Digital life: Global transformations after robotics, artificial intelligence and digital technologies

In this presentation, Anthony Elliott explores the rapidly changing relationship between society and technology. 3D printing, big data, supercomputers, robotics and artificial intelligence: these are sites of tremendous innovation and experimentation, and nowhere is their impact more plainly evident than in the transformed landscape of our daily lives.

Elliott argues that the age of digital technologies is transforming the spatial, temporal and affective constitution of social life. In today’s world, our immersion in global digital networks is creating new forms of social interaction with stunning new possibilities, but also colossal risks. The self in the digital age, according to Elliott, becomes an “experimental project”. From drones to driverless cars, from tele-robotics to robot hotels: digital technologies are transforming all aspects of our lives, from the most intimate aspects of personal relationships to the changing nature of work, employment and unemployment.