Knowledge & Technology

How has technology had an impact on collective memory and how knowledge is preserved?

What is the difference between “data”, “information” and “knowledge”?

To what extent is the internet changing what it means to know something?

In what sense, if any, can a machine be said to know something?

Does technology allow knowledge to reside outside of human knowers?

Does technology just allow us to arrange existing knowledge in different ways, or is this arrangement itself knowledge in some sense?

Have technological developments had the greatest impact on what we know, how we know, or how we store knowledge?

How are online or virtual communities similar to/different from “traditional” communities of knowers?

Do social networks reinforce our existing perspective rather than boosting our engagement with diverse perspectives?

What impact has the fact that English is the primary language of the internet had on knowledge sharing?

How has technology had an impact on how we browse, search and filter data and information? Can algorithms be biased?

Is big data creating a new cognitive paradigm?

How does technology extend or transform different modes of human cognition and communication?

To what extent are technologies, such as the microscope and telescope, merely extensions to the human senses, or do they introduce radically new ways of seeing the world?

Is artificial intelligence restricted to processing information or can it also allow machines to acquire knowledge?

How does computation help people to process data and information to gain knowledge?

What is the difference between computational thinking, algorithmic thinking and critical thinking?

How do the tools that we use shape the knowledge that we produce?

How might technology exacerbate or mitigate unequal access, and divides in our access, to knowledge?

Does the existence of the deep web influence our view on whether some knowledge should remain secret or largely inaccessible?

Should we hold people responsible for the applications of technologies they develop/create?

Are there situations where ignorance/lack of knowledge is an excuse for unethical behaviour?

On what criteria could we decide whether activities such as “hacktivism” are morally justifiable? To what extent have technological developments led to an increase in data being collected without people’s consent or when they are unaware that it is being collected?