Twentieth International Conference on Technology, Knowledge, and Society

Abstract

This paper examines multiple manifestations of human-technology symbiosis (HTS) as a phenomenon that is increasingly challenging the delineation of definable boundaries between the biological and the technological and is in the process compelling the reimagination of the social in the tradition of the Actor-Network theoretical ontology. The HTS as a cascading sociotechnical development, is deemed by some to be a liberating development relative to human biological limitations and that this follows a long line of human-technology connections that have become integral to, and indeed been a driver of, social evolution. The general historic centrality of human-technology connection, especially in high income societies, more so than in low-income societies, is reflected by the fact that most social processes and the operations of primary social institutions have increasingly been mediated and shaped by various forms of technology. In multiple spheres of life, especially in recent decades, technical implements have substituted, supplemented, augmented, and expanded what humans must, want to, and can do. The emerging HTS, however, significantly elevates the human-technology connection relative to “reliance” of humans on technology. The extent to which emerging HTS transformations, especially with respect to brain-computer interface, engender substantive erosion of boundaries between the biological (human) and technical (mostly computational), as well as the broader societal and specific intellectual implications of these transformations is the focus of this study.