A pressing issue in contemporary technology ethics is what happens to our social relationships when they intersect with social technologies.
In this project I identify and address three issues that have yet to be resolved, relying on a wide range of perspectives from philosophy, ethics and empirical observations.
The first issue is the nature and value of remote collegial relationships, relationships between colleagues who only interact on social media. This is a pressing issue because remote work is already common and expected to become more so in the near and long-term future. Collegial relationships are a part of what makes work meaningful. However, the contemporary literature is not fully able to explain why. Furthermore, there is little understanding of what remote work will do to collegial relationships and whether they can have the same value as in-office collegial relationships. In the article I address these issues by drawing on the philosophical literature on friendship, collegial relationships, and so-called “online friendship”.
The second issue is the emergence of surveillance culture, referring to the way that surveillance technologies and practices are incorporated into our daily lives. Many of us participate in this culture, willingly or not, which raises several issues, most notably about privacy. What are the consequences of living in a culture where the traditional barriers of access to other people’s personal information are undermined? In the article I respond to this question by looking at what philosophers of past generations have had to say about similar matters, questioning whether their theories are able to account for the moral stakes, or not, of surveillance culture.
The third issue is the use of Personal AI as a companion. This is expected to become more common as the technology progresses, and is already a part of many people’s lives. What is not clear is what the value of such companionships are, especially given the distinct feature of Personal AI which is that it is an emotional reflection of the user. By looking at what philosophers have said about the role of emotions in companionship and how they contribute to their value, the article clarifies what is at stake and explains why Personal AI raises unique moral issues that are different from those in other sorts of AI companionship.
By addressing these issues, the thesis fills important gaps in our knowledge about what these social technologies are and how they impact our social relationships.
Supervisor: professor Edmund Henden, OsloMet
Co-supervisor: professor Kjetil Rommetveit (uib.no), University of Bergen
