About this event
Beyond the ‘absolutism of data’: Rethinking digital life-worlds
Join us in person on Tuesday the 20th of May, at the Edinburgh Futures Institute and online, as we hear from EFI Visiting Fellow Dr Aubrey Borowski.
Abstract:
Current algorithmic systems always call for more datafication and speculation, undermining previous assumptions about reality, the public sphere, and truth. Paradoxically, the more data we have, the more anxious, powerless and overwhelmed we feel. Data in its various constant recombinations, as it is constantly redeployed and fed back, has come to produce meaning, occupy our life-worlds, and shape reality. The rise of generative AI in particular - with its ability to produce language and representations - has helped precipitate the onset of new forms of ‘absolutism of data’, new forms of digital life-worlds which in some cases, power warped bespoke realities and ideology.
As the thinker Hans Blumenberg shows us, digital life-worlds are possible to the extent that they remain fictional mental constructs rather than aspire to be “literalized” and compete with reality. Deployed properly, life-worlds – in which such strategies as myth, rhetoric, pensiveness and more generally the art of detour play a crucial role and provide with the constant possibility of interruption and disruption – do not make up for self-reinforcing and enclosed loops but allow for reflexibility, distance and criticality. Instead of seeking to control reality and eliminate contingency – futile tasks to begin with – they offer flexible and resilient constructs that also cultivate the human realm.
Speaker Biography:
Dr Audrey Borowski (EFI Visiting Fellow from April - June 2025) is a Research Fellow between the UK and Germany working on the philosophy and political thought of AI, and the author of Leibniz in His World: The Making of a Savant. She also hosts and convenes the ‘AI and Digital’ seminar series for The Philosopher, which is running until the 30th June.
Important notice: If you have any questions regarding accessibility, please contact us at ctmf@ed.ac.uk
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