Abstract

In this lecture, I sketch the content and contours of a deliberately over-simplified contemporary fairytale which I refer to as the ‘Digital Enchantment’. It is comprised of three core tenets: digital solutionism, the absence of ill-effects doctrine, and the celebration of unfettered innovation as one of the noblest and highest callings of this present age. I will seek to unpack this fairytale to demonstrate its enduring, universal appeal, while highlighting the dangers of falling under its spell due to a continued failure to separate fantasy from reality. I argue that the challenge that we urgently face in navigating sweeping on-going digital transformation is to develop means for drawing on the power of the Enchantment’s appeal in ways that enable us to proceed in a more careful, deliberative and clear-eyed fashion in order to reap the best of human creativity that lies at the heart of innovation in the service of flourishing human communities.

Click here to view ‘Dispelling the Digital Enchantment’ directly on Media Hopper

The Centre for Technomoral Futures is a home for developing more constructive modes of innovation: innovation that preserves and strengthens human ties and capabilities; that builds more accessible and just paths to public participation in the co-creation of our futures; and that reinvests the power of technology into the repair, maintenance and care of our communities and our planet.

Click here for more info on the Centre for Technomoral Futures