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michel.puech@paris-sorbonne.fr
18th International Conference of the
Society for Philosophy and Technology
ISEG, Technical University of Lisbon, Portugal
July 4-6, 2013
On the Phenomenology and Ethics of
“Smart” Technology
made on a PC with LibreOffice
funded by ETOS / TEM Research / Institut Telecom, Paris

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the meaning of “smart”
smartphone, smart grids (power supply), smart
cars, smart cities and environments, smart
software and web sites, and so on
a lot of studies about the social consequences of
mobile telephony
Ling 2004, Glotz et al. 2005, Ling & Donner 2009: state
of the art; Goggin 2006 chap. 6: mobile (moral) panic
few studies (or none) philosophically address the
meaning of the notion of smart

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the meaning of “smart”
just a marketing imposture? (yes)
gadgets that provide 10 minutes fun
95 % of smartphone apps are gadget or junk
but:
quite normal in a Darwinian
evolution process
phenomenologically interesting
anyway:
the wow effect!

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the meaning of “smart”
just a word?
a linguistic epiphenomenon, a dictionary subentry?
OED :
“informal: having or showing a quick-witted intelligence: if he
was that smart he would never have been tricked
(of a device) programmed so as to be capable of some
independent action: hi-tech smart weapons
chiefly North American: showing impertinence by making
clever or sarcastic remarks: don’t get smart or I’ll whack you
one”
very little analysis of what “smartness” exactly is for
an artifact
and what it means for the person in contact with it

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the meaning of “smart”
we have moved from (artificial) “intelligence” to
“smart”
crucial difference?
smart is ordinary
how quickly miraculous technologies become ordinary
and even necessary (Katz 2008: 3)
no human-like Artificial Intelligence, no supra-human
Singularity
but smart devices, small and affordable, irresistibly user-
friendly
from a (miraculous)
governing/dominating/controlling global intelligence
to a ordinary service-driven local smart devices
(Hawk and al. 2008)
notion of “smartifact” (Ma et al. 2005)

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smartphone as the paradigmatic smartifact
“smartphone” = handset able to
1) connect to networks via 3G, wifi, and/or similar
the telephone side
2) run applications (“apps” = software) using at
least screen and keyboard
the computer side

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smartphone as the paradigmatic smartifact
why “smart”?
shazam → wow! - http://www.shazam.com
“Tap the Shazam button to instantly
tag, and then - explore, buy, share
and comment.”
automatic
picking up of incoming calls when
the phone is moved up to the ear
“eye scroll” tracking to scroll down the pages as the
user is reading

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smartphone as the paradigmatic smartifact
why the smartest artifact?
1) convergence
a Swiss-army-knife device
multistability and maybe more →
the smart is the principal and the best:
the smartphone is the principal and the best:
phone
pager, short text sending device (including short emails)
emergency call lifeline and global safety pager
camera (for fun, or police violence recording)
radio receiver and mobile music player
GPS and maps collection
public transportation timetable and real-time tracker
notebook
appointments calendar and reminder
alarm clock and wristwatch
dictionary and language assistance
portable encyclopedia
portable video-game pad
voice recorder
very short text reading device (news feeds)
mirror (front-camera) for make-up or detecting salad remnants between teeth
and is second (to a good laptop
computer only) for:
long email or long text
writing/reading
Web browsing (including
online shopping)
theater-like film experience

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smartphone as the paradigmatic smartifact
why the smartest artifact?
2) wearability
pocket-wearability is a requirement of the smart
wearable like: glasses, wristwatches, keys, USB sticks
mobility is smart
⇒ the mobile phone is smarter than the laptop (with
comparable functions) because it is more mobile
from furniture to gear
when you move a desktop computer you move the
furniture
when you move with a laptop computer you move with a
piece of furniture in a bag
when you move with a smartphone you just move, with
clothes on and having your life-gear with you
the current limit to wearable smartness: the battery

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smartphone as the paradigmatic smartifact
why the smartest artifact?
3) technological transparency
the phone shifts from 3G to wifi,
from app to Web, from SMS to
email, as transparently as it
shifts from one relay emitter to
another, from one corporate- or
public-owned network to another,
from one version of its OS to
another updated one
→ THE service/control problem
apps installation and operations are (dangerously) done
by back-office inaccessible routines
the Apple standard ≠ the open source standard (Zittrain
2009)
the Master Switch (Wu 2011)

