Ecotic 1 – 2018, January 24th

The Ecotic Challenge: Political, Religious and Ecological Stakes of Autonomous Robotics

The opening edition of the Ecotic workshop ventured along the three main lines of the project : ecology, politics, philosophical ethology. To address the complex, “total phenomenon” of contemporary autonomous robotics, the participants were asked 12 questions amongst which to chose and to which respond in the most creative way possible by mobilising their own resources.

• Is it more interesting to have autonomous robots or cyborg technologies that enslave the human?
• Are robots a means of saving nature or, on the contrary, of finally getting rid it?
• Will the “cute robots” enter into evolutionary competition with animals that we will find increasingly ugly, stinky and unsuitable (to our way of life)? In other words, will pleasing the human become a major survival parameter for other living species?
• Is robotics the perfect way to end up completely devastating the earth through senseless energy consumption (taking over from the oil crisis)?
• Will machines reactivate the war of the sexes or render it obsolete? And will they make the working class disappear or reinforce its presence?
• Might we think that robots are going to be friends who will allow us to (finally) get rid of all these (too-) human friends who still encumber us?
• Can religions survive robots, or will the latter make them definitively obsolete?
• Should we vote on whether robots have “their own interests” and “show that they can suffer”?
• Will robots profoundly transform the parent/child bond and eliminate this form of politico-economico-affective organisation that we call the family?
• What will become of human societies if the majority of intelligences present are no longer human?
• What human activities will not be threatened by robots (if any)?
• Should there be plans to make robots “idiots” and what might such an objective mean?