Societies at an AI Crossroads

This book highlights some of the crucial crossroads – moments in which choices as to the future relationship between humans and digital technologies have to be made – that societies face in light of the growing development and adoption of AI. As contemporary societies undergo profound transformation...

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Главные авторы: Kalpokas, Ignas, Kalpokienė, Julija
Формат: Online
Язык:английский
Опубликовано: Taylor & Francis 2026
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Online-ссылка:ONIX_20260105T134452_9781040802809_5
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author Kalpokas, Ignas
Kalpokienė, Julija
author_browse Kalpokas, Ignas
Kalpokienė, Julija
author_facet Kalpokas, Ignas
Kalpokienė, Julija
author_sort Kalpokas, Ignas
collection Directory of Open Access Books
description This book highlights some of the crucial crossroads – moments in which choices as to the future relationship between humans and digital technologies have to be made – that societies face in light of the growing development and adoption of AI. As contemporary societies undergo profound transformations driven by artificial intelligence and related technologies, a unilinear vision of inevitable ‘progress’ and development increasingly dominates public discourse. This book offers a counterpoint, challenging such deterministic narratives by mapping out the complex crossroads where futures ought to be shaped rather than passively received. Exploring a multiplicity of domains as diverse as education, heritage, creativity, the biological and technological boundaries of humans, work, war, and space colonialism, both the dominant (typically progressivist) and alternative (critical) ways of framing the present and the future are outlined, identifying choices to be made. The book teases out the underlying tendencies and underscores a recurring necessity to make value choices as to our further development, not only as societies but also as humanity, and in terms of regulatory choices. It reveals how decisions in these domains are shaped by ingrained intellectual, ideological, political, value-based, and economic assumptions, often hidden beneath the rhetoric of inevitability. These crossroads are not just technical or economic choices, but moral and societal: Between maximising efficiency and safeguarding plurality; between treating technological possibilities as imperatives and critically evaluating their desirability; between moral blindness and care. By illuminating the options available, the book invites readers to take an active role in choosing the future shape of societies and of humanity itself. This interdisciplinary and creative text will benefit all graduate-level and scholarly readers working on AI within the fields of media and communication, cultural studies, sociology, and cultural anthropology. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.
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spelling doab-20.500.12854ir-1707222026-01-06T05:17:34Z Societies at an AI Crossroads Kalpokas, Ignas Kalpokienė, Julija sociotechnical systems digital ethics value pluralism critical technology studies human enhancement debates science and technology policy ethical decision making in AI thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JB Society and culture: general::JBC Cultural and media studies::JBCT Media studies thema EDItEUR::U Computing and Information Technology::UY Computer science::UYQ Artificial intelligence thema EDItEUR::A The Arts thema EDItEUR::G Reference, Information and Interdisciplinary subjects::GT Interdisciplinary studies::GTC Communication studies thema EDItEUR::Q Philosophy and Religion::QD Philosophy thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JB Society and culture: general::JBC Cultural and media studies::JBCC Cultural studies::JBCC1 Popular culture thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JH Sociology and anthropology::JHB Sociology This book highlights some of the crucial crossroads – moments in which choices as to the future relationship between humans and digital technologies have to be made – that societies face in light of the growing development and adoption of AI. As contemporary societies undergo profound transformations driven by artificial intelligence and related technologies, a unilinear vision of inevitable ‘progress’ and development increasingly dominates public discourse. This book offers a counterpoint, challenging such deterministic narratives by mapping out the complex crossroads where futures ought to be shaped rather than passively received. Exploring a multiplicity of domains as diverse as education, heritage, creativity, the biological and technological boundaries of humans, work, war, and space colonialism, both the dominant (typically progressivist) and alternative (critical) ways