Is Technology a “Smart” Drug?

The use of “sick” and “cure” in the title of the new book: Technology Is Sick, But I Have No Cure is not a marketing gimmick, but a way to inspire discussion about what keeps us awake in an era of deep tech.

Technology no longer needs to rely on science to support its own rationality; breaking free from the “shadow of truth” enables what is known as the “rebellion of technology.” This has given birth to a technological “new world”. The new world of technology has four important features: “knowledge infection,” “acceleration and deceleration,” technological governance and society, and “mind-body design.”

Key Discussion Topics：

• In the era of deep tech, what keeps us awake at night?
• What is the “rebellion of technology?”
• How does the “rebellion of technology” serve as a driving force for a “tech new world?”
• In the technological era, how can we live with ourselves, and how should technology developers think ahead?

--

Sponsored by the Berggruen Research Center, Peking University, and OWSpace Foundation, two events were held in Beijing’s OWSpace bookstore on September 4: the lecture “Is Technology a ‘Smart’ Drug?” as well as the sharing session for the book Technology Is Sick, But I Have No Cure《技术有病，我没药》. About 60 people participated in the event in person, while as many as 15,000 viewers watched online via livestream on Bilibili, a Chinese video sharing platform.

The lecture focused on two primary questions: In our technological age, how should people live their lives, and how should technology developers conceive of and plan for the future? It is possible that the time wherein people can choose whether to enjoy the fruits of technologies or abandon the convenience they bring has already passed. From mobile phones to the Five-Flavored Tea of Forgetfulness, from lotus fruits to sex robots, from rejection of technology to human enhancement, from Martin Heidegger to Bernard Stiegler, Technology Is Sick, But I Have No Cure takes on the most challenging questions of our age. Authored by four philosophy of technology researchers — Yang Qingfeng, Yan Hongxiu, Duan Weiwen, and Liu Yongmou — the book sheds light on the debate surrounding whether technology is a poison or a cure for society.

The event was chaired by Li Xiaojiao, Associate Director of the Berggruen China Center. Two of the book’s authors — Professor Liu Yongmou, a doctoral tutor at the School of Philosophy, Renmin University of China, and Duan Weiwen, a 2020-2021 Berggruen Fellow and research fellow at the Institute of Philosophy, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) — answered audience questions, made keynote remarks and had a discussion guided by eight key practical questions posed in the book.

1. Technology Is Rebellious: Can Humans Guide It Toward Goodness?

Liu Yongmou said at the sharing session that the era we are living in is an age of technology rather than an age of science. In ancient times, science and technology were separate fields. Science referred to intellectual traditions shared by aristocrats, while technology was merely considered “diabolic tricks and wicked crafts.” Back then, the latter couldn’t appeal to refined tastes. It wasn’t until the second half of the 19th century that science and technology were really integrated since each required the other to enhance explanatory powers and humanity’s ability to affect reality.

Since then, the status of technology has continued to improve and has even started to challenge the dominant position of science. Practical social applications of technology-enabled it to successfully resist the chauvinism of science and, ultimately, to invert the relationship between science and technology, fostering the birth of “technoscience.” A “rebellion of oppressed knowledge” has occurred. Humankind has since officially entered a new technological world. Now what?

Speakers：
DUAN Weiwen
• Professor, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
• Berggruen Alumni Fellow

Duan Weiwen specializes in philosophy of science and philosophy of information technology. His current research focus is on the philosophical, ethical, and social impact of big data and AI. He is on the editorial board of the Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society and Journal of Responsible Innovation. He is also one of the deputy chairmen of the Committee of Big Data Experts of China. He is the chief researcher of “Philosophical Studies on the Intelligence Revolution and Deepening Techno-Scientific Nature of Human Beings” (2017-2022). He is the author of several books, including The Ethical Foundation of Information Civilization (2020, Shanghai People’s Press); Acceptable Science: Reflection on the Foundation of Contemporary Science (2014, Science and Technology Press of China); Ethical Reflections on Cyberspace (2002, Jiangsu People’s Publishing House); and Time Bound: Life in a Techno-Humanist World (2001, Guangdong Education Publishing House).

LIU Yongmou
Professor, School of Philosophy, Renmin University of China

Liu Yongmou specializes in philosophy of science, philosophy of technology, and STS (Science, Technology and Society). Currently, he focuses on the governance of new technology, smart revolution and smart governance, technology and art, and big data and socio-statistical philosophy. He is the author of more than 20 books, including The Rebellion of Technology; Epidemic Response and Technological Governance; Minerva in Action; Foucault’s Journey of Subject Deconstruction; The Internet of Things and the Coming of Ubiquitous Society; and The Attack and Defense of Ideas, and more than 140 papers in Chinese, English, Russian, and German. He has received awards from the National Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation and was selected as one of the first Outstanding Humanities Scholars of Renmin University of China, as well as the New Century Talents Program of the Ministry of Education.