标签：Introduction to Philosophy of Technology

Undergraduate General Education Course: “A General History of Technology”

Teaching & Courses2018.02.24
Undergraduate General Education Course: “A General History of Technology”
This semester (Spring 2018), I will be offering an undergraduate elective at Tsinghua: *General History of Technology*. Basic Course Information Course number: 00691572 Time: Every Tuesday, period 4 (15:20–16:55) Note: Classes start on February 27 Location: Building 4, Room 4202 Assessment: Reading notes / short paper + open-book final exam Note: I hope every student can write a relatively complete paper (more than 6,000 Chinese characters), but past experience shows that many students still lack adequate academic training, and the papers handed in are often a miserable patchwork. So this time I am considering allowing reading notes, with a more flexible format, to substitute for the paper; but students who…
China technology history of science course
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2018年2月24日
An Interview on Science and Technology in the Magazine China Youth

AI & the Future of Technology2018.01.24
An Interview on Science and Technology in the Magazine China Youth
This is a written interview that was published in the first issue of China Youth magazine in 2018. When it was published, it seems several questions were deleted, but the answers that were used were scarcely edited at all (especially the last answer), though a few sentences were added for me in a couple of places. Here I am posting the original version. 1、By the end of June 2017, among the world’s top ten internet companies by market capitalization, five were Chinese, and among the world’s 221 emerging “unicorn” companies, Chinese firms accounted for nearly 30 percent. In contemporary China, technological力量 represented by the “new four great inventions” (high-speed rail,…
China technology history of science philosophy of science
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2018年1月24日
Is the threshold for “learning” Bitcoin higher? — Also on the Different Levels of Technical Knowledge

Web3 & Bitcoin2017.02.19
Is the threshold for “learning” Bitcoin higher? — Also on the Different Levels of Technical Knowledge
Recently on Weibo I again mentioned the issue of the learning threshold for Bitcoin: People always say Bitcoin has a high threshold and is hard to learn, and even some Bitcoin enthusiasts say so too. I think this is grossly misleading. In fact, it is not Bitcoin that has a high threshold, but old knowledge that has a high threshold, to the point that people who know a lot of old knowledge are unwilling to lower themselves and admit their own ignorance in order to learn new knowledge. If everyone were starting from zero, would understanding Bitcoin’s principles really be harder than learning all those M1, M2, interest-rate cuts, reserve-ratio…
philosophy technology Web3 Bitcoin
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2017年2月19日
Why Fear Artificial Intelligence? — Some Musings on AlphaGo

AI & Scholarship2016.03.13
Why Fear Artificial Intelligence? — Some Musings on AlphaGo
AlphaGo’s Go battle with Lee Sedol is now underway, and artificial intelligence has won 3:0; two honor matches remain, but the outcome is basically beyond doubt already. Whatever the final score may be, the historical significance of this match is beyond question. The significance of this match is mainly symbolic. In fact, since AlphaGo already defeated the European Go champion last year, proving that its Go-playing strength had reached the level of a professional player, its total victory over humans was only a matter of time. Of course, we might also say that ever since Deep Blue dominated chess, the AI conquest of Go had only been a “matter of…
philosophy technology history of science commentary
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2016年3月13日
Inner Bodily Consciousness

AI & the Future of Technology2015.01.22
Inner Bodily Consciousness
Embodiment is an important concept brought to us by phenomenology, but in the hands of analytic philosophers or cognitive scientists it often becomes reified. The reason for this is, on the one hand, that the very terminology of “embodiment” has already turned the concept into a fixed term (I don’t like this term, especially its Chinese translation); on the other hand, some scholars have given “body” a reified understanding, focusing their attention on the slab of flesh there before them in reality, and thereby turning the problem of embodiment into a problem “about the body.” Thinking of the analyses of time by phenomenologists such as Husserl and Heidegger, we must…
philosophy technology phenomenology Introduction to Philosophy of Technology
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2015年1月22日
An Introduction to the Historiography of the General History of Technology

