自由、真理與民主於科技時代

Recent years have seen spectacular advances in digital technologies, as well as promising developments in neurotechnologies (such as brain-computer interfaces), which no doubt hold the potential to greatly benefit society. At the same time, these new tools can also amplify various threats to societal well-being, as they can be used to spread misinformation and manipulate people’s beliefs and emotions, sometimes with the goal of interfering with elections in democratic countries (Taiwan being a case in point, given its status as a target of Chinese Communist “cognitive warfare”); as well as to indoctrinate people into particular ideologies (whether religious or political), especially in authoritarian countries. Parallel to that, some describe liberal democracies like the United States as having reached a “post-truth” stage, where people are more inclined to distrust experts who make claims they don’t like, and to uncritically accept assertions made by members of their own social and political “bubble”, leading to a socially fragmented picture of reality, and increasing the risk of irrational thought and behaviour on a large scale. This course will get students to reflect on how the core values of truth, freedom, human rights and democracy can be safeguarded in the face of these threats in their contemporary form (while fully respecting students’ diversity of opinion on those matters), and on how to successfully negotiate any tensions that might arise between those different values. Students will be invited to challenge their own preconceptions, and to achieve a deeper understanding of basic rights like freedom of speech and thought, but also of socially contested notions like fake news, manipulation, indoctrination, hate speech, and cognitive warfare. This will give them the tools to reliably identify real-life examples of such practices, in a manner that is neither relativistic in nature nor ideologically biased. It will also help them appreciate what a consistent commitment to freedom of speech and thought entails (including with regards to views that they disapprove of), thus ideally helping them become more responsible citizens of a liberal democratic society. Finally, the course will promote students’ proficiency in English.

English language skills Basic critical thinking skills

The class will be taught in-person, and in hybrid mode if needed to accommodate students based on the Hsinchu campus. Each session will dedicate one hour overall to lecturing (with .ppt slides) and one hour to student presentations and group discussion, although these two parts will intermingle rather than being fully separate. Readings & lecture slides (+, if students request & consent to it, recordings of each session) will be posted on the course page on the E3 platform. Google Meet will be used if the course needs to be held in hybrid mode.

Oral presentation & written assignment: 35% Students will do an oral presentation (alone or in groups) on a question related to one of the topics covered in the course, and they will produce a written assignment of 1,200 to 1,500 words long on the topic of their oral presentation, to be discussed in class Final Exam: 35% 2-hour long written exam, to be taken in class. “Open-book exam” (access to some resources but no internet) Participation: 30% Attendance, completion of required readings & participation in discussion

