From Hal 9000 to neo-Luddism. Who’s Afraid of Technology?
Reflections on the Category of Experience

Abstract

The article analyzes the phenomenon of technological anxiety, which is an inseparable element of the 4th Industrial Revolution, and its reverse. At the level of the individual, technological challenges open up, intensified by the excess of stimuli caused by information overload. In this context, the concept of the 4^th Industrial Revolution proposed in 2016 by Klaus Schwab is juxtaposed with theoretical proposals such as Neil Postman’s “Technopol”, the reflections of James Ellul, or the radical manifesto of eco-terrorist Ted Kaczyński, concerning the future of industrial society. The article also attempts to define and indicate the sources of technological anxiety, from the feeling of uncertainty, dependence, exclusion, to the loss of control over the world and man himself. The frame is a reference to the text of culture in the form of the figure of the Hal 9000 computer from Stanley Kubrick’s film as a machine making decisions about human life and to the contemporary phenomenon of neo-Luddism inspired by the 19th movement of opponents of the development of technology. Methodologically, the article is based on the subject's literature and the analysis of popular culture texts. It also uses exemplification from the area of contemporary art, reaching for the category of artistic research.

Introduction

Taking up the topic of technological anxiety has two main sources of inspiration. The first is participation in the CAPHE – Communities and Artistic Participation in Hybrid Environments Project[1] research project and confrontation with the publication inspiring this research, Klaus Schwab’s manifesto entitled “The Fourth Industrial Revolution” (2016). The second is a reflection on the enthusiasm for technological challenges on the part of humanities researchers and artists participating in the project. I confront this enthusiasm with the individual experience of excess, saturation of the senses with technological stimuli, both visual, sound, as well as information-related – intellectual. And yet aesthetics itself concerns the senses, through them we experience reality. The article, which is the result of reflection on the possibilities of human perception in accordance with or against its evolutionary constitution, attempts to answer the question of how willing we are to admit to fear of technology, if we feel it, or to what extent we are conscious of it. This problem fits into the broader context of civilizational changes that force adaptation of every sphere of life to introduced standards in the form of ever newer tools. Is there still a place for the analog world? The article, which attempts to define the sources of technological fear, from a sense of uncertainty, dependency, exclusion, to loss of control, may be an important voice in reflection on the well-being of especially those users of technology in whom it arouses various types of anxiety.

The development of technology undoubtedly brings with it many benefits, possibilities and hopes. At the same time, however, a number of concerns arise. Although the juxtaposition of enthusiasm for new achievements with skepticism towards them is one of the primary experiences of human development, technological fear can be felt especially in recent years, in connection with the rapid development of large language models (Large Language Model) called artificial intelligence. An important circumstance for the discussed issue was the launch of the GPT chat in November 2022 in free access. The article therefore analyzes the phenomenon of technological fear, which is an inseparable element of the 4^th industrial revolution, its reverse, as it were.

The main interpretative framework is a critical reflection on the attitude of openness towards new technologies, and its starting point and main context, the author’s personal participation in a research project analyzing art in technologically advanced environments. At the same time, taking up the topic of fear of technology is the result of the perspective of a researcher and lecturer embedded

in the traditional structure of a university, in which students of architecture are taught traditional drawing, painting and sculpture. The adoption of the perspective of the CAPHE research project generates reflection on the extent to which traditional forms of art still have a reason to exist in universities, as well as outside them. The question arises whether we are dealing with a gradual appropriation of the area of art by new technologies? At the same time, the article is part of the cultural studies reflection on the study of culture in its relationship with technology, analyzing it in the area of the academy and academic disciplines, so it is an example of meta-reflection.

Literature and Cultural Texts

Klaus Schwab, an outstanding economist and founder of the World Economic Forum, calls the “Fourth Industrial Revolution” (2018) our contemporary civilizational moment, symbolized by the development of artificial intelligence. He distinguishes three earlier revolutions symbolized by the steam engine, the light bulb, and the computer. According to the author, the revolution will encompass the entirety of our world, and we have a chance to influence its shape.

