SuchThatCast Episode 5: Peter Asaro

Peter Asaro is Assistant Professor at the School of Media Studies in the New School for Public Engagement, New York, specializing in philosophy of science, technology and media. His work examines the interfaces between social relations, human minds and bodies, artificial intelligence and robotics, and digital media. His current research focuses on the social, cultural, political, legal and ethical dimensions of military robotics and UAV drones, from a perspective that combines media theory with science and technology studies. Although dealing with topics similar to previous guests Noel Sharkey and Wendell Wallach, Asaro comes at it from a very different perspective – combining a range of different academic disciplines and with an eye to the interaction between technology and complex social networks. He has also been very creative in using alternative outlets for his research, including the movie Love Machine, featuring Daniel Dennett, Rodney Brooks, Hubert Dreyfus and a host of other leading philosophers. We spend most of the episode talking about the dramatic and subtle effects of robotics, when it comes to love, war and labour. Asaro also sheds light on much early work in cybernetics, as well as the notion of participatory design