Cultural Politics Seminar: Interdisciplinary Perspectives
Date and Time
Location
The Eclipse of the Analog and the Hardware Turn
Speaker:
Luciano Floridi, Founding Director, Digital Ethics Center; Professor in the Practice, Cognitive Science Program, Yale University.
Contact:
Charles Gaillard
cgaillard@fas.harvard.edu
Chair:
Panagiotis Roilos, Faculty Associate. George Seferis Professor of Modern Greek Studies, Department of the Classics; Professor of Comparative Literature, Department of Comparative Literature, Harvard University.
Abstract:
The digital revolution continues to shape and influence the development of contemporary societies. In this talk, I will address the tension between two macroscopic trends in this historical process. On the one hand, there is the valuable yet risky emergence of the digital as the preferred (and sometimes only) referent of interactions with analog realities, from education to research, from business to health. This is the tempting eclipse of the analog as less important than its digital twin. On the other hand, there is the complex and equally risky emergence of the analog as the preferred referent of interactions for the control of the digital, from rare earths to the chip industry, from submarine cables to satellites, from the production of graphic cards to data centers and energy resources. This is the hardware turn, which focuses on the control of the material infrastructure and means of production as the primary way to control the digital. I will then address how this tension may develop and be resolved, in terms of regulation, power, and sovereignty.