Vulnerability, Risk, and Humanity

• In Event: Machines and Humans: Risk, Fear and Collaboration

Abstract

Nature (i.e. the environment) has provided multiple benefits to human beings but at the same time it has presented many risks to them. Because of these risks, vulnerability should be considered an essential element of humanity. Human beings have been aiming at enjoying the benefits from nature while at the same time avoiding the risks by advancing science and technology. However, due to such an advancement, while some old risks have been reduced, new ones which did not exist in the past have appeared. For example, human beings are exposed to a new type of risks by implementing medical technology into their bodies. The use of rays aiming at the early detection of lesions might in turn cause new lesions, and people who have pacemakers implanted must avoid electromagnetic and, in some cases, high-frequency waves. We can think that human vulnerability is subject to transformation.
In addition, the relationship between humans and a new generation of robots and AI by means of new digital technologies is becoming problematic. Some people are afraid that human labor will be negatively affected by the newcomers. This situation may also be said to be a manifestation of human vulnerability.
In this presentation, I will discuss vulnerability as part of human nature and its transformation in light of new risks given by science and technology from a (post)phenomenological perspective. In discussing such vulnerability, I will also show that it may be problematic for human beings to actually coexist with the newcomers

Author

• Shoji Nagataki, Chukyo University