“About Us.” Center for Humane Technology. https://www.humanetech.com/who-we-are#team.
  The About Us page of the Center for Humane Technology’s website provides an overview of the organization and its staff. There is a brief mission statement followed by explanations of what the organization actually is in regard to its founding and what the organization aims to accomplish. The About Us page also presents a timeline of the company’s achievements, from its creation to present day, along with a list of who the core staff is and businesses that support the nonprofit organization. This source is relevant to defining, in the words of the staff, if what the company hopes to accomplish is relevant to humanism, which is “leading a comprehensive shift toward technology that strengthens our well-being, global democratic functioning, and shared information environment.”
“Aza Raskin.” LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/in/azaraskin.
The LinkedIn profile of Aza Raskin is a brief synopsis of who he is and where he has worked. Since LinkedIn is a business social media platform for one to show their professional profile, the information provided helps to tell his professional story from his own words. This page is relevant to describing who Aza is and what he has done regarding the Center for Humane Technology and The Earth Species Project, which delves into environmental humanism and posthumanism. The ESP experiments with AI technology that “uses machine learning to decode animal languages, and if successful, would profoundly alter the human experience and the future of the ecological world forever.”
“Aza Raskin.” World Economic Forum. https://www.weforum.org/people/aza-raskin/.
The World Economic Forum is a nonprofit foundation that discusses topics such as politics, business, and entrepreneurship in both public and private sectors. The page itself provides a brief description of Aza Raskin. It provides information about who he is and what he has accomplished. This information is important for the case study to provide background information about one of the cofounders of the Center for Humane Technology and to give a bit more information about what Raskin has engaged in concerning posthumanism. “Aza is a National Geographic Explorer and co-founder of Earth Species Project, a nonprofit dedicated to translating animal communication.”
Buccella, A. “‘AI for all’ is a matter of social justice.” AI and Ethics, vol. 3, 2023, pp. 1143–1152. https://doi.org/10.1007/s43681-022-00222-z.
This article explains the role AI has in social justice. The author agues that everyone should have access to AI. This article was chosen because there are areas already addressed in this portion of the case study, which will contribute to further explanation. Areas such as machine learning, living in relation to animals, and fighting climate change. “For example, databases of drone and satellite images can help track and categorize endangered animal species down to the individual animal, helping re-population efforts and the fight against poaching.” This article also provides counter arguments on various topics.
Casimiro, A. H. T. and W. J. de Araújo. “Posthumanism and posthuman systematic review on scientific bases”. RDBCI: Digital Journal of Library and Information Science, vol. 18, 2020, p. e020033, https://www.scielo.br/j/rdbci/a/GVWMPPBzxhQjdK8fbgkmhzs/?lang=en.
This academic article talks about how humans have already become cyborgs with the current advancements in technology in relation to post-humanism. The authors also touch on topics already explored in the case study, which could help with further explanation. Topics such as the development of a “speech device” to communicate with one another suggests that humans themselves have become post-human. “Our lives depend on machines that pump air for us, check the beats and inject us with drugs so that we can survive, among so many other facilities and needs provided by technology. Given this, are we still considered human or have we become post-human?”
Cohen, Danielle. “He Created Your Phone’s Most Addictive Feature. Now He Wants to Build a Rosetta Stone for Animal Language.” GQ, 30 June 2021, https://www.gq.com/story/aza-raskin-interview.
GQ is an online magazine that provides cultural content for men. This article is an interview that provides insight into what Aza Raskin really thinks about social media and society, AI, and communicating with animals. The article states that Raskin believes “we’ve arrived at our current tech crisis by the same forces that have brought us to our current climate crisis. And he’s on a mission to save both.” This information, as well as other parts of the interview, is important to understanding what Raskin is trying to accomplish in terms of environmental humanism and posthumanism.
“Definitions of Humanism.” Understanding Humanism. https://understandinghumanism.org.uk/what-is-humanism/definitions/.
Understanding Humanism is an England-based website dedicated to providing education about humanism to young audiences. Although most of the information is UK-based, the site also provides information about humanism from a worldwide view. This information is important and relevant to humanism because it provides easy-to-understand explanations and also gives plenty of background information to introduce the topic. With “resources on the history of humanist thought and action, from the ancient world, through the Enlightenment, and to its influence on modern society,” there is enough information to bridge the gap from philosophical beginnings to its modern connection to The Center for Humane Technology.
Kath, Elizabeth, et al. “Posthumanism and Assistive Technologies: On the Social Inclusion/Exclusion of Low-Tech Cyborgs.” Trabalhos Em Lingüística Aplicada, vol. 58, no. 2, 2019, pp. 679–703. EBSCOhost, https://doi.org/10.1590/0103181386558805282019.
This academic article dives into post-humanistic ideas in relation to humans and assistive technologies. Since disabled people may need ATs to become more mobile, the authors refer to these types of humans as low-tech cyborgs. Although the technology may exist to help those be able to integrate into society a bit better, it can also create inequalities and exploitation within that subcommunity of other so-called cyborgs. This information is relevant to the posthumanism subsection and poses contrasting information to what the cofounders are experimenting with AI and nature. It is meant to be a segue along the lines of “devices once designed for specific uses among people with disabilities now reach wider consumer bases,” which can extend to assistive technology for speech.
