science and technology studies, medical sociology and the sociology of the body, social inequality and exclusion, health and care studies, gerontology and disability studies.

In recent years, popular media have inundated audiences with sensationalised headlines recounting data breaches, new forms of surveillance and other dangers of our digital age. Despite their regularity, such accounts treat each case as unprecedented and unique. This book proposes a radical rethinking of the history, present and future of our relations with the digital, spatial technologies that increasingly mediate our everyday lives. From smartphones to surveillance cameras, to navigational satellites, these new technologies offer visions of integrated, smooth and efficient societies, even as they directly conflict with the ways users experience them. Recognising the potential for both control and liberation, the authors argue against both acquiescence to and rejection of these technologies. Through intentional use of the very systems that monitor them, activists from Charlottesville to Hong Kong are subverting, resisting and repurposing geographic technologies. Using examples as varied as writings on the first telephones to the experiences of a feminist collective for migrant women in Spain, the authors present a revolution of everyday technologies. In the face of the seemingly inevitable dominance of corporate interests, these technologies allow us to create new spaces of affinity, and a new politics of change.

In the constant battle between human intelligence and machine intelligence, machines are close to surpassing human intelligence. The unrestrained use of digital technologies in automating processes is one of the prime advantages of the third industrial revolution. As a result, all developed and developing nations have started to digitalize mundane tasks. Thus, digital technologies for information and communication technologies (ICT) have achieved high market space in terms of infrastructure building, employment generation, education sector reforms, funds mobilization, electronic governance, hardware manufacturing, software development, etc. Hence, it is evident that every segment of society has been penetrated by ICT or digitalization. This book attempts to spotlight areas where AI is thriving. FEATURES Impact of digitalization and AI on governance Novel AI practices being followed across the global community in security, healthcare, crime prevention and detection, education, agriculture, sensor networks, etc. Innovative techniques that can be adopted to ensure better quality and better delivery of services to the society Avenues for further research by the research community and student fraternity This book is a guide for university students (especially those from technical backgrounds), industries, NGOs, and policy makers.

What is technology? Why does it have such power in our lives? Why does it seemingly progress of its own accord, and without regard to social or environmental well-being? The quest for the essence of technology is an old one, with roots in the pre-Socratic philosophy of ancient Greece. It was then that certain thinkers first joined the ideas of techne and logos into a single worldview. The Greeks saw it as a kind of world-force, present in both the works of men and in nature itself. It was the very creative power of the cosmos. In the 20th century, German thinkers like Dessauer, Juenger, and Heidegger sought the metaphysical basis of technology, with varying success. French theologian Jacques Ellul argued persuasively that technology was an autonomous force of nature that determined all aspects of human existence, but he neglected the metaphysical underpinnings. Recent writers in the philosophy of technology have generally eschewed metaphysics altogether, preferring to concentrate on constructivist models or pragmatic analyses. In the present work, Skrbina returns to a classic metaphysical approach, seeking not so much an essence of technology but rather a deep and penetrating analysis of the entire technological phenomenon. Drawing on the Greeks, he argues for a teleological metaphysics in which increasing order in the universe is itself defined as a technological process. On this reading, all of reality constitutes a technical sphere, a "pantechnikon," of universal scope. This work - the first-ever book-length treatment of the topic - breaks new ground by providing an in-depth and critical study of the metaphysics of technology, as well as drawing out the practical consequences. Technology poses significant risks to humanity and the planet, risks that can be mitigated through a detailed philosophical analysis.