DIGITALIZATION
11/02/2025: LES 1: STEF AUPERS: INTRODUCTION: DIGITALIZATION AND THE
CHALLENGE OF AI
Leerstof
➔ Artikels/literature, pwp, les
Exam
➔ Multiple choice: giscorrectie
➔ Geen open vragen
➔ Never details: kern/core, hoofdlijnen
THREE WAVES OF DIGITALIZATION
50 years: 3 converging waves of digitalization and their influence on society
• Personal computer
• Internet and social media
• Artificial intelligence
o AI: a social science perspective
FIRST WAVE OF DIGITALIZATION - PERSONAL COMPUTER
IBM computers in the 1950s
➔ Giant hulking machines
➔ Futurists predicted: society, governments needed calculating machines
➔ History can’t predict future
o Moves
The democratic promise of the PC…
➔ 1950s: the ‘hacker ethic’
➔ 1960s and 1970s -> hippies / hackers in silicon valley
➔ Goal = “bringing computer power to the people”
➔ Hackers formed a social movement
o We should bring computers to the people because you can create a lot with it
o It is efficient
o Protesting against the government: goal= bringing power to the people
➔ Now are hackers people who steal information
➔ 1975: the first personal computer (apple)
o Steve jobs & bill gates: first apple computer
o People including, they were in the movement to bring power to the people
o Invention personal computer
➔ 1975-1985: the development, mass-production and commercialization of the personal computer
o Devices: ipad, iphones: new products
,SECOND WAVE DIGITALIZATION – INTERNET AND SOCIAL MEDIA
The democratic promise of the internet
➔ Web 1.0: 1990s – interconnected PCs, visit websites
o Passively visiting websites
o No interaction
➔ Web 2.0. 2000s – social media platforms and User generated content (USG)
o Facebook beginning
o Afterwards: insta, twitter, tiktok: platforms part of 2nd wave
o Launched democratic idea
o Idea: technology only for the good ( ideology)
o Not politicians make live better but technology
o Democratic promise: we could share information
➔ Time magazine (2008) – person of the year
o Launches every year 1 person
o Promise of social media
o YOU won
o You control the information age, welcome to your world
o The world will be a better place
o Everybody connects
o Utopian social political climate
o Now have changed a bit
➔ Facebook (2004)
o Blueprint social infrastructure internet
o “making the world open and connected” (mark Zuckerberg, 2010)
o From democratization to ‘surveillance capitalism’ (Zuboff)?
THIRD WAVE DIGITALIZATION – ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
• John McCarthy -> mathematician / scientist
• Introduction concept DartMouth Conference 1955
• “…making a machine behave in ways that would be called intelligent if a human were so
behaving” (1955)
• Organised a small conference about AI in US with 30 people
o About computer technology
o Documents on the internet about the goal
• We are able as programmers to make
• Machines are imitation of us as humans
o Cars are a supplement of the body as a moving machine but they ride faster than we
could run
o Graafmachine
o More efficient and stranger than our bodies
o But AI bigger step: smarter
Basic forms of AI
➔ Weak AI = early
o Imitates cognitive function
o 1 particular task
o Bv. chess computer=very smart, chatbot ( if a client says this, you say that)
, oWeak=1 function of our brains
oOur brains can do different things ( language, speak, reason, logic, do things with our
brains)=> not combined in 1 machine
➔ Strong AI = later
o Speak, understand language, make sentences, make art, information about a lot of
things, a lot of things humans also can do
➔ Top down AI = early
o Program how to deal in particular situations
o Bv. war, if you see someone SHOOT, who looks like this not
o Computer does what it’s supposed to do
o Instructed, no interpretation, no learning
➔ Bottum up AI/immergent = NOW
o self-learning computers/programs
o evolutionary computing
o we as humans learn, reflect, appropriate information, knowdlegde, better after other
situation
The classicial philosophical debate on AI
Alan Turing VS John Searle
➔ Philosophical questions: When is a computer really intelligent and conscious
➔ 1950s: discipline of AI: intelligent
Is AI ‘ really’ intelligent? The Turing Test (1950) Alan Turing (1912-1954)
➔ How can AI/machine be considered intelligent
o And how decide that?
