This book addresses the growing use of computerized systems to influence people’s decisions without their awareness, a significant but underappreciated sea-change in the way the world works. To assess these systems, this volume’s contributors explore the philosophical and ethical dimensions of algorithms that guide people’s behavior by nudging them toward choices preferred by systems architects. Particularly in an era of heightened awareness of bias and discrimination, these systems raise profound concerns about the morality of such activities. This volume brings together a diverse array of thinkers to critically examine these nudging systems. Not only are high-level perspectives presented, but so too are of those who use them on a day-to-day basis. While algorithmic nudging can produce benefits for users there are also many less-obvious costs to using such systems, costs that require examination and deliberation. This book is a major step towards delineating these concerns and suggesting ways to provide a sounder basis for future policies for algorithms. It should be of interest to system designers, public policymakers, scholars, and those who wonder more deeply about the nudges they receive from various websites and on their phones.

The volume offers multiple perspectives on the way in which people encounter and think about the future. Drawing on the perspectives of history, literature, philosophy and communication studies, an international ensemble of experts offer a kaleidoscope of topics to provoke and enlighten the reader. The authors seek to understand the daily lived experience of ordinary people as they encounter new technology as well as the way people reflect on the significance and meaning of those technologies. The approach of the volume stresses the quotidian quality of reality and ordinary understandings of reality as understood by people from all walks of life. Providing expert analysis and sophisticated understanding, the focus of attention gravitates toward how people make meaning out of change, particularly when the change occurs at the level of social technologies- the devices that modify and amplify our modes of communication with others. The volume is organised into three main sections: The phenomena of new communication technology in people's lives from a contemporary viewpoint; the meaning of robots and AI as they play an increasing role in people's experience and; broader issues concerning the operational, sociological and philosophical implications of people as they address a technology driven future.

The volume offers multiple perspectives on the way in which people encounter and think about the future. Drawing on the perspectives of history, literature, philosophy and communication studies, an international ensemble of experts offer a kaleidoscope of topics to provoke and enlighten the reader. The authors seek to understand the daily lived experience of ordinary people as they encounter new technology as well as the way people reflect on the significance and meaning of those technologies. The approach of the volume stresses the quotidian quality of reality and ordinary understandings of reality as understood by people from all walks of life. Providing expert analysis and sophisticated understanding, the focus of attention gravitates toward how people make meaning out of change, particularly when the change occurs at the level of social technologies- the devices that modify and amplify our modes of communication with others. The volume is organised into three main sections: The phenomena of new communication technology in people's lives from a contemporary viewpoint; the meaning of robots and AI as they play an increasing role in people's experience and; broader issues concerning the operational, sociological and philosophical implications of people as they address a technology driven future.