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smartphone as the paradigmatic smartifact
key smart app: texting
SMS, Short Message Service (technically not an app)
the most important and specific use of mobile
phone
according to empirical and conceptual surveys
specific characters of the smart in texting:
1. user-invented service, huge success unanticipated by
designers
2. low-tech inside a high-tech environment
3. virtually free and unlimited
4. opt-in real-time
5. apparent low implication for the emitter, potential high
impact for the receiver

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phenomenology of the smart
focus on the existential experience of the
smartphone:
service
the notion of “service” is a mantra in marketing and R&D
departments, but seldom heard in the humanities
smart is a characteristic of service providing
devices
service ⇒ context awareness, to assure relevance
popping up just at the right time is smart, irrelevant
solicitations are dumb (“Do you really want to exit this
program?”)

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phenomenology of the smart
2 examples:
on a smartphone app, what is the key or menu
command to display the keyboard on the screen?
there is none, the keyboard is displayed when you need
it, e.g. when you are about to fill a text input area
natural gesture (inherited from mouse and click
culture) using Windows 7 with an external
monitor/projector added
to the laptop screen

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phenomenology of the smart
smartness = the perfect service?
it can help in everything, in unanticipated ways
the essence of the device and of the device paradigm
(Borgmann 1984 chap. 9)
the universal remote control (Rheingold 2002)
remote control of other devices, of the world of objects, of other
humans, of oneself (auto-discipline)
= the magic wand
the “promise of technology” at its best: a magic toy
Fortunati in Glotz 2005, commenting Hickman 1988: a
“magic helper” in the sense of Propp (fairy tales and
mythology)

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phenomenology of the smart
body and embodiment
pocket-wearability brings about a near-embodiment
experience
2 ways are being explored for more embodiment:
wristwatch (Apple)
glasses (Google)
→ “part of one's sense and presentation of self” (Goffman
1959)... like glasses
common name in Finnish for the mobile phone:
”känny” or ”kännykkä” ≈ “an extension of the hand.”
“almost a body part” (Oksman 2002)
a “proper-body” part?
“corps propre”, Merleau-Ponty →

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phenomenology of the smart
lifeworld→ the proximal infosphere
3 infospheres: proximal / distal / global
proximal: an intimate technosphere, transitional
between the self and the world, the self and others
not as intimate as mental awareness and self-presence
not as mediated as the use of a non-embodied device
(such as a landline phone or a desktop computer)

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phenomenology of the smart
→ the smartifact as the Teddy, Nanky, cuddly toy,
comfort blanket, “binky", “pacifier”, and so on
not only a disparaging remark about our childish
addiction the smartphone
→ a reference to Winnicott's theory of the
transitional object
its function in the psychological development of the child
(Winnicott 1971)
why not a costly iPhone instead of a plastic blue rabbit or
worn-out rag?
1) the existential intermediate position is key to the
transitional function: it all happens in a “potential space”,
at the interface between the self and the world
2) the “service” is important: a reassuring presence in the
background

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phenomenology of the smart
one major development of this approach:
attachment theory in contemporary psychology
Bowlby 1969
internalization of reassurance in the “secure” self
attachment to objects and artifacts?
→ a caregiving function (mediating attachment figures)
→ m-caregiving
in which the original parental caregiver is implied
she gives the first phone to start with
and it is (as Winnicott's transitional object) the first object
(of value) possessed by the child!

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phenomenology of the smart
another track: affective computing
next wearable smart devices will probably use sensors
(and software) to analyze our emotional states
Picard 1995: a wearable affective (“sentic”) intelligent agent
a logic of service: smarter because emotion sensitive
enhancing the m-device by enhancing the range and depth of its
interface with the self
≠ humanizing the machine in giving it emotional states

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phenomenology of the smart
time
the dual time of Technosapiens existence
1) r-time, real physical time
2) e-time, the time of digital networks and flows
the smartphone is the tool for the coordination of
everyday life
by interweaving these two timelines (Ling 2004 chap. 4;
Ling & Campbell 2009)
the management of appointments and coordinate activities is
now informal and real-time, a
deep change in our
experience of social time
frequent situation:
management of a dual
conversation, one online
(texting) and one IRL

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phenomenology of the smart
space and location
not an “avatar” in a “Second Life”
but proximal infosphere
a body in the real life, with a connection device in hand,
pocket or bag
the point of presence of the self in the digital flows is
embodied in the hybrid self+smartphone
in a complex environment
the prefixes saga:
e- for electronic, m- for mobile, u- for ubiquitous
ubiquitous computing community: a “smart world”, largest
dimension of the smart (Ma et al. 2005)
“ambient intelligence” of u-computing: a moral environment
(Verbeek 2011 chap. 6)