of framing the present and the future are outlined, identifying choices to be made. The book teases out the underlying tendencies and underscores a recurring necessity to make value choices as to our further development, not only as societies but also as humanity, and in terms of regulatory choices. It reveals how decisions in these domains are shaped by ingrained intellectual, ideological, political, value-based, and economic assumptions, often hidden beneath the rhetoric of inevitability. These crossroads are not just technical or economic choices, but moral and societal: Between maximising efficiency and safeguarding plurality; between treating technological possibilities as imperatives and critically evaluating their desirability; between moral blindness and care. By illuminating the options available, the book invites readers to take an active role in choosing the future shape of societies and of humanity itself. This interdisciplinary and creative text will benefit all graduate-level and scholarly readers working on AI within the fields of media and communication, cultural studies, sociology, and cultural anthropology. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license. 2026-01-06T05:17:29Z 2026-01-06T05:17:29Z 2026-01-05T12:47:58Z 2025 book ONIX_20260105T134452_9781040802809_5 https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/109537 9781040802809 9781041202660 9781003715849 9781040802847 https://directory.doabooks.org/handle/20.500.12854/170722 eng Routledge Focus on Digital Media and Culture open access image/jpeg Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/20.500.12657/109537/1/9781040802809.pdf Taylor & Francis Routledge 10.4324/9781003715849 10.4324/9781003715849 fa69b019-f4ee-4979-8d42-c6b6c476b5f0 9781040802809 9781041202660 9781003715849 9781040802847 Routledge 124 Oxford open access
spellingShingle sociotechnical systems
digital ethics
value pluralism
critical technology studies
human enhancement debates
science and technology policy
ethical decision making in AI
thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JB Society and culture: general::JBC Cultural and media studies::JBCT Media studies
thema EDItEUR::U Computing and Information Technology::UY Computer science::UYQ Artificial intelligence
thema EDItEUR::A The Arts
thema EDItEUR::G Reference, Information and Interdisciplinary subjects::GT Interdisciplinary studies::GTC Communication studies
thema EDItEUR::Q Philosophy and Religion::QD Philosophy
thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JB Society and culture: general::JBC Cultural and media studies::JBCC Cultural studies::JBCC1 Popular culture
thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JH Sociology and anthropology::JHB Sociology
Kalpokas, Ignas
Kalpokienė, Julija
Societies at an AI Crossroads
title Societies at an AI Crossroads
title_full Societies at an AI Crossroads
title_fullStr Societies at an AI Crossroads
title_full_unstemmed Societies at an AI Crossroads
title_short Societies at an AI Crossroads
title_sort societies at an ai crossroads
topic sociotechnical systems
digital ethics
value pluralism
critical technology studies
human enhancement debates
science and technology policy
ethical decision making in AI
thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JB Society and culture: general::JBC Cultural and media studies::JBCT Media studies
thema EDItEUR::U Computing and Information Technology::UY Computer science::UYQ Artificial intelligence
thema EDItEUR::A The Arts
thema EDItEUR::G Reference, Information and Interdisciplinary subjects::GT Interdisciplinary studies::GTC Communication studies
thema EDItEUR::Q Philosophy and Religion::QD Philosophy
thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JB Society and culture: general::JBC Cultural and media studies::JBCC Cultural studies::JBCC1 Popular culture
thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JH Sociology and anthropology::JHB Sociology
topic_facet sociotechnical systems
digital ethics
value pluralism
critical technology studies
human enhancement debates
science and technology policy
ethical decision making in AI
thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JB Society and culture: general::JBC Cultural and media studies::JBCT Media studies
thema EDItEUR::U Computing and Information Technology::UY Computer science::UYQ Artificial intelligence
thema EDItEUR::A The Arts
thema EDItEUR::G Reference, Information and Interdisciplinary subjects::GT Interdisciplinary studies::GTC Communication studies
thema EDItEUR::Q Philosophy and Religion::QD Philosophy
thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JB Society and culture: general::JBC Cultural and media studies::JBCC Cultural studies::JBCC1 Popular culture
thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JH Sociology and anthropology::JHB Sociology
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