• Home
  • ABOUT US
  • Contact us
  • Home
  • ABOUT US
  • contact us

In gesprek met Katleen Gabriels

ByAnnelies —Jan 23 2019
35 min read

We spraken over computerethiek, het spanningsveld tussen impact willen maken maar niet always-on zijn en sociale media je leven te laten bepalen. Met taartjes en koffie.

 

Katleen Gabriels is moraalfilosofe, gespecialiseerd in computerethiek. Ze werkt als Assistant Professor aan Maastricht University.
Ze studeerde Germaanse talen en Moraalfilosofie aan de KU Leuven, UGent en universiteit van Helsinki. Ze doctoreerde aan de Vrije Universiteit Brussel. (VUB) met een onderzoek over moraliteit in de virtuele wereld. Ze werkte ook als postdoctoraal onderzoeker en docent aan de VUB. Nadien werkte ze als Assistant Professor aan de TU Eindhoven.
Katleen is de auteur van Onlife. Hoe de digitale wereld je leven bepaalt (Lannoo, 2016). De Leerstoel Willy Calewaert 2018-2019 werd aan haar toegekend door de faculteit Ingenieurswetenschappen van de VUB.

 

You can leave your email here and we'll only bother you with very interesting stuff. #promise

  • Home
  • ABOUT US
contact us

©Dear Tech,2021,rights preserved

DEAR TECH,

Dear Tech,

We’ve been together for quite some time now and it feels like things are getting serious. Over time you have evolved from a tool for mere survival to an instrument for labor intensification.
A steam engine, books, an iPhone, designer babies and a few revolutions later our relationship has slowly but surely grown stronger. I mean, we went to the moon together! And when I gave you a brain, you made mine more powerful than I could ever imagine.
It’s true that not every step in our relationship was that easy, but in the end I came to realise, we wanted the same thing. Something I guess you could call ‘the good life’.

Lately it feels like we are living next to each other, you are taking these giant leaps that I can’t follow. You are not communicating about your thoughts and feelings or considering the consequences of your actions, while in the meantime making fancy new friends that I don’t know and behaving like an arrogant know-it-all…

I feel responsible for the impact you will have on mankind, the earth and societies. Not only to avoid apocalyptic scenarios, but to push towards the world-improving potential of all the new solutions that are being developed. Not bad is not good enough.

I believe that the digital revolution, if done right, has the potential of making us more human than ever before. Technology, applied with wisdom, can lead to a real life utopia. This would not be a wanted side effect, but the legitimation of your existence. The anthropocene is here, and it comes with an immense responsibility.

I write to say it’s not working out and this time it’s not me, it’s you.

We need to talk.

our manifest