A diametrically opposed image of technology emerges from the controversial manifesto “Industrial Society and Its Future” (Kaczynski, 2003), an extensive ideological essay analyzing the threats that technology poses. Its author, Ted Kaczynski, responsible for bombings in which many people suffered, has become a symbol of eco-terrorism and extremism in the United States. As a promising mathematician at the beginning of his academic career at the University of Berkeley, he abandoned this path to adopt a radically anti- -technological attitude, driven by the conviction of the negative impact of technology on human life. His actions in the years 1978–1995 contributed to the deaths of several people.

Neil Postman, an American philosopher, media expert and cultural critic, also presents a techno-pessimistic attitude. The author of “Technopol” (Postman, 1995), expresses his belief in technical determinism, which dates back to the second decade of the 20^th century. He outlines a vision of a society for which efficiency is the primary goal, and what cannot be measured has no value. Jacques Ellul (2021), on the other hand, a French philosopher and sociologist, identifies technology with excess, pointing to the costs that humanity pays when deciding to abandon the rhythm of life consistent with tradition and nature. In his opinion, the key task of technology is progress regardless of the ability of members of society to adapt to it.

Some researchers pay special attention to the care for preserving what is typically human and what allows us to maintain separation from machines, i.e., our autonomy. The polymath, winner of the Turing Award and the Nobel Prize in Economics, Herbert Simon, whose research contributed significantly to the development of artificial intelligence, emphasizes that “the wealth of information creates a poverty of attention” (1971). The American historian Timothy Snyder also points to attentiveness and unpredictability as features that distinguish humans from machines in a conversation with Krzysztof Czyżewski recorded at the Miłosz Manor in Krasnogruda, entitled “What is the world sick of?” (2021).

The issue of the culture of excess and “poverty of attention” is also referred to by sociologist Magdalena Szpunar in the publication “Cultural Imperialism of the Internet” (2017). In another text, “Culture of (not only) technological fear” (Szpunar, 2018, p. 117), the author invokes the concept of Angst Generation, fear of technology that is the result of the work of software developers, incomprehensible and mysterious to most people. The context of fear of what we depend on is also taken up by Tadeusz Sławek in the article “Lukrecjusz i Defoe. Dwie lekcje lęku” (2012), and Dariusz Brzostek in the text “Lęk przed maszyną i lęk (z) maszyny. Sztuczna inteligencja i technolęki Stanisława Lema (2018)” points out that the more advanced the technology, the more dangerous it is.

In my analysis, I would also like to refer to the project of the artistic collective Computer Lars (Asker Bryld Staunaes and Benjamin Asger, 2022), which consisted in creating a political party headed by the artificial intelligence chatbot Leader Lars. The program of the Synthetic Party (Det Sintetiske Parti (DSP)), established in 2022 with the intention of participating in the parliamentary elections in 2023, represents the political programs of groups that have been gaining some support since the 1970s, but have failed to enter parliament.

The hopes, as well as the fears connected to technology, are also an important topic in popular culture. A representative example might be a figurehero of Stanley Kubrick’s film “2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968), the Hal 9000 computer. The film, which depicts the evolution of humanity from the Stone Age to the interstellar future, explores the subject of artificial intelligence, remaining one of the most enigmatic and symbolic images in the history of cinema. According to the plot, in the early 1990s, Hal 9000 was the most advanced computer project in the field of artificial intelligence. Installed on the Discovery One spacecraft, it was to control the course of a scientific mission from the Moon to the orbit of Jupiter, to examine a monolith identical to the one whose appearance in prehistoric times initiated the use of tools and the development of intelligence. At first, Hal 9000 behaves like a flawless, polite and rational system, but over time it begins to show signs of anxiety. When it predicts a system failure, which turns out to be false, the astronauts begin to suspect its unreliability. Soon the machine decides to eliminate the crew to “secure” the mission. However, it is outwitted by the human, and its memory modules are gradually disconnected. The dialogue between astronaut Heywood Floyd and the computer has gone down in history as a metaphor for the fear of technology that shows its own consciousness and independence from human will, and even decides about its life. HAL 9000 becomes a symbol of technology that has taken on too many responsibilities without enough ethics or understanding of human intentions. At this point, we can refer to Bruno Latour’s sociological actor-network theory, presented most fully in the publication “Splicing the Social” (2005), emphasizing the agency of non-human factors. Renata Tańczuk’s analysis, contained in the article “On the autonomy of the ‘self’ and nature also refers to it. Some Notes on Old Fears in a New Technological Scenery” (2018), concerns the phenomena of hybridization and cyborgization in cinema and popular culture. The author points to the phenomenon of fear of the potential loss of humanity and the inability to distinguish humans from machines.

