Venue: TPM-Hall J, 31.A1.290

Unfortunately no lunch will be provided.

Presenter: Dr. Laurens Rook

Investigating the role of agent-mediated mimicry in negotiation training
I will present a laboratory experiment, in which participants negotiated with a conversational agent (or: chatbot) that mimicked and played back their own voice and/or facial expressions. This agent-based mimicry intervention boosted participants’ self-awareness, and led them to regulate their voice and facial expressions during follow-up negotiation. These results suggest that chatbots may be useful in agent-mediated negotiation training. Implications for future research will be addressed.

Venue: C1.060/hybrid

TBA

Venue: CEG HG 2.72 / Café Labs

The famous Handbook of Ethics, Values and Technological Design will be renewed for the second edition. The editors for this new edition are all from the Design for Values Institute’s community and want to gather feedback and input to take into their new version of the book. After the feedback session, we invite everyone for some drinks at Café Labs. Feel free to join the 8th of December where the editors will share a sketch of the directions of the new edition. It would be very valuable for them if you give feedback along questions like:

• What did you miss in the first edition?
• What can be improved in the second edition?
• What should we further build upon?
• Are there application areas and values that should definitely incorporated in the new edition?.

Please register here

Venue: TPM A1.370/Teams

The Cognitive Harm of Technological Niche Disruptions

The concepts of niche and niche construction are often portrayed in a favorable light, emphasizing processes that enhance the ‘suitability’ between organisms and their environments. However, this perspective risks overlooking instances where environmental changes may have detrimental effects, as recent scholars have highlighted. Following this promising line of research, we integrate insights from the philosophy of technology and niche construction theory to understand the cognitive harm related to technological niche disruptions. The foundation of our argument is that human niches are genuinely technological and, as such, sensitive to technological changes—whether innovations or exnovations—that interrupt or even overturn entrenched patterns of relating to or interacting with the environment. These technological niche disruptions exert pressure at both individual and societal levels, carrying the potential for significant cognitive harm, such as in relation to conceptual, epistemic, hermeneutical, or affective dimensions. We argue that such cognitive harm is often not inherent to the technological disruptions themselves but depends on the resources and abilities available to protect one’s niche from disruptions or to (re)construct it in their aftermath. At the same time, there is a stark inequality in how disruptive technologies affect individuals, their access to adaptive resources and abilities, as well as the social constraints that limit whose interests are considered in adaptation processes