Экспертная площадка SKOLKOVO Start

Спикер: Ашраф Исмаил PhD, Cornell University

The US remains the most influential economy in the world. We will examine the debate surrounding the economic impact of the American electoral system, as well as the US Presidency's vast influence over the world economy. We will also critically examine how the ever-expanding powers of the US Executive Branch could bring about the end of American global hegemony and threatens the stability of the world economy.

 Лекция на английском языке

Спикер: Сиявеш Азери, PhD, University of Ottawa

Key Themes

1. Nature of Knowledge: The presentation argues that digitalization fundamentally alters the essence of knowledge. As knowledge becomes digitalized, it is externalized from the knower, leading to the commodification of knowledge as an "informational commodity." This shift challenges traditional views that tie knowledge acquisition to individual training.
2. Critical Perspective on Knowledge: Azeri critiques the classical epistemological definitions of knowledge, emphasizing that it should be viewed as a socio-historically specific activity rather than merely a collection of propositions. Knowledge is framed as a metabolic exchange between humans and nature, rooted in social relations.
3. Institutionalization of Knowledge Production: The presentation discusses the dual functions of institutions in knowledge production: standardizing socially produced knowledge and regulating its expansion by appropriating surplus knowledge. This institutionalization leads to qualitative changes in how knowledge is reproduced and preserved in modern capitalist societies.
4. Digital Age Implications: Azeri highlights the impact of digital tools on knowledge production, suggesting that they serve as gateways to subsume freely produced knowledge under institutional frameworks. The presentation raises questions about who benefits from the lowered costs of knowledge reproduction in the digital age. 
   

Спикер: Девин Вангерт, PhD Cambridge University 

Automation dominates today’s language of the future. In the imaginary of our global culture, it is a metonym of progress. In its utopian formulations, automation is the promise of less undesirable work, more money, and more free time. Conversely, it is also a projective surface for our anxieties about the future, sustaining dystopian fantasies about human isolation, massive job loss and economic precarity, and environmental devastation. In this lecture, titled “Automation All the Time,” Prof. Devin Wangert does not endorse one or the other set of fantasies about the future but discusses an often untreated premise in the discourse of automation—a premise that sustains both its utopian and dystopian imaginaries. Wangert will discuss how technological progress has now come to be understood as progress towards further automation. While this notion has become nearly self-evident today, Wangert will demonstrate how historiographical approaches to technological development have led many thinkers to pause or even outright reject the idea that technological advancement is synonymous with the production of automative technologies. Wangert’s lecture will use the history and philosophy of automation to create a space for reflection in which to analyze how automation became the site of anticipation connecting us to our possible futures.