Socio-Technological Futures and the Inner Self: Panel at the Inaugural Radical Futures Conference, May 2024

University College Cork will host the inaugural Radical Futures Conference from 8–9th May 2024. We are pleased to announce that the conference will have a panel discussion on Socio-Technological Futures and the Inner Self. Our panel will convene on Thursday 9th May at 15.20 in West Wing 9 (Main Quadrangle).

Digital technology is already part of our way of life. Its future is open and, at the same time, in crisis. AI is one of the examples that can show how the integration of technology into the human body challenges the liberal idea of what it means to be a "person". Personhood is emblematic as it also affects the phenomenological experience of an "inner self", which refers to human beings and their unmanifested thoughts, desires, intentions, and emotions. The inner self is seen as the realm of privacy, dignity, honour, integrity, and freedom of thought. Similarly, the inner self is where to locate notions of reflectiveness, authenticity, and authorship, each of which are undergoing a drastic transformation when seen in terms of changing technology.

At stake is the impenetrability of humans, going beyond more established ideas about the self as exploitable or to be commodified. Accordingly, this panel puts into focus the inner self and its open future, understood broadly as comprising topics like data, the digital, the rise of AI, neurotechnology, the ubiquity and everydayness of technology, freedom, personality, privacy, and human values. Aiming to facilitate meaningful discussions within the humanities, STS and law, our panel will critically approach the concept of the inner self, as a topic that is key to techno-scientific futures and as requiring a post-disciplinary analysis. Through this we hope to deepen and renew our collaborations with theorists, technologists, artists, and others whose work engages with different thoughts and practices relevant to our shared investigations. 

Panel Chair:

Talya Deibel (Senior Postdoctoral Researcher in the Law and the Inner Self Project, School of Law, UCC) 

Other panel members will include:

Felicitas Benziger (Postdoctoral Researcher in the Law and the Inner Self Project, School of Law, UCC) 

James Cuffe (Department of Sociology & Criminology, UCC & Principal Investigator of the CyberSocial Project)

Eric Deibel (Researcher/Lecturer, ADAPT/Social Sciences Institute, Maynooth University) 

Patrick O'Callaghan (School of Law, UCC & Principal Investigator of the Law and the Inner Self Project) 

Joel Walmsley (Department of Philosophy, UCC)

If you are attending the conference and this topic is of interest, please come along and join the discussion. In the meantime, if you have any questions, please contact us at lawinnerself@gmail.com