Volume 4, numéro 1, printemps 2024

EN :

Traditionally, human rights activists gathered evidence about violations of particular individuals' human rights to demand that states change their conduct and adopt measures to prevent further violations. Deploying artificial intelligence as part of the decision-making process creates challenges for activists to detect all sources of harm and demand that states take action to address the harms. Abeba Birhane points out that employing artificial intelligence technology can generate harmful impacts that are either difficult to detect or invisible. If harms remain invisible, then it is difficult for human rights defenders to document them. Equally, it becomes challenging to articulate why the harms in question constitute international human rights law violations. As a result, it is harder for human rights defenders to call on states to take action to safeguard fundamental rights. This article puts forward that individuals can make harms arising from the deployment of artificial intelligence as part of the decision-making process more visible by using the theoretical framework of media ecology. It demonstrates that media ecology can provide an additional tool for human rights activists to detect how using artificial intelligence as part of the decision-making process can undermine the enjoyment of a human right. The article uses the right to mental health as a case study to develop this argument. In order to contextualise the analysis, the article focuses on the employment of artificial intelligence to screen candidates for employment as a case study.

EN :

Our aim in this article is to discuss the propagating organization of artistic sensibility and the works of art that arise from that sensibility which we claim parallels the propagating organization of living organisms. We first examine what distinguishes a work of art from other forms of human artifacts such as tools, technology shelters, toys, games and ornaments. We show that this propagation of art and artistic sensibilities parallels the propagation of the organization of living systems. By doing so we explore the hypothesis that works of art and the artistic sensibility that give rise to them are metaphorically like a living organism in that they propagate their organization and that artistic expression evolvesmuch like the way that living organisms propagate their organization and also evolve.

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A study is made of verbal language and artistic expression in human communication and their link to secondary perception, the way perception changed once humans achieved verbal language. The connection of verbal language to artistic expression through secondary perception is made as is the explosion of new tools, altruism, a theory of mind and religious practice, which are explored.

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Scholars disagree over whether the employment of artificial intelligence technologies entails an inevitable exercise of power over people or whether such technologies can be configured in such a way as to allow a plurality of possible ways to engage in governance. This article uses the media ecology approach to analysis to demonstrate that the concern that artificial intelligence technologies that appear to be mundane are in fact involved in the exercise of power over people is valid. It contributes to the existing literature by showing that numerous applications of artificial intelligence that people use on an everyday basis interact to amplify one another’s effects. These technologies are the electric toothbrush, internet search engine, smartphone, social media and the use of artificial intelligence as part of the decision-making process. These effects occur at the levels of the individual, city, state and inter-state. These effects are cascading and interconnected rather than occurring on distinct planes. The exercise of power over the individual by the state and the corporations becomes difficult to disentangle. Therefore, states need to cooperate regarding governing artificial intelligence and technology companies if they are to meaningfully protect people from harmful effects.

EN :

In this article, I highlight the lives and works of three distinguished media ecology theorists: (1) Eric McLuhan (1942-2018; Ph.D. in English, University of Dallas, 1982); (2) Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980; Ph.D. in English, Cambridge University, 1943); and(3) Walter J. Ong, S.J. (1912-2003; Ph.D. in English, Harvard University, 1955). Throughout this article, I use Eric McLuhan’s 2015 book The Sensus Communis, Synesthesia, and the Soul: An Odyssey as a touchstone for my discussion of connection consciousness. I round off this article by listing a wide range of other books and articles that are also related to connection consciousness.

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The present article employed McLuhan’s figure/ground distinction to probe the boundaries of artificial intelligence (AI) and computation. In popularizing the intellectual tradition of media ecology, Marshall McLuhan warned scholars that confusing the figure (i.e. the content or software) with the ground (i.e. the medium of communication or hardware) would lead to inadequate and incorrect analyses and appraisals of the effects of our media technologies. However, the present article contends that scholars of all stripes are at risk of falling prey to that exact mistake with regards to AI. The present article argues that AI, though having appeared as a touchstone issue in media and communication studies recently, represents the figure, whereas the computational hardware is the ground. Moreover, with continued development of quantum computation technologies, the ground upon which our AI programs rest is in the infantile stages of undergoing a revolutionary change. In sum, this article probes the significance of AI and Quantum computation for the coming decades.

EN :

In the opening and closing sections of the present essay, I succinctly highlight Dr. Doris Kearns Goodwin’s new 2024 book An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s(Simon & Schuster). In the wide-ranging and somewhat lengthy middle section of the present essay, I construct my own personal history of the 1960s. I especially highlight the work of my former teacher in the 1960s, the American Jesuit Renaissance specialist and cultural historian and pioneering media ecology theorist Walter J. Ong(1912-2003; Ph.D. in English, Harvard University, 1955) of Saint Louis University.

EN :

The objective of this article is to analyze how the disinformation industry, understood as organized and systematic practices aimed at disseminating false information with the aim of manipulating public perception, has eroded trust in information, especially with the collaboration of socio-digital networks and artificial intelligence (AI).

Technological advances amplify the speed and sophistication with which disinformation spreads, making it difficult to identify and counteract false information, which could be identified with adequate digital literacy. With the use of algorithms and big data analysis, AI is used to personalize political messages, segment audiences and predict electoral trends, seeking not only to persuade voters, but also to create an immersive and emotionally attractive narrative. To do this, the article shows cases of deceiving the audience by presenting false information in a realistic way.

Thanks to the formidable development of AI and the advent of synthetic humans, we are witnessing the profound transformation of the entertainment industry and, shortly, political marketing.