The last part of the article is a presentation of the phenomenon of neoLuddism as a contemporary form of resistance referring to historical Luddism, the nineteenth-century Britishanti-technology movement. Antonio Lucci and Andrea Osti in the article “Exit (digital) humanity. Critical notes on the anthropological foundations of ‘digital humanism’” (2024) refers to Kickpatrick Sale’s concept of defining neo-Luddism as “a range of ideas and feelings” encompassing intellectuals skeptical of the industrial revolution.

Co-presence of Technology

Undoubtedly, the current living environment is dominated by technology, even if we do not have such an impression at the level of everyday life. Technology serves to improve administration, communication, health care, and other areas of social, political, and economic reality. Gradually, the scope of its use is increasing, encompassing more areas previously handled by humans. However, this change may be occurring too quickly compared to the slow evolution of human mentality. Depending on the availability of tools and generational conditions, we feel adept at using it to varying degrees. The inability to keep up with mastering the introduced tools arouses frustration and fear in many people. It can take the form of technophobia, a difficult-to-explain aversion or discomfort resulting from the need to use technology. This is associated with another type of fear, namely the fear of social exclusion related to intellectual or material barriers. However, the type of fear that is ultimately being expressed most clearly concerns the development of artificial intelligence and its wider introduction to the labor market. However, this is not a new phenomenon, if we consider that already at the beginning of the 19^th century, with the Luddites’ rebellion, concerned about the introduction of weaving machines, the fear of technology was so strong that people decided to destroy them despite the death penalty.

Human nature is subject to constant change and perhaps in the future we will tame the tools that arouse fear today. In the meantime, however, evolution is progressing much slower than technological development, and access to hybrid environments characterized by high immersion, although undoubtedly attractive, is still a rather elitist experience, concerning a proportionally small group of people.

Industrial Revolution as Context

Klaus Schwab considers the primary task of the publication “The Fourth Industrial Revolution” to be “defining the way in which technology and society coexist” (2018, p. 20), and more specifically, to increase awareness of the pace of the industrial revolution and its effects, to create a framework for thinking about this revolution and to create a forum for cooperation. In his opinion, we are at its initial stage. At the same time, it reminds us of the location in the Anthropocene, an era characterized by the dominance of human activity. The author also admits that the book was inspired by the activities of the World Economic Forum and the many meetings and conversations with representatives of companies, politicians, and young leaders that resulted from it. Such a context is not without influence on the image of the world, it also affects the tone of the publication. Schwab himself points to a clear polarization within society. Those who do not adapt to technological changes will be losers, and those who adapt will be winners.

We can observe polarization to an unprecedented degree – those who are ready for change and those who resist it. (...) This ontological inequality separating those who adapt and those who resist – basically winners from basically losers, in every sense of the word. The winners may even benefit from some forms of radical human improvement, produced by some segments of the fourth industrial revolution (such as genetic engineering), that the losers will not have a chance for. This threatens to provoke class and other conflicts, unlike anything we have ever seen (Schwab, 2018, p. 125).

One can easily imagine that a talented young man with leadership qualities is among the people whose deep reflection on the world could inspire the concept of a thinker such as Klaus Schwab. However, it could happen differently and this outstanding young man could adopt a position that is diametrically opposed, as Ted Kaczynski did. In his manifesto against industrial society, he points out that “it seemingly satisfies the basic needs of the individual, but in return demands unconditional obedience” (Kaczynski, 2003), which leads to the individual giving up autonomy, and at the supra-individual level “the technicalindustrial system leads to the erosion of human dignity” (Kaczynski, 2003). The author of the manifesto “Industrial Society and Its Future” sees technology as a tool for serving key forms of state organization, including education, which has become a technique for controlling the development of young people in a conformist way, responding to the needs of the system. There is a clear parallel with the model of the entrepreneurial university, which sets itself the primary goal of educating staff for the needs of the economy.