Lanier, Jaron. “There Is No A.I.” The New Yorker, 20 Apr. 2023, www.newyorker.com/science/annals-of-artificial-intelligence/there-is-no-ai.
This The New Yorker article explains that AI is not some powerful creature that learns on its own, it is a tool for social interaction that needs human input to operate. Because it needs human input to operate, “data dignity” is needed to give credit to the human sources and possibly provide monetary compensation. Data dignity can provide a level of ethics by being able to trace the root of the data and transform how and what data is fed into A.I. programs. The idea that AI needs human input relates to modern humanism that places humans at the root of AI and possible outcomes.
Messner, D. “Redefining and Renewing Humanism in the Digital Age [Opinion].” IEEE Technology and Society Magazine, vol. 39, no. 2, 2020, pp. 35–40. EBSCOhost, https://doi.org/10.1109/MTS.2020.2991498.
The author of this articles talks about the unethical uses of AI and how its unregulated use could repress and manipulate society. There is hope in reversing these outcomes with redefining humanism in the digital age. With humanism dating back to ancient philosophy, this seemed like a good article to bring the concept into the modern topic of AI. The article was also chosen because of the mention of privacy, which may be a good tie-back to another topic in the case study concerning digital security. “With unrestricted access to and control of information technology and communication infrastructures it is possible to use these digital instruments to manipulate and shape data collection, information flows, public debate, and public opinion.”
Perrigo, Billy. “Aza Raskin Tried to Fix Social Media. Now He Wants to Use AI to Talk to Animals.” TIME, 11 Dec. 2022, https://time.com/6240144/aza-raskin-ai-animals-social-media/.
This TIME article explains how cofounder of the Center for Humane Technology, Aza Raskin, became interested in wanting to connect with animals by decoding their speech. The article then switches to an interview where Raskin talks about his upbringing, how humane technology is connected with animal speech, his views about machine learning, and his views about AI. This is just more information to introduce the person behind the topic of posthumanism. “If, generally speaking, you can empathize and you see someone else, or some other being as less than other, then suddenly, you’re more connected than you were before and your sphere of care expands.”
Qadir, J., Islam, M.Q. and Al-Fuqaha, A. “Toward accountable human-centered AI: rationale and promising directions.” Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society, vol. 20, no. 2, 2022, pp. 329-342. https://doi.org/10.1108/JICES-06-2021-0059.
This article talks about the unethical uses of AI and how both developers and users can be held accountable through a more holistic approach. The article also presents two philosophical approaches to technology. Technological instrumentalism describes how humans control the outcome of technology as an instrument. Technological determinism describes how technology controls human behavior and hold engineers accountable for their products. The information is relevant to the creation and message of the Center for Humane Technology. The authors “reviewed various promising directions being explored for developing human-beneficial accountable AI.” This article brings together the ideas concerning the center and humanism into one.
Stables, Andrew. “Environmental Ethics and Ontologies: Humanist or Posthumanist? The Case for Constrained Pluralism.” Journal of Philosophy of Education, vol. 54, no. 4, 2020, pp. 888–99. EBSCOhost, https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9752.12464.
Although it refers mainly to educating students, this academic article looks into whether environmentalism is humanistic or post-humanistic. With regard to AI and how one of the cofounders of the Center for Humane Technology experiments with AI for human use and environmental sustainment, there is some overlap between the two concepts in this particular portion of the case study. The author argues that there must be respect for non-human nature, which is post-humanistic. “This paper marks a development, and to some extent a revision, of the position articulated in several previous publications to the effect that humanism must carry much of the blame for the environmental crisis and therefore that a nature-responsive form of posthumanism (or post-humanism) is called for.” Not all of it, but sone of the information is beneficial to decipher which section would be best to present the ideas of AI combined with the natural world.
“The Amsterdam Declaration.” Humanists International. https://humanists.international/what-is-humanism/the-amsterdam-declaration/.
Humanists International is a world-wide nongovernment organization that was founded in Amsterdam in 1952. It brings together the ideas and values of the original five humanist organizations from the US, UK, and EU. The five organizations hosted the first inaugural congress in 1952, in which the Amsterdam Declaration was created. This page explains the history of the declaration and provides a video to further explain the information on the page. Additionally, the page lists four essential guidelines. This information is relevant to provide more detail about the similarities between modern humanism and how the Center for Humane technology practices these beliefs without exactly stating humanistic ideals. One guideline states, “We hold that personal liberty must be combined with a responsibility to society. A free person has duties to others, and we feel a duty of care to all of humanity, including future generations, and beyond this to all sentient beings.”
“The AI Dilemma.” Your Undivided Attention, hosted by Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin, episode 65, Center for Humane Technology, 2023, https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/the-ai-dilemma.
Your Undivided Attention is a podcast created and cohosted by cofounders of the Center for Humane Society Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin. The episodes explore challenges and solutions that range from digital democracy to AI. It is not so much the information in this particular episode is mentioned in the humanism portion of the case study, but more the reason for this episode is mentioned. “We want to close the gap between what the world hears publicly about AI from splashy CEO presentations and what the people who are closest to the risks and harms inside AI labs are telling us.”
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