Autonomy and Control: The Broader Implications of Digitalization

Dear Colleagues,

Artificial intelligence technology is challenging us on what it means to be human, what gives us value and what it means to control our own actions (Strümke, 2023). The phenomena and concepts of autonomy and control including subjectivity, humanity, human value, alienation, consciousness, choice, critique and ethics are emergent; thus, we need to build languages that can be shared across disciplinary walls and arrive at a situation where the same walls will be taken down in order to arrive at socio-political visions translatable in a policy vision of both social sustainability—inclusion and justice—and natural or green sustainability. Creating and sustaining such interdisciplinarity is a tall epistemic order between the humanities, the social sciences and STEM, implying shifting paradigms of thought, allowing science that runs across disciplines and amounts to social and technological change and establishing a shared societal and philosophical goal. The aim of this Special Issue on the broader implications of digitalization is to elaborate on and respond to this epistemic challenge and explore how science and scholarship can examine and define its horizon of goals and expectations (Russell and Norvig, 2021). Creating a shared and generic language and, through this, laying the foundation for future communication between disciplines, breaking down barriers that impede scientific progress and creative invention, allow for direct policy action and the shaping of public discourse. The key areas of this Issue include, but are not limited to, the following: topical research exploring and identifying shared interdisciplinary questions; methodological explorations of linguistic, epistemic and philosophical issues across and between disciplines; the development of a perspectivist ethos promoting rich epistemologies relevant to norms and values promoted in policies and practices of digitalization; political and socio-economic research on a) twin transition (green and economic), democracy, and equity and b) justice, automation and inclusion with a special focus on the adverse effects in terms of economy and social justice concerning the less advantaged.

Prof. Dr. Anne Beate Reinertsen
Prof. Dr. Katarina Kolozova
Prof. Dr. Iris van der Tuin
Topic Editors