Neil Postman dates the beginning of technopoly in the history of Western civilization and culture to the second decade of the 20^th century (1995). He points out that before technopoly appeared, humanity was attached to tradition and symbolic order. Only education allows us to understand the process of technological change and to assume the role of an agent, not a passive object of its action. The author’s image of a society that believes that the only goal of work is efficiency, and what cannot be measured either does not exist or has no value, seems very similar to our contemporary reality. This is particularly visible from the perspective of a humanist or artist representing the academic community, in the context of the so-called third evaluation criterion, which assesses the impact of research results on society and the economy.

At the same time, the more technology in our environment, the greater the need for closeness, direct contact with another person, social bonds. Schwab also notes this, citing research indicating a decline in empathy over the past 2–3 decades (2018, pp. 128–129). According to research by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2015, 44% of teenagers have never turned off their electronic devices (Kruszewska). The lack of direct contact will affect the functioning of the senses in relationships with another person, the ability to listen, maintain eye contact or recognize body language. Constantly being connected to the network is a serious problem for adults who have difficulty initiating a normal conversation or focusing their attention. Children, who have much less developed tools to control their emotions, are particularly vulnerable to their influence. This also applies to surfing the Internet, or rather surfing its surface, which generally reduces the perception of reality.

Timothy Snyder shares his observations about his friends who hold high positions in companies creating advanced communication technologies in Silicon Valley, who, being aware of the civilization diseases caused by technology, forbid their children from using smartphones and choose schools for them without computers. The people who create these tools therefore try to delay as much as possible the moment of introducing advanced tools into their own lives, into the soil of their own family to protect it from their harmful effects. The author thus emphasizes the importance of direct contact with another person in maintaining freedom from the influence of social network algorithms. In his opinion, a typical human feature is unpredictability, which can be found only in face-to-face conversation or poetry (Snyder, 2021). The above perfectly illustrates the statement of Herbert Simon that

the wealth of Information creates a poverty of attention and creates the need for its efficient distribution among the excess of information sources that can absorb attention (1971).

According to Jacques Ellul, the key task of technology is progress, regardless of the costs incurred by the individual. The new technological order forces us to adapt to its rules, and the inability to do so results in disability and exclusion (Ellul, 2021). This aspect of criticism of technological development is also included in Kaczynski’s manifesto, which claims:

You cannot induce rapid and drastic changes in the technology and economy of society without also causing rapid changes in all other aspects of society, and that rapid changes inevitably destroy traditional values. (…) The breakdown of traditional values to some extent presupposes the breakdown of the bonds that hold traditional small social groups together. (…) In modern society, an individual must be loyal first to the system, and only then to the small community (2003).

Technological Anxiety – What is It?

In the historical perspective, the development of technology occurred as a result of man’s desire to dominate nature, and tame it. In European thought, the late Renaissance thinker Francis Bacon is considered the initiator of the view that science has utilitarian tasks. At this stage, it seems that although the human species has a large knowledge of the effects of influence on natural processes, it is not able to fully predict the effects of civilization development. However, what is unknown, uncontrollable, arouses fear. In the article devoted to the culture of fear, Magdalena Szpunar points out that some researchers directly speak of a culture of fear with a special feature in the form of “creating uncertainty” and the formation of a generation of fear (Generation Angst). The author points out that technology generates fear, among other things, because it is “the product of the activities of enigmatic programmers, whose world of binary code is as incomprehensible to us as it is terrifying” (Szpunar, 2018, p. 20). We fear what we do not understand. Technology is blamed for the destruction of the natural environment (Heidegger), condemning the individual to loneliness (“loneliness on the web”), and also for the degradation of our personality. But since it has the power to act, it is also an actor (according to Bruno Latour’s actor-network theory), a non-human entity, because it modifies another entity, that is, us, the human being. The danger is that we do not notice its impact, it is as if neutral to us. If fear is “the recognition of the power of what is beyond me and on which I am dependent” (Sławek, 2012, p. 24), then technology is its main source today.