➔ Particular devised to find out if AI is in fact intelligent or not
➔ Start a conversation and don’t know who is the person and who is the machine
➔ After 8 minutes and you don’t know if you are talking to a machine or person: you are fooled
o Say something smart to fool
➔ Chatbots are programmed to have a conversation
➔ Pragmatic: if you can have a conversation for 8 minutes and guess wrong you are fooled by a
intelligent machine
➔ Our brains are software, we are machines
o We are not as smart as we think we are
➔ If a computer can talk for 8 minutes like a human it is intelligent
➔ Possible for machines to be intelligent like humans
, Is AI ‘really’ intelligent? The Chinese Room experiment (Searle 1980)
➔ Wants to explain that machines can never be intelligent
➔ How?: uses the metaphor of a room, gives us letters, Chinese words, and give to person in the
room to construct sentences an make a Chinese text
➔ In the output it throws out the poem
➔ And the person who really speaks Chinese will look at it
➔ The person in the room knows what to do because he has constructions
➔ “this is a brilliant AI” NO: if we give the right instructions, the machine does what it has to do, it
isn’t brilliant
➔ A computer isn’t intelligent but it does intelligent things because it has instructions
➔ Not possible
Kevin Warwick (2011) A third in the debate
Beyond the “human-centric philosophical comparative analysis” that informs Searle and Turing
Relativistic perspective on “intelligence”:
➔ They are both wrong because they only think that humans are intelligent
o Animals can be intelligent in a different way, we cannot communicate like animals
➔ Not think in terms to be as intelligent like humans
o Some ways machines are smarter, some ways other way around
o Animals
o Difficult position
o Feminist position
BEYOND PHILOSOPHY OF AI…
AI in society and everyday life
• Outsourcing human labor to AI…control
o Physical labour in factories = efficient
o Outsourcing cognitive labour:
▪ ChatGPT is example: doing things we did 50 years ago in libraries/ finding
articles, gives a lot of information, analysing=threatening, graphic designers,
fear losing your job, physical->machine
o AI is with us
o Tracking data on FB, WhatsApp messages: government will search for terrotist
11/02/2025: LES 1: STEF AUPERS: INTRODUCTION: DIGITALIZATION AND THE
CHALLENGE OF AI
Leerstof
➔ Artikels/literature, pwp, les
Exam
➔ Multiple choice: giscorrectie
➔ Geen open vragen
➔ Never details: kern/core, hoofdlijnen
THREE WAVES OF DIGITALIZATION
50 years: 3 converging waves of digitalization and their influence on society
• Personal computer
• Internet and social media
• Artificial intelligence
o AI: a social science perspective
FIRST WAVE OF DIGITALIZATION - PERSONAL COMPUTER
IBM computers in the 1950s
➔ Giant hulking machines
➔ Futurists predicted: society, governments needed calculating machines
➔ History can’t predict future
o Moves
The democratic promise of the PC…
➔ 1950s: the ‘hacker ethic’
➔ 1960s and 1970s -> hippies / hackers in silicon valley
➔ Goal = “bringing computer power to the people”
➔ Hackers formed a social movement
o We should bring computers to the people because you can create a lot with it
o It is efficient
o Protesting against the government: goal= bringing power to the people
➔ Now are hackers people who steal information
➔ 1975: the first personal computer (apple)
o Steve jobs & bill gates: first apple computer
o People including, they were in the movement to bring power to the people
o Invention personal computer
➔ 1975-1985: the development, mass-production and commercialization of the personal computer
o Devices: ipad, iphones: new products
,SECOND WAVE DIGITALIZATION – INTERNET AND SOCIAL MEDIA
The democratic promise of the internet
➔ Web 1.0: 1990s – interconnected PCs, visit websites
o Passively visiting websites
o No interaction
➔ Web 2.0. 2000s – social media platforms and User generated content (USG)
o Facebook beginning
o Afterwards: insta, twitter, tiktok: platforms part of 2nd wave
o Launched democratic idea
o Idea: technology only for the good ( ideology)
o Not politicians make live better but technology
o Democratic promise: we could share information
➔ Time magazine (2008) – person of the year
o Launches every year 1 person
o Promise of social media
o YOU won
o You control the information age, welcome to your world
o The world will be a better place
o Everybody connects
o Utopian social political climate
o Now have changed a bit
➔ Facebook (2004)
o Blueprint social infrastructure internet
o “making the world open and connected” (mark Zuckerberg, 2010)
o From democratization to ‘surveillance capitalism’ (Zuboff)?
