How do information and communication technologies shape our Conditio humana?

What is the impact of information and communication technologies (ICTs) on the human condition? In order to address this question, the European Commission organized a research project in 2012 entitled 'The Onlife Initiative: Concept reengineering for rethinking societal concerns in the digital transition.' The results are collected in a new open access book, The Onlife Manifesto - Being Human in a Hyperconnected Era, published by Springer. The book explores how the development and widespread use of ICTs have a radical impact on the human condition, inspiring reflection on today's hyperconnected world.

ICTs are not just tools but rather social forces that are increasingly affecting who we are, how we socialize, our conception of reality, and our interactions with reality. In each case, ICTs have a huge ethical, legal, and political significance. We have only just begun to come to terms with this fact.

The impact exercised by ICTs is due to at least four major transformations: the blurring of the distinction between reality and virtuality; the blurring of the distinction between human, machine and nature; the reversal from information scarcity to information abundance; and the shift from the primacy of stand-alone things, properties, and binary relations, to the primacy of interactions, processes, and networks. Such transformations are testing the foundations of our conceptual frameworks. Our current toolbox is no longer fitted to address these new ICT-related challenges.

The Onlife Manifesto launches an open debate on the impacts of ICTs on public spaces, politics and societal expectations. The open access book, which is available online to the general public, draws on the work of scholars from a wide range of disciplines including anthropology, cognitive science, computer science, law, philosophy, and political science.

The editor, Luciano Floridi, is Professor of Philosophy and Ethics of Information at the University of Oxford and Director of Research at the Oxford Internet Institute. He was Chairman of EU Commission's 'Onlife' research group and UNESCO Chair in Information and Computer Ethics. He is a member of the Google Advisory Council on the "right to be forgotten."

More information:
link.springer.com/book/10.1007%2F978-3-319-04093-6

Provided by Springer