Skip to 0 minutes and 7 seconds Robot: Hello everybody, I want to invite you to join my course on philosophy of technology. Well, well, my course, not so fast now. Actually, I’m the one teaching this course. So, shall I take over from now? Human beings have always used technologies. But what’s the difference between a hammer and the technologies that we use today, like smartphones, printers that print in 3-D, cars that drive themselves, medical implants, or even robots teaching a class? In almost every aspect of life, technologies play an important role. They help us to do things, to expand our capacities, and they even do things on their own. Technology has made life easier, but at the same time also more complex.
Skip to 0 minutes and 50 seconds And the impact of technology can reach far beyond the intentions of the designers and users. How to understand this influence of technology on human beings and on society, and how to deal with it in a responsible way, these will be the questions that we will work on in this course. We will show you how to analyze the relationship between technology and society, and also how to use this analysis to help you design new technologies. Many people believe that the main question is whether technology controls society or if society can still control technology. We will give you an alternative approach, in which we recognize that technology helps us to both understand and shape our lives, our society, our world.
Skip to 1 minute and 32 seconds In this view, technologies act as mediators of practices and experiences, allowing us to interact with the world around us. With our approach of technological mediation, we can analyze the influence of technology on human life. And what’s more, we can use this approach for the ethical evaluation and design of new technologies. At the design lab of the University of Twente, we connect science and society through design, combining high tech and the human touch. In this inspiring cross-disciplinary ecosystem, we can step beyond philosophical theory and link our research with the cutting edge of technological innovation, a perfect place to teach this course. And we really hope you will join.
