{"id":130792,"date":"2021-08-26T19:45:27","date_gmt":"2021-08-26T17:45:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ffos.unios.hr\/science-portal\/aesthetics-laboratory-of-the-faculty-of-humanities-and-social-sciences\/tehnosfera\/"},"modified":"2026-09-25T15:45:19","modified_gmt":"2026-09-25T13:45:19","slug":"technosphere","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.ffos.unios.hr\/en\/science-portal\/aesthetics-laboratory-of-the-faculty-of-humanities-and-social-sciences\/technosphere\/","title":{"rendered":"Technosphere"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"What is the Technosphere? What kind of radical paradigm shift in thought does it represent, one that, in this highly technologised world, no longer submits to the old metaphysical view of the world? What is meant when we say that, within the Technosphere, what is at stake is the \u201cimmanent transcendence\u201d of life itself? In the words of our guest, within the Technosphere \u201ceverything is in constant transformation and nothing has a permanent essence any longer.\u201d The Technosphere \u201c\u2026has no fixed goals and no purposeful history. Its driving force is information.\u201d What, then, can we expect from artificial mind, that is, artificial intelligence and artificial life, which, thanks precisely to this binary phenomenon \u2013 at once miraculous and monstrous \u2013 information, inevitably emerge and develop within the Technosphere? Is information truly the key concept of the age in which we live\u2026? And finally, what is the aim of artificial intuition, one of the author\u2019s most intriguing expressions, perhaps the greatest challenge to everything human\u2026?<\/p>\n

EVENTS<\/h2>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

EstLab Forum: Media and Technology: The End of Society or the End of Media? \u2013 guest Assoc. Prof. Mario Hibert, PhD<\/strong> (24 May 2023)<\/h3>\n

YouTube recording of the event: https:\/\/youtu.be\/coejYmZV98w<\/a><\/p>\n

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Image generated using the NightCafe AI image generator at https:\/\/creator.nightcafe.studio\/ with the keywords: media, technology, misinformation, post-truths, \u201cthe collapse of our society\u201d, \u201csocial networks\u201d.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On Wednesday, 24 May 2023, the EstLab Forum<\/strong> entitled \u201cMedia and Technology<\/strong>\u201d was held in the Small Ceremonial Hall of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Osijek, organised by the Technosphere section of the Faculty\u2019s Aesthetic Laboratory and the FUZ&JA<\/strong> science popularisation programme. The invited guest was Mario Hibert<\/strong>, Associate Professor at the Department of Comparative Literature and Library Science at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Sarajevo. Professors of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences and members of the Aesthetic Laboratory Milijana Mi\u010dunovi\u0107<\/strong> and Boris Badurina<\/strong> also participated in the discussion, with Boris Bosan\u010di\u0107<\/strong> acting as moderator.<\/p>\n

The introductory part of the forum reflected on the rapid, and in certain segments invasive, development of information and communication technology over the past seventy years, which has ultimately led to the unprecedented penetration of digital media<\/strong> (online portals, social media, etc.) into every aspect of human life. In this way, digital media have become the most powerful and influential factor in contemporary society.<\/p>\n

As M. McLuhan<\/strong> warned us long ago, media are not merely intermediaries of communication but encompass all forms of technology. In other words, an equality sign should be placed between these two concepts. This kind of equivalence suggests that information and media (digital) literacy<\/strong> represents far more than access to, analysis, evaluation, creation and distribution of information in different media forms. Understanding information and communication technologies as forces within a new ecosystem also means extending the semiotic understanding of literacy to the cognitive level of the ability to comprehend the technological environment. By introducing the discussion of the \u201coperating systems of our lives\u201d through this media-ecological perspective, the aim is to emphasise the importance of moving away from an instrumental paradigm \u2013 the skills of using media\/technologies \u2013 toward questions of how to live in relation to an environment that replaces critical thinking with the automation of meaning and significance. The fact that, instead of a radically open social imaginary, we have received the implosion of neoliberal globalisation, and have replaced cyber-idealism with cyber-cynicism<\/strong>, means that any discussion about media\/technology today should essentially be nothing other than a reminder of the collapse of sociality brought about by the emergence of platform-based disciplining and algorithmic data extraction<\/strong>, the behavioural surplus of on-life<\/em> existence.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The forum also addressed the concepts of algorithmisation<\/strong> and disruption<\/strong>, particularly how the \u201cinvisible algorithmic hand\u201d<\/strong> operates within the media space and how capitalism has become involved in the entire process. In other words, the discussion also considered how today\u2019s platform and surveillance capitalism<\/strong>, focused on data extraction and the manipulation of user attention, affects fundamental democratic norms and institutions. Phenomena closely related to social media were also discussed, such as confirmation bias<\/strong> and its role in politics, as well as the unavoidable phenomenon of post-truth<\/strong>, described as the worst product of general mediatisation.<\/p>\n

In the final part of the forum, the discussion also considered whether technological development, which has granted media immense power, might now take that power away in light of the recent shocking development of artificial intelligence<\/strong>, currently at the forefront of technological development. The present situation with media is such that they are finding it increasingly difficult to cope with the negative consequences of their own technology-driven development, manifested in the proliferation of inaccurate, false and malicious information, post-truths, half-truths and similar content within the media space<\/strong>. Artificial intelligence<\/strong> can multiply such content indefinitely while at the same time being unable to recognise it as inaccurate, false or malicious. Whether such a situation could, in the near or distant future, result in one of the worst possible scenarios \u2013 the collapse of our society, or perhaps of the media themselves<\/strong> \u2013 remains an open question.<\/p>\n

Boris Bosan\u010di\u0107 and Mario Hibert<\/p>\n