„Are humans defining technology, or is technology defining humans”, asks Prof. Edward Lee in his 2020 book “The Coevolution – The Entwined Future of Humans and Machines”. 

Prof. Lee was our guest on Episode 03 of "IMAGINE - The Podcast, Rethinking Technology" and we had an intriguing conversation on the topic of “Digital Humanism”.

What is Digital Humanism? The Vienna Manifesto on Digital Humanism describes this movement and its necessity beautifully:

“Rather than allowing technology to shape people, we must shape technology according to human values and needs. We call for a Digital Humanism that describes, analyzes, and, most importantly, influences the complex interplay between technology and humanity to create a better society and a better life while upholding universal human rights.”

With Prof. Lee, a world renown expert on this topic who also served as a Senior Visiting Fellow with the new Digital Humanism Fellowship Program of the Viennese Institute for Human Sciences (IWM) in Cooperation with the Austrian Federal Ministry for Climate Action, we talked about questions like:

• What was your own motivation to go into your  line of work?
• What are common myths about AI you would like to debunk?
• Does the one who determines the language between man and machine also control the world?
• Is AI a utopia that can never reach the complexity of a human brain?
• In your books you talk about a symbiotic, not a parasitic relationship between humans and machines. What could that look like? 
• Only the partnership between humans and machines renders machines so valuable. Would a machine only world make the machines worthless?
• There are still many more things a machine cannot do compared to what it can do. What would you like an AI to be able to do it cannot do today?

We hope you enjoy this episode as much as we do!

Short Biography Prof. Edward Lee
Edward Lee is Distiguished Professor (Emeritus) in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley, and a recent Senior Visiting Fellow with the new Digital Humanism Fellowship Program of the Viennese Institute for Human Sciences (IWM) in Cooperation with the Austrian Federal Ministry for Climate Action. At Berkeley he runs the iCyPhy, a research center focused on industrial cyber-physical systems. He is also author of “Plato and the Nerd” (published by MIT press) and other books.

Concept and Production: Ursula Eysin & Xaver Kettele - Red Swan
Music: Georg Hartwig
Additional Recording: Brayden Medlin

IMAGINE - Der Podcast, Rethinking Technology ist eine Initiative des österreichischen Bundesministeriums für Klimaschutz, Umwelt, Energie, Mobilität, Innovation und Technologie mit der gezeigt wird, welch großartige Projekte und Forscher:innen es im Bereich der digitalen Technologien in Österreich gibt.