The Onlife Manifesto

TLDR: In this paper, the authors call digital transition the societal process arising from the deployment and uptake of ICTs and call it the information age, a phase where the hybridization between bits and other forms of reality is so deep that it radically changes the human condition in at least four ways:

Abstract: Let's call digital transition the societal process arising from the deployment and uptake of ICTs. Indeed, with the current multiplication of devices, sensors, robots, and applications, and these emerging technologies, we have entered a new phase of the information age, a phase where the hybridization between bits and other forms of reality is so deep that it radically changes the human condition in at least four ways:

Figures

Table 1 (continued)

Fig. 1 The legal complexity of ICTs-driven societies

Fig. 4 How game designers may shape the onlife experience

Fig. 3 Three topological models

Fig. 1 The legal complexity of ICTs-driven societies

Fig. 2 From the State to the MASs

Full text

The Onlife Manifesto

Luciano Floridi
Editor
The Onlife Manifesto
Being Human in a Hyperconnected Era

Image made from models used to track debris in Earth orbit. Of the approximately 19,000
man-made objects larger than 10 centimetres in Earth orbit as of July 2009, most orbit close to
the Earth. Source: NASA Earth Observatory / Orbital Debris Program Office: http://commons.
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September 2009.
ISBN 978-3-319-04092-9
ISBN 978-3-319-04093-6 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-04093-6
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Editor
Luciano Floridi
Oxford Internet Institute
University of Oxford
Oxford, Oxfordshire
United Kingdom

v
Contents
Introduction ...................................................................................................... 1
Luciano Floridi
Part I The Onlife Manifesto
The Onlife Manifesto ....................................................................................... 7
The Onlife Initiative
Part II Commentaries
Charles Ess—Commentary on The Onlife Manifesto .................................. 17
Charles Ess
Luciano Floridi—Commentary on the Onlife Manifesto ............................. 21
Luciano Floridi
Commentary on the Onlife Manifesto ............................................................ 25
Jean-Gabriel Ganascia
Dualism is Dead. Long Live Plurality (Instead of Duality)
.......................... 27
Mireille Hildebrandt
Commentary by Yiannis Laouris ................................................................... 31
Yiannis Laouris
Comments to the Onlife Manifesto ................................................................. 33
Ugo Pagallo
Comment to the Manifesto .............................................................................. 35
Judith Simon
May Thorseth: Commentary of the Manifesto.............................................. 37
May Thorseth

Frequently asked questions

Q1. What contributions have the authors mentioned in the paper "Being human in a hyperconnected era" ?

Floridi et al. this paper discuss three challenges the authors take to define their On-life context, and examine how far democratic processes and norms can be nonetheless preserved on-life, drawing on notions of hybrid selves, partial privacy and contextual privacy. 

Q2. What are the future works in "Being human in a hyperconnected era" ?

The main concern discussed here is the possibility of producing arguments as if they were part of public reason in online environments ; as if they qualified for addressing a universal audience. The virtual is not the real enemy ; rather it is the ideological aspect linked to fictitious publics—the main reason being the possibility of ideological and fictitious “ publics ”. My claim in this paper has been that the threat to public reason of today basically has to do with the possibility of creating fictitious publics. A further question arising from this claim is, however, whether the kind of “ publics ” in view could exist without the digital and virtual environments. 

Q3. What is the role of apoptosis in the development of the body?

Apoptosis plays a crucial role in developing and maintaining the health of the body by eliminating cells once they become old, unnecessary, or unhealthy. 

Q4. How do the authors find their new balance?

The authors are finding their new balance by shaping and adapting to hyperhistorical conditions that have not yet sedimented54 L. Floridiinto a mature age, and in which novelties are no longer disruptive but finally stable patterns of “more of approximately the same” (think, for example, of the car or the book industry, and the stability they have provided). 

Q5. What is the definition of responsibility in a hyperconnected reality?

Endorsing responsibility in a hyperconnected reality requires acknowledging how their actions, perceptions, intentions, morality, even corporality are interwoven with technologies in general, and ICTs in particular. 

Q6. What is the meaning of freedom, equality and otherness in public spheres?

2.2 Experiencing freedom, equality and otherness in public spheres becomes problematic in a context of increasingly mediated identities and calculated interactions such as profiling, targeted advertising, or price discrimination. 

Q7. What did the authors think of the idea of accumulating hard-won information and knowledge?

Earlier notions of rationality presumed that accumulating hard-won information and knowledge would lead to better understanding and thereby control. 

Q8. What can be done to complement the philosophical perspective?

Cognitive sciences can usefully complement the philosophical perspective with a scientific account of the link between the different ways of thinking (in pluralist, dualist or monist terms) and behaviours. 

Q9. What did the authors say about the evolution of ICTs?

During this relatively short time, ICTs have provided the recording and transmitting infrastructure that made the escalation of other technologies possible, with the direct consequence of furthering their dependence on more and more layers of technologies. 

Q10. What is the impact of this radical mental shift on their behaviours as knowers?

This radical mental shift has consequences on their behaviours as knowers, in their collective representation of what knowledge and information are, on the link between knowledge and action (consider the veil of ignorance) and also, more concretely, on the framing of the fundamental right to privacy, as the current principles of control and data minimisation on which the privacy framework is built fail to grasp optimally the new societal concerns regarding privacy, reputation and image. 

Q11. What are the two attitudes that are important for thinking and experiencing public spheres?

These two attitudes are serious hurdles for thinking and experiencing public spheres in the form of plurality, where others cannot be reduced to instruments, and where selfrestraint and respect are required. 

Q12. What is the extensive and nuanced critique of what Elaine Yuan calls a?

Most recently, Elaine Yuan (2013) has developed what to my knowledge is the most extensive and nuanced critique of what she calls a “culturalist” approach to Internet Studies—i.e., the radically interdisciplinary and cross-cultural field of inquiry into their lives Onlife—where such a “culturalist” approach rests precisely on the high modern assumption of a radically autonomous individual moral agent.