Textbook List: No textbook will be required for this course, although students will be encouraged to read J. S. Mill’s famous work On Liberty (1859), as well as the entirety of Nigel Warburton’s book Free Speech: a Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). Required readings for the course: • Bjørgul, L. K. “Cognitive Warfare and the Use of Force”. Stratagem, 3 November 2021. URL = https://www.stratagem.no/cognitive-warfare-and-the-use-of-force/. • Brison, S. “Hate Speech”. In: LaFollette, H. (ed.), The International Encyclopedia of Ethics. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013, pp. 2332-2342. • Cassam, Q. “Bad Thinkers”. Aeon, 13 March 2015. URL = https://aeon.co/essays/the-intellectual-character-of-conspiracy-theorists. • Chellapah, N. “Mill, Free Speech, & Social Media”. Philosophy Now 151 (2022), pp. 34-37. URL = https://philosophynow.org/issues/151/Mill_Free_Speech_and_Social_Media. • Clabaugh, G. K. “Education or Indoctrination: Is There a Difference?”. Educational Horizons, 86:1 (2007), pp. 6-9. • Grawitch, M. “AI Has Serious Implications for Choice Architecture”. Psychology Today, 5 October 2022. URL = https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/hovercraft-full-eels/202210/ai-has-serious-implications-choice-architecture. • Hetherington, W. “China Shifts Cognitive Warfare Tactics: Study”. Taipei Times, 2 August 2022. URL = https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2022/08/02/2003782829. • Lee, S.-F. & Fung, B. C. M. “Artificial Intelligence May Not Actually Be the Solution for Stopping the Spread of Fake News”. The Conversation, 28 November 2021. URL = https://theconversation.com/artificial-intelligence-may-not-actually-be-the-solution-for-stopping-the-spread-of-fake-news-172001. • Niemiec, E. “Covid-19 and Misinformation”. EMBO Reports 21 (2020), e51420. • Noggle, R. “How to Tell the Difference Between Persuasion & Manipulation”. Aeon, 1 August 2018. URL = https://aeon.co/ideas/how-to-tell-the-difference-between-persuasion-and-manipulation. • Parrish, S. “How Filter Bubbles Distort Reality”. Farnam Street Blog. URL = https://fs.blog/filter-bubbles/. • Rini, R. “Deepfakes Are Coming. We Can No Longer Believe What We See”. New York Times, 10 June 2019. URL = https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/10/opinion/deepfake-pelosi-video.html. • Sterken, R. K., Pepp, J. & Michaelson, E. “What Fake News Is and Why That Matters”. Public Ethics, 16 July 2021. URL = https://www.publicethics.org/post/what-fake-news-is-and-why-that-matters. • Tan, C. “Indoctrination”. In: Phillips, D. C. (ed.), Encyclopedia of Educational Theory and Philosophy. Thousand Oaks, C.A.: Sage Publications, 2014, pp. 413-415. • Toews, R. “Deepfakes Are Going to Wreak Havoc on Society. We Are Not Prepared.” Forbes, 25 May 2020. URL = https://www.forbes.com/sites/robtoews/2020/05/25/deepfakes-are-going-to-wreak-havoc-on-society-we-are-not-prepared/?sh=360cc0507494. • Tollon, F. “From Nudge to Hypernudge”. 3 Quarks Daily, 28 September 2020. URL = https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2020/09/from-nudge-to-hypernudge-big-data-and-human-autonomy.html. • Yu, T.-C. “Winning Against Cognitive Warfare”. Taipei Times, 9 February 2020. URL = https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2020/02/09/2003730624. • Waelen, R. “AI & Manipulation: the Ethical Questions”. Rathenau Instituut blog, 8 April 2022. URL = https://www.rathenau.nl/en/digitalisering/ai-and-manipulation-ethical-questions. • Warburton, N. Free Speech: a Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009 (selected chapters). Recommended readings: • Brison, S. J. & Gelber, K. (eds.) Free Speech in the Digital Age. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019. • Cassam, Q. “Epistemic Vices and Conspiracy Theories”. Blog of the APA, 28 February 2018. URL = https://blog.apaonline.org/2018/02/28/epistemic-vices-and-conspiracy-theories/. • De Ruyter, A. “The Distinct Wrong of Deepfakes”. Philosophy & Technology 34 (2021), pp. 1311-1332. • Herman, E. S. & Chomsky, N. Manufacturing Consent: the Political Economy of the Mass Media. New York: Pantheon Books, 1988. • Hung, T.-C. & Hung, T.-W. “How China’s Cognitive Warfare Works: a Frontline Perspective of Taiwan’s Anti-Disinformation Wars”. Journal of Global Security Studies 7:4 (2022), ogac016. • Jongepier, F. & Klenk, M. (eds.). The Philosophy of Online Manipulation. New York: Routledge, 2022. • Mill, J. S. On Liberty. Kitchener, Ont.: Batoche Books, 2001 (originally published in 1859). • Miller, S. “Cognitive Warfare: an Ethical Analysis”. Ethics and Information Technology 25 (2023), art. no. 46. • Nix, N., Johnson, C. Y., & Zakrewski. “Changing Facebook's Algorithm Won't Fix Polarization, New Study Finds”. The Washington Post, 27 July 2023. URL = https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/07/27/social-media-research-meta-political-views/. • Noggle, R. “The Ethics of Manipulation”. In: Zalta, E. N. (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2022 Edition). URL = https://plato.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/encyclopedia/archinfo.cgi?entry=ethics-manipulation. • Pariser, E. The Filter Bubble: How the Personalized Web Is Changing What We Read and How We Think. New York, N.Y.: Penguin Books, 2012. • Rini, R. “Fake News and Partisan Epistemology”. Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 27:2 (2017), pp. E43-E64. • Snook, I. A. “The Concept of Indoctrination”. Studies in Philosophy and Education 7 (1970), pp. 65-108. • Thaler, R. H. & Sunstein, C. Nudge: The Final Edition. New York: Penguin Books, 2021. • Yeung, K. “‘Hypernudge’: Big Data as a Mode of Regulation by Design”. Information, Communication & Society 20:2 (2017), pp. 118-136. • Zuboff, S. The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: the Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power, New York: PublicAffairs, 2019. Finally, the documentary The Great Hack (2019) will be shown and discussed in class.

地點

Office 315, Zhi Xing Bldg

時間

By appointment

聯絡方式

alexerler@nycu.edu.tw