AI & the Future of Technology2014.08.01
An Introduction to the Historiography of the General History of Technology
Introduction to the Historiography of the General History of Technology //Note: this article has not yet been completed. I am only giving Wu laoshi an account in advance during the discussion… Next I will flesh out the concept of “the history of technological thought” a bit more. 1. A Survey of Western Research on the History of Technology In the English-speaking world, the history of technology as an academically institutionalized discipline roughly began in the 1950s. Its markers were the publication of the monumental Oxford edition of A History of Technology (Volumes 1 through 5 were published in 1954–1958, the last two volumes in 1978, and the general index of…
culture technology media history
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2014年8月1日
Toys, Mirrors, and Art (Reflections on a Seminar and a Preview)

AI & the Future of Technology2013.09.24
Toys, Mirrors, and Art (Reflections on a Seminar and a Preview)
Today’s seminar featured, in addition to the originally scheduled report by Zhe Ran, another report volunteered by Jing Qi, who commented on Wu Ningning’s “Hansen’s Mirror.” Since I had also, in my Lushan Conference Travelogue, offered some elaborations on Wu Ningning’s research, I brought my own elaborations into the seminar as well for discussion. Jing Qi’s presentations have been improving more and more. I used to criticize him all the time for using too much jargon, but that has gradually changed quite a bit. This time I criticized him for presenting “Hansen’s Mirror” in an overly mystical way; that was aimed at the specific point being made. Overall, as for…
technology phenomenology Introduction to Philosophy of Technology self
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2013年9月24日
Why Do I Say Nokia Will Become the Next Kodak

AI & the Future of Technology2012.01.21
Why Do I Say Nokia Will Become the Next Kodak
Kodak has filed for bankruptcy protection. Although it has not yet truly gone bankrupt and still hopes to rise again, the chances are probably slim. Nokia’s situation is in some ways similar to Kodak’s. Both were old firms that dominated the market for a century, and both were undone by the very new technologies they themselves helped develop, weighed down by the burden of their own success. Kodak did not fail to try to adapt to the new trend, but it did not succeed; Nokia is now placing its bet on Windows Phone, hoping to make a desperate comeback with Microsoft’s support. Is there any chance that, by self-amputating all…
technology media internet Introduction to Philosophy of Technology
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2012年1月21日
From Technical Code to Virtue Ethics: Table or Div? — Starting from the Ministry of Railways Ticketing Website

AI & the Future of Technology2012.01.05
From Technical Code to Virtue Ethics: Table or Div? — Starting from the Ministry of Railways Ticketing Website
The Ministry of Railways has finally rolled out an online ticketing system, and that alone is worth encouraging. Of course, it is debatable whether moving the advance-sale period for online tickets up by two days is a good idea; for migrant workers and other vulnerable groups who lack access to the internet, this is not very fair. I have already booked train tickets on this website three times (the first two times were round trips to the Winter Solstice conference), and each time I ran into one problem or another. Even when the Winter Solstice conference was still very much in the off-season for train tickets, I still encountered network…
China technology media commentary
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2012年1月5日
On the Final Essay Question in the General History of Science Course: “The Key Machine of the Industrial Age Was Not the Steam Engine but the Clock”

AI & the Future of Technology2011.12.23
On the Final Essay Question in the General History of Science Course: “The Key Machine of the Industrial Age Was Not the Steam Engine but the Clock”
This time, since the usual workload was increased substantially, the final exam was relatively easier. Apart from the traditional term-definition questions—which have been raised to 14—there was only one essay question. Counted toward the total score, the essay question was worth the equivalent of 12 points, so one might roughly say it was the fourth short paper. 2. Essay question (30 points): citations must be proper (if you cite at all); plagiarism is forbidden. Why is it said that “the key machine of the industrial age was not the steam engine but the clock” (Mumford)? This final short paper also required proper citation, but after all, since this was an…
technology Introduction to Philosophy of Technology Wu Guosheng McLuhan
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2011年12月23日