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phenomenology of the smart
location-dependent services:
service + surveillance (THE problem)
being situated in e-space means inseparably
(1) access to smart services
(2) integral surveillance by the network
the debate seems to be more about “how to adapt”
than about “how to change”

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phenomenology of the smart
the others (humans)
proximal infosphere: remote presence of/with the
others
Ling & Donner 2009: 143 “the real-time social sphere”
which others?
every known person is in one's smartphone directory
(including the list of not-to-answer numbers)
but daily text communication is with a small set, a
proximal e-friends circle, 3 or 4 persons maximum
m-presence is somewhere between presence (IRL) and e-
presence (email and skype)

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self and the smart
ethical relevance
danger #1: surveillance
data-privacy is the most important issue of networked
communication, including smart (Ess 2009)
the Prism disclosure (June 2013) has alerted even the
under-informed citizens
a new ontology in the interface self/world and
self/others (self/institutions): data ⇒
how to take the service without the (total) surveillance?
a collective/public management issue, not a market self-
regulating wishful mechanism
current confrontation between dominating new economy
corporations and nearly powerless nation-states or federations
(E.U.)

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self and the smart
why no privacy self-protection, or so few?
facts: on micro-blogging and (friends-)locating systems, people
volunteer to disclose and transmit detailed and permanent news
about their location and activities, states of mind, what they “like”,
and so on
a deal to benefit in return from smart services (share
usable information)
Mitcham 1997: 116: “The panopticon is no longer a danger, it is a
toy”
facts: a lot of phones without access password (tragic
when the phone is stolen, or peeped into by partner or
parents)
because the phone is intimate, it is part of me, it is my memory
no password between me and my personal memory
a password would remind every time that it is nor part of me, but
an outer-world object, and that it can be stolen, intruded, at any
time: unpleasant, and even frightening

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self and the smart
addiction or empowerment?
danger #2: addiction
hypothesis: the flow is what is addictive
as with TV-watching hypnosis
FOMO syndrome, Fear Of Missing Out (Turkle 2011)
the most important activity (during a family meal or a class) can
be texting or reading an email, the self is more present in this
distant relationship and activity than in its physical space-time
+ reverse FOMO: what is missed is the real-life conversation!
how to take the empowerment without the
addiction?
→ self-care, “technology of the self” (Foucault 1994) →

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self and the smart
the last Foucault: “technologies of the self”
(Dorrestijn 2012)
smart selfware is today's technology of the self
discipline or nudge? smart self-nudge?
example of self-discipline, with digital and network
assistance: the “quantified self” movement
a Foucault like self-care ambiguity: constituting
oneself as a self from the inside of a controlling
environment and by using its tools
outsmarting the smart?

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references
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BORGMANN Albert, 1984, Technology and the character of contemporary life: A philosophical inquiry, Chicago U.P.
BOWLBY John, 1969, Attachment and loss, London: The Tavistock Institute of Human Relations
CLARK Andy, 2003, Natural-born cyborgs: Minds, technologies, and the future of human intelligence, Oxford U.P.
DORRESTIJN Steven, 2012, The design of our own lives: Technical mediation and subjectivation after Foucault, University of Twente,
PhD Thesis, October 2012, http://members.tele2.nl/s.dorrestijn/downloads/Dorrestijn_Design_our_own_lives.pdf
ESS Charles, 2009, Digital media ethics, Cambridge: Polity Press
FOUCAULT Michel, 1994, Dits et écrits II, 1976-1988, Paris: Gallimard (Quarto, 2001)
GLOTZ Peter, BERTSCHI Stefan, LOCKE Chris (eds), 2005, Thumb culture: Meaning of mobiles phones for society, Bielefeld:
Transcript
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(N.J.): Transaction
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world-and-ubiquitous-intelligence-a-walkthrough-
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RHEINGOLD Howard, 2002, Smart mobs: The next social revolution, Cambridge, Mass, Perseus Publishing
TURKLE Sherry, 2011, Alone together: Why we expect more from technology and less from each other, Basic Books
VERBEEK Peter-Paul, 2011, Moralizing technology: Understanding and designing the morality of things, University of Chicago Press
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ZITTRAIN Jonathan, 2009, The future of the Internet: And how to stop it, Yale University Press

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contact:
michel.puech@paris-sorbonne.fr
this presentation and other (free) stuff:
http://michel.puech.free.fr