I view technology as know-how that changes our relationship to the world, rather than as merely tools or human-made artefacts. This perspective is influenced by Heidegger, who claimed that modern technology makes us see everything as resources to be optimized and exploited. I’ve been wondering whether other technologies also change our perspectives, but not in that specific way.
A recent conversation about whether there are AI gods prompted thoughts of animism, defined by Britannica as “belief in innumerable spiritual beings concerned with human affairs and capable of helping or harming human interests.” Perhaps, I thought, it’s better to think of ogregores as nature sprits than gods.
A recent conversation got me thinking again about whether uncanny UIs could help us to “see the face” of the divine technologies (powerful, pervasive, mysterious) that usually invisible conduits for other things like social media posts and shopping. The paradigm example is the Déjà vu scene of a glitch in The Matrix (which inspired r/Glitch_in_the_Matrix).
Philosopher John Haugeland says that one of the most fundamental differences between human beings and machines is that machines, and AIs in particular, don't give a damn. Things matter to us but not to machines. It’s quite plausible that AIs don’t give a damn, at least not yet. But is that just something that humans can do?
Heidegger’s essay “Die Frage nach der Technik” (usually translated as “The Question Concerning Technology”) posits Ge-Stell (variously translated at “enframing,” “pos-ure,” or “positionality”) as the essence of Technik (translated as “technology” or “technicity”; see endnote). Heidegger’s (or his translators’?) pervasive use the passive voice sidesteps the question of whether technicity has agency. I believe this text implies that he believes it does, and that he’s not just using figures of speech.
