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Luca M. Possati is a Tenured Assistant Professor at the University of Twente in the Netherlands, specializing in human-technology interaction. He also holds a senior researcher position with the international research program Ethics of Socially Disruptive Technologies (ESDiT).

Previously, he contributed to the global initiative New Humanism in the Time of Neurosciences and Artificial Intelligence (NHNAI).

Trained as a philosopher, he has held positions as a researcher and lecturer at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, the University of Porto in Portugal, and the Institut Catholique in France. He has also been an associate researcher with the Fonds Ricoeur and the EHESS (School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences).

His research focuses on the intersection of philosophy of technology, postphenomenology, and the psychology of technology, exploring how humans engage with and are shaped by technological systems. His methodological approach integrates insights from cognitive sciences, neuropsychoanalysis, design studies, and actor-network theory, allowing for a multidisciplinary analysis of the complex relationships between individuals, society, and technology. This combination of disciplines enables him to address both theoretical and practical questions about technology’s role in shaping human experience and behavior.

He has published numerous papers and books on phenomenology, and history of contemporary philosophy. He is the author of The Algorithmic Unconscious. How Psychoanalysis Helps in Understanding AI (Routledge, 2021).

You can find his cv here

This chapter, “The Double Identification: ChatGPT Through the Lens of Lacanian Psychoanalysis,”
delves into the interplay between human identity and artificial intelligence (AI) through Lacanian psychoanalysis, posing questions about identity definition and its relevance to AI understanding. It introduces the idea of ‘double identification’, where human and AI identities mirror each other. The study is split into two sections: a literature review and an exploration of Lacan’s concept of identity, followed by practical analysis of identification in ChatGPT via role playing. The goal is to comprehend AI’s self-identification and propose a psychoanalytically rooted, qualitative approach to AI’s emotional intelligence.

The central argument of this paper is that the frameworks of responsible innovation (RI) and technology assessment (TA) are rooted in an antiquated political and geopolitical paradigm, thus necessitating a conceptual overhaul. This argument is supported by two primary reasons. First, RI and TA are not neutral towards technological innovation; instead, they inherently align with a specific political and geopolitical model: the liberal world order (LWO). This model currently faces significant challenges and crises, which I investigated through a literature review of RI and TA and a subsequent political and geopolitical analysis. Second, the very essence of our technologies has dramatically transformed over the past 20 years. We now live in a world dominated by intricate global engineering systems that are not only political but also geopolitical in nature. These transnational systems influence the decisions and interactions of nations. The current LWO framework struggles to effectively grasp and manage these influential global systems. In addition, this paper presents a reinterpreted version of Rodrik’s trilemma. This reformulation was designed to consolidate and expand upon the insights already gained. It revisits the issues identified, emphasising the urgency of revamping both TA and RI, particularly in light of the unique challenges posed by the Anthropocene. As we embark on this reassessment, the invaluable insights from philosophical reflections should not be underestimated.

This paper intends to address social robotics from the Actor-network theory (ANT) perspective. Starting from the critique of Seibt’s approach and the distinction between anthropomorphing and sociomorphing, the paper proposes a new methodological approach based on ANT and negotiation concepts. This approach allows us to: a) assume a more symmetrical ontology in which robots are considered as social agents, like humans; b) consider all the interactional elements as of equal importance; and c) overcome the dualistic limit that is often imposed on social robotics studies, i.e., the tendency to consider only the one-to-one relationship, one man-one robot, inside the laboratory. Anthropomorphing and sociomorphing are the results of a negotiation process that cannot be reduced to a series of degrees of simulation, but must be understood as a complex interactional process between many agents and material mediations.

This paper concerns the role of the unconscious in technology. The central thesis is that there exists an experience of non-acceptance and failed incorporation of technology, which (a) does not depend on the technical engineering dimension of the artifact but (b) instead concerns the relationship between the human unconscious and the artifact. 

This book develops an original theoretical framework for understanding human-technology relations. The author’s approach, which he calls technoanalysis, analyzes artificial intelligence based on Freudian psychoanalysis, biosemiotics, and Latour’s actor-network theory.

Transhumanism is a general worldview that implies a certain evaluation of human nature and the relationship between human nature and technology. We can find transhumanist ideas in literature, art, cinema, but also in politics or science. 

Books

This book develops an original theoretical framework for understanding human-technology relations. The author’s approach, which he calls technoanalysis, analyzes artificial intelligence based on Freudian psychoanalysis, biosemiotics, and Latour’s actor-network theory.

How can we communicate with AI to determine shared values and objectives? And what, ultimately, do we want from machines? These are crucial questions in our world, where the influence of AI-based technologies is rapidly growing. Unconscious dynamics influence AI and digital technology and understanding them is essential to better controlling AI systems. This book’s unique methodology— which combines psychoanalysis, biosemiotics, and actor-network theory—reveals a radical reformulation of the problem of the human mind. Technoanalysis views the mind as a hybrid network of humans and nonhuman actants in constant interaction with one another. The author argues that human unconscious dynamics influence and shape technology, just as technology influences and shapes human unconscious dynamics. He proceeds to show how this conception of the relationship between the unconscious and technology can be applied to social robotics and AI.

Unconscious Networks will appeal to scholars and advanced students interested in philosophy of technology, philosophy of artificial intelligence, psychoanalysis, and science and technology studies.

“In this illuminating book, Luca M. Possati explores the unconscious dimension of Artificial Intelligence. Its main thesis is that in the age of big data and self-learning neural networks ‘machine behavior’ has become dark and impenetrable and is in need for interpretation. Combining Lacanian psychoanalysis and Latour’s actor-network theory the author offers an original and timely analysis of how we project our deepest desires in AI technologies and pleas for a new ‘subcortical AI’.”
Jos de Mul
Erasmus School of Philosophy, Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands

This book claims that continental philosophy gives us a new understanding of digital technology, and software in particular; its main thesis being that software is like a text, so it involves a hermeneutic process. A hermeneutic understanding of software allows us to explain those aspects of software that escape a strictly technical definition, such as the relationship with the user, the human being, and the social and cultural transformations that software produces. The starting point of the book is the fracture between living experience and the code. In the first chapter, the author argues that the code is the origin of the digital experience, while remaining hidden, invisible. The second chapter explores how the software can be seen as a text in Ricoeur’s sense. Before being an algorithm, code or problem solving, software is an act of interpretation. The third chapter connects software to the history of writing, following Kittler’s suggestions. The fourth chapter unifies the two parts of the book, the historical and the theoretical, from a Kantian perspective. The central thesis is that software is a form of reflective judgment, namely, digital reflective judgement.

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