Research

Explore our collection of articles on the leading megatrends in technology, politics, and society.

Filter: Technology

11

min

Digital facts and objectivity in the 'TrustTech Stack' and network ontology

How can the Stack and Bruno Latour's network ontology help to give a more positive conception of the construction of digital facts and objectivity?

5

min

Perspectives on the post-truth era

The 'enshittification' of society

9

min

FreedomLab commemorates its 500th article with a retrospective of its publication history

11

min

The narratives struggling to define the impact of AI on the labor market

High expectations, disillusionment, and realism—the usual players in AI predictions are all present

11

min

Forget about the (human) parents

Meet the cyborgs

12

min

The enhanced human: stronger, better, happier

Why we might all become centaurs according to transhumanists

10

min

The deficient animal: artificial by nature

And why the idea of helpful AI agents might be a misleading, anthropocentric notion

9

min

Genuine writing in the digital age

An inconvenient effort worth pursuing

14

min

The AI chips race (part II)

Chips are at the heart of the generative AI Stack

8

min

The AI chips race (part I)

How AI chips will determine future geopolitical events

9

min

The internet is in need of a transition

What the internet can learn from ongoing transitions in energy, mobility and food

12

min

Is Open Source AI a sham?

Why leading AI companies are currently engaging in both 'openwashing' and 'closedwashing' practices

12

min

The artisan versus the engineer: masters of the universe

What kind of skills should we (not) cultivate for generative AI?

8

min

We are the products of technological mediation

What the metaphor of the 'medium' can teach us about AI

13

min

The day the artificial became intelligent (is yet to come)

When we started to call intelligence a machine and the machine intelligent

5

min

Knit’s Island and the future of the metaverse

An immersive and fascinating documentary about life in a virtual world

10

min

The robots among us

About today’s master-slave dynamics with humanoids and chatbots

10

min

The age of the machine: emancipation or alienation of the human?

Understanding the role of machines in society

5

min

Short-sighted AI regulations miss the big picture

How can we ensure that AI is not only safe but also resonates with our broader norms and values?

14

min

Philosophical prompt engineering in an AI-driven world

Why philosophical questioning and the art of posing the right questions becomes more important because of generative AI

6

min

The enduring tool metaphor in AI discourse

About technology as a mere instrument to achieve human goals

15

min

Apple’s enduring quest for the disappearing computer

The next step into the era of spatial computing

3

min

The Indian Stack goes global

Is a decentralized, open-source Indian-European Stack emerging?

2

min

Will generative AI bring the productivity increases we need?

Information technology and the lack of corresponding increases in productivity

7

min

The future of inflation and interest rates

A long-term view on the drivers of inflation and monetary policy

2

min

Has AI become indistinguishable from life itself?

Developments in AI lead to new speculations about the role of technologies in the evolution of life.

16

min

Romantic robots: a new love paradigm

Will our society's progressive values lead us to embrace a new romantic paradigm?

13

min

ChatGPT and the place of the human being in an automated society

An unconventional reflection on Hannah Arendt’s philosophy

3

min

Learning to waste

All manufacturing produces waste, even the clean energy industry. Critical clean energy technologies – EV batteries, solar panels, wind turbine blades – lead to a massive problem with waste management

11

min

Pills, pills, pills

Sebastiaan Crul discusses the inevitability of techno-fixes in a world haunted by crises

AI regulations may see a Beijing effect

Is Europe too late to cause a Brussels effect on AI technology?

When the selfie becomes an avatar

How Instagram is preparing itself for the metaverse

Is Texas becoming too self-confident?

Texan rebellion is likely to shake up federal politics in the U.S.

Picking up the crypto pieces

Companies are on the lookout for opportunities during the crypto crash

Gen Z chooses anonymity over fame

Why are Gen Zers more likely to prefer online anonymity compared to millennials?

From labor to exploitation: the dark side of blockchain games

What does it take to create a flourishing virtual economy?

Resurrecting the dead in the digital era

Will deepfake videos, the latest and most versatile medium to eternalize the dead, impel us to regulate digital immortality?

Extending the self with Instagram's augmented-reality face filters

Are we moving towards a culture in which our digitally positioned self is more important than our actual self?

Technology on a leash

By sharing ownership and control with producers and governments, our smart devices are no longer what they seem

The rise of CBDCs

Pim Korsten gives a rundown on the opportunities and risks of the rise of central bank digital currencies.