6 april, 2021
Let the explorations begin!
The Stockholm Explorative Talks webinar series started out on its maiden journey with an engaging exploration of the topic – ‘Persuasive Technologies: How can we better steer the technologies designed to steer us?’. Interdisciplinarity was the watchword of the session, both in terms of the ‘explorers’ – Gustav Borgefalk, Dr Claire Ingram Bogusz, Dr Stanley Greenstein, Prof Harri Oinas-Kukkonen and Prof Susanne Wigorts Yngvesson – who came from disciplines as varied as behavioral design, informatics and media, law and information technology, information systems science, and media ethics – as well as the host Dr Ann Wong (a neuroscientist) and the audience representing 16 countries and a range of different backgrounds.
Gustav’s prompt at the beginning to ‘look around in the rooms that you’re in’ set the tone of the session and underlined the immediacy of human beings navigating a world of designed environments where our choices are constantly molded by persuasive technologies. The co-explorers chimed in at the question posed by Gustav, ‘How should we prepare the next generation to navigate, live and prosper in an artificial world’ and offered their own perspectives. Over the following hour various issues were touched upon – the need to be able to think critically and be self-aware, the ability to distinguish between the real and virtual worlds, the role of academics as an educational influence in this context, the ethical dimension of designing technologies, the necessity of looking at persuasive systems through the prism of existential philosophy and reassessing ‘what it means to be human’, the nature of surveillance capitalism and persuasive strategies vis-à-vis human autonomy – and many more. The session was capped off by a Q&A session, and the explorers responding to the parting question Gustav raised – ‘What keeps you up at night?’ which laid the path for future discussions and explorations.
We are just getting warmed up with the Stockholm Explorative Talks webinar series. Check out our event schedule for the upcoming webinars, and here’s to exploring the future together!
6 april, 2021
Let the explorations begin!
The Stockholm Explorative Talks webinar series started out on its maiden journey with an engaging exploration of the topic – ‘Persuasive Technologies: How can we better steer the technologies designed to steer us?’. Interdisciplinarity was the watchword of the session, both in terms of the ‘explorers’ – Gustav Borgefalk, Dr Claire Ingram Bogusz, Dr Stanley Greenstein, Prof Harri Oinas-Kukkonen and Prof Susanne Wigorts Yngvesson – who came from disciplines as varied as behavioral design, informatics and media, law and information technology, information systems science, and media ethics – as well as the host Dr Ann Wong (a neuroscientist) and the audience representing 16 countries and a range of different backgrounds.
Gustav’s prompt at the beginning to ‘look around in the rooms that you’re in’ set the tone of the session and underlined the immediacy of human beings navigating a world of designed environments where our choices are constantly molded by persuasive technologies. The co-explorers chimed in at the question posed by Gustav, ‘How should we prepare the next generation to navigate, live and prosper in an artificial world’ and offered their own perspectives. Over the following hour various issues were touched upon – the need to be able to think critically and be self-aware, the ability to distinguish between the real and virtual worlds, the role of academics as an educational influence in this context, the ethical dimension of designing technologies, the necessity of looking at persuasive systems through the prism of existential philosophy and reassessing ‘what it means to be human’, the nature of surveillance capitalism and persuasive strategies vis-à-vis human autonomy – and many more. The session was capped off by a Q&A session, and the explorers responding to the parting question Gustav raised – ‘What keeps you up at night?’ which laid the path for future discussions and explorations.
We are just getting warmed up with the Stockholm Explorative Talks webinar series. Check out our event schedule for the upcoming webinars, and here’s to exploring the future together!
