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Big Data and Changing Concepts of the Human

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 June 2019

Carrie Figdor*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of Iowa, 260 English-Philosophy Building, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA. Email: carrie-figdor@uiowa.edu

Abstract

Big Data has the potential to enable unprecedentedly rigorous quantitative modeling of complex human social relationships and social structures. When such models are extended to non-human domains, they can undermine anthropocentric assumptions about the extent to which these relationships and structures are specifically human. Discoveries of relevant commonalities with non-humans may not make us less human, but they promise to challenge fundamental views of what it is to be human.

Type
Articles
Copyright
© Academia Europaea 2019 

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