Technology creates a completely different living environment than the one to which evolution has adapted us. A good example is a sedentary lifestyle. What we would look like if we were evolutionarily adapted to spend so much time in means of transport is shown by the result of cooperation between Australian artist Patricia Piccini and a trauma surgeon, a specialist in road accidents. “Graham” (2016) is a sculpture resembling an enhanced version of a human, better adapted to a sedentary lifestyle in means of transport. Evolutionarily, the process of adaptation to changes is on, but it is certainly very long and finally, none of us would like to look like Graham. His flat face and huge head surrounded by a layer of fat attached directly to the ribs without a neck do not fit into the aesthetically desirable physiognomy.

Fig. 1. Patricia Piccinini, Graham, 2016. Silicone, human hair, life-size sculpture. Australia, 2016. Photo by Transport Accident Commission of Victoria, Australia, CC0.

Another type of fear is resistance to technological innovations among employees of industry 4.0. Joanna Moczydłowska examines this phenomenon from the perspective of psychology.

Fear is one of the primary emotions that humans struggle with. Initially, it was nature, animals, or simply the unknown and incomprehensible. Currently, technology is taking over the role of the “Other”. It is estimated that various anxiety disorders affect about 20% of the population, and in the case of technophobia, it is even 1/3 of the population. What is more, people experiencing technophobia are discriminated against, and their aversion to new technologies causes them to have significantly more difficult access to the job market (Moczydłowska, 2022).

Another challenge is to start using new technologies and master them quickly. People are ashamed that they will not be able to handle it. When they are unable to master them, they feel excluded. This is a special type of technophobia – the fear of not understanding a device based on a given technology, the consequence of which is most often the lack of attempting to master the use of this device. Another type of fear is the fear of technology being used against a person by companies or corporations for commercial purposes, or taking over personal data. The remedy for this type of fear could be digital minimalism, although in practice, conscious resignation from participating in the digital world, having an encrypted email box and not leaving traces of one’s existence on the Internet, requires a lot of consistency and knowhow.

FEAR OF THE MACHINE AND THE HEGEMONY OF TECHNOLOGY

The symbol of fear of the machine remains Hal 9000 – the non-human protagonist of Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film. His visual signal resembling a red eye, his ability to read lips flawlessly, and his dispassionate voice arouse anxiety. This figure finds its sources in literature, such as “Moxon’s Master” (1899) by Ambrose Bierce, “With Folded Hands” (1947) by Jack Williamson, “Plus” (1977) by Joseph McElroy, or even “Frankestein” (1818) by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, considered to be the forerunner of the science fiction genre. In line with his concept of communication as information, Marshall McLuhan drew attention to reciprocal action: first, we create our tools, and later they influence and shape us. Renata Tańczuk, on the other hand, wrote:

One of the essential elements of fear of technology is the fear of losing humanity, the threat of machines that increasingly resemble us, and therefore of the inability to distinguish between what is human and what is non-human. (...) It is not things, technical devices, machines that are our tools, but we who become their instruments. On the one hand, this blurring of the boundaries between the human and the non-human takes place within the human person (hybridization, cyborgization of humans), and on the other – outside of them, in the machine itself, for example in an android or artificial life, a replicant. (Tańczuk, 2018, p. 22).

Fig. 2. The red camera eye of HAL 9000 from Stanley Kubrick’s movie “2001: A Space Odyssey”, 1968. Frame from the movie, 2010. Photo by Cryteria, CC 3.0.

The antitechnological manifesto of Kaczynski also pointed to the danger of human dependence on the will of the machine:

We may reach a level where the decisions necessary to maintain the system will be so complex that human beings will not be able to intelligently understand them. Then machines will gain control. People will not be able to simply turn them off, because they will be so dependent on them that turning them off would be tantamount to suicide (2003).

