Joel Krueger on “Home as mind: AI extenders and affective ecologies in dementia care”

I consider applications of “AI extenders” (Vold & Hernández-Orallo 2021) to dementia care. AI extenders are AI-powered technologies that extend minds in ways interestingly different from old-school tech like notebooks, sketch pads, models, and microscopes. I focus on AI extenders as ambiance: so thoroughly embedded into things and spaces that they fade from view and become part of a subject’s taken-for-granted background. Using dementia care as a case study, I argue that ambient AI extenders are promising because they afford richer and more durable forms of multidimensional integration than do old-school extenders like Otto’s notebook. They can be tailored, in fine-grained ways along multiple timescales, to a user’s particular needs, values, and preferences — and crucially, they can do much of this self-optimizing on their own. I discuss why this is so, why it matters, and its potential impact on affect and agency. I conclude with some worries in need of further discussion.

Joel Krueger (University of Exeter)

To join the session on Zoom, please get in touch with Gloria Andrada at gandrada@fcsh.unl.pt for the details.

This event is part of the ArgLab Research Colloquium organised by Maria Grazia Rossi, Giulia Terzian and Gloria Andrada at the Laboratory of Argumentation, Cognition and Language of the NOVA Institute of Philosophy. For any inquiries, please contact Maria Grazia, Giulia, or Gloria.

Event supported by the Foundation for Science and Technology (Fundação para a Ciência e para a Tecnologia) of the Portuguese Ministry of Education and Science under the projects UIDB/00183/2020 and UIDP/00183/2020.