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Ethics in IT
Universität HamburgEthics in IT

Photo: Thomas Ulrich from pixabay, cropped

CEPE/IACAP 2021

Keynote on July 8, 2021

Winner of the 2021 Weizenbaum Award of INSEIT

Rafael Capurro

Joseph Weizenbaum: A Parrhesiastes in the Digital Age

About the lecture [read the manuscript] [stream keynote]
The paper focuses on the life and work of Joseph Weizenbaum from the perspective of what in the Greek tradition was called a parrhesiastes, i.e. one who speaks a truth that might be dangerous for him. Michel Foucault has pointed to the relevance of this tradition in Modernity where the question arises on how can he or she believes to be the truth, is, in fact, the truth. This question is vital for a culture based on freedom of speech as a universal right to communicate. Weizenbaum's "Computer Power and Human Reason: From Judgement to Calculation" is a parrhesiastic title that provoked already Weizenbaum's Stanford colleagues. Learning from Weizenbaum means unveiling today's metaphysics of 'higher intelligences' a kind of cybergnosis that was clearly perceived and criticized by Weizenbaum leading to what was called later on Information Ethics. A core question concerns the danger of computerized computer power leading to a society in which the question of responsibility for instance with regard to ethical issues of Artificial Intelligence was addressed by Weizenbaum in the eighties.


About the speaker
Rafael Capurro born 1945 in Montevideo (Uruguay). Dr. phil. in Philosophy from Düsseldorf University. Postdoctoral teaching qualification in Ethics from Stuttgart University. Professor emeritus of Information Science and Information Ethics at Stuttgart Media University (1986-2009). Lecturer at the Institute of Philosophy, Stuttgart University (1989-2004). Founder of the International Center for Information Ethics (ICIE). Former Editor-in-Chief of the International Review of Information Ethics (IRIE) (2004-2018). Former member of the European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies (EGE) to the European Commission (2000-2010). Founder of the Capurro Fiek Foundation for Information Ethics. Research Associate in the Department of Information Science, Faculty of Engineering, Built Environment and Information Technology, University of Pretoria, South Africa (2017-to present).  Member of the Executive Board of Responsible Robotics. Special ANIE (Africa Network for Information Ethics) Award for a decade of special contribution to Information Ethics (2014).  INSEIT International Society for Ethics & IT / Joseph Weizenbaum Award in Information and Computer Ethics 2021.

portrait credit: Susana Pérez Gomar Capurro

Selected publications

Books

  • Homo Digitalis. Beiträge zur Ontologie, Anthropologie und Ethik der digitalen Technik. Heidelberg: Springer 2017.
  • Matthew Kelly & Jared Bielby (eds.): Information Cultures in the Digital Age. A Festschrift in Honor of Rafael Capurro. Heidelberg: Springer 2016.
  • Rafael Capurro, Michael Eldred and Daniel Nagel: Digital Whoness: Identity, Privacy and Freedom in the Cyberworld. Berlin: de Gruyter 2013.
  • Rafael Capurro & John Holgate (eds.). Messages and Messengers. Angeletics as an Approach to the Phenomenology of Communication. Munich: Fink 2011.

 Articles

  • Ethical Issues of Humanoid-Human Interaction. In: Ambarish Goswami, Prahlad Vadakkepat (eds.): Humanoid Robotics: A Reference. Dordrecht: Springer 2019, 2421-2435.
  • Enculturating Algorithms. In: Nanoethics (2019) 1-7: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11569-019-00340-9

 

Contact

Website: http://www.capurro.de/home-eng.html
Email: rafael [at] capurro.de

Thursday, 8. July 2021, 18:15-19:45 (CEST)

Zoom Webinar
Details to access the keynotes will be made public on a timely basis at http://uhh.de/inf-cepe-iacap2021