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Digital Technologies and Human Consciousness: A Futures Workshop for Exploring Potential Implications

Published: 08 October 2024 Publication History

Abstract

Over the past decades, digital technologies have permeated many everyday tasks and practices, reshaping human behaviour and causing unintended consequences. The emergence of artificial intelligence, extended reality, brain-computer interfaces, and nanotechnology have increased the likelihood of a future in which the impact of digital technologies reaches an unprecedented degree by expanding human consciousness. As such, the societal implications of such developments require an urgent evaluation. In this workshop proposal, we suggest an approach based on the futures clinique method to identify drivers and obstacles of change and potential societal implications through different future scenarios of digitally induced altered states of consciousness (DIAL). The workshop’s contributions comprise novel future scenarios that will aid in identifying potential benefits of DIAL and strategies for mitigating risks. It will provide a platform for exploring the implications of these emerging technologies through a novel perspective (DIAL) that is not currently prominent in the discourse but must be considered to mitigate unintended consequences.

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        cover image ACM Other conferences
        Mindtrek '24: Proceedings of the 27th International Academic Mindtrek Conference
        October 2024
        358 pages
        ISBN:9798400718236
        DOI:10.1145/3681716
        Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for third-party components of this work must be honored. For all other uses, contact the Owner/Author.

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        Published: 08 October 2024

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        1. Future Technologies
        2. Futures Clinique
        3. Futures Table
        4. Futures Wheel
        5. Futures Workshop
        6. Scenario Planning

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