THIRD WAVE DIGITALIZATION – ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
• John McCarthy -> mathematician / scientist
• Introduction concept DartMouth Conference 1955
• “…making a machine behave in ways that would be called intelligent if a human were so
behaving” (1955)
• Organised a small conference about AI in US with 30 people
o About computer technology
o Documents on the internet about the goal
• We are able as programmers to make
• Machines are imitation of us as humans
o Cars are a supplement of the body as a moving machine but they ride faster than we
could run
o Graafmachine
o More efficient and stranger than our bodies
o But AI bigger step: smarter
Basic forms of AI
➔ Weak AI = early
o Imitates cognitive function
o 1 particular task
o Bv. chess computer=very smart, chatbot ( if a client says this, you say that)
, oWeak=1 function of our brains
oOur brains can do different things ( language, speak, reason, logic, do things with our
brains)=> not combined in 1 machine
➔ Strong AI = later
o Speak, understand language, make sentences, make art, information about a lot of
things, a lot of things humans also can do
➔ Top down AI = early
o Program how to deal in particular situations
o Bv. war, if you see someone SHOOT, who looks like this not
o Computer does what it’s supposed to do
o Instructed, no interpretation, no learning
➔ Bottum up AI/immergent = NOW
o self-learning computers/programs
o evolutionary computing
o we as humans learn, reflect, appropriate information, knowdlegde, better after other
situation
The classicial philosophical debate on AI
Alan Turing VS John Searle
➔ Philosophical questions: When is a computer really intelligent and conscious
➔ 1950s: discipline of AI: intelligent
Is AI ‘ really’ intelligent? The Turing Test (1950) Alan Turing (1912-1954)
➔ How can AI/machine be considered intelligent
o And how decide that?
➔ Particular devised to find out if AI is in fact intelligent or not
➔ Start a conversation and don’t know who is the person and who is the machine
➔ After 8 minutes and you don’t know if you are talking to a machine or person: you are fooled
o Say something smart to fool
➔ Chatbots are programmed to have a conversation
➔ Pragmatic: if you can have a conversation for 8 minutes and guess wrong you are fooled by a
intelligent machine
➔ Our brains are software, we are machines
o We are not as smart as we think we are
➔ If a computer can talk for 8 minutes like a human it is intelligent
➔ Possible for machines to be intelligent like humans
, Is AI ‘really’ intelligent? The Chinese Room experiment (Searle 1980)
➔ Wants to explain that machines can never be intelligent
➔ How?: uses the metaphor of a room, gives us letters, Chinese words, and give to person in the
room to construct sentences an make a Chinese text
➔ In the output it throws out the poem
➔ And the person who really speaks Chinese will look at it
➔ The person in the room knows what to do because he has constructions
➔ “this is a brilliant AI” NO: if we give the right instructions, the machine does what it has to do, it
isn’t brilliant
➔ A computer isn’t intelligent but it does intelligent things because it has instructions
➔ Not possible
Kevin Warwick (2011) A third in the debate
Beyond the “human-centric philosophical comparative analysis” that informs Searle and Turing
Relativistic perspective on “intelligence”:
➔ They are both wrong because they only think that humans are intelligent
o Animals can be intelligent in a different way, we cannot communicate like animals
➔ Not think in terms to be as intelligent like humans
o Some ways machines are smarter, some ways other way around
o Animals
o Difficult position
o Feminist position
BEYOND PHILOSOPHY OF AI…
AI in society and everyday life
• Outsourcing human labor to AI…control
o Physical labour in factories = efficient
o Outsourcing cognitive labour:
▪ ChatGPT is example: doing things we did 50 years ago in libraries/ finding
articles, gives a lot of information, analysing=threatening, graphic designers,
fear losing your job, physical->machine
o AI is with us
o Tracking data on FB, WhatsApp messages: government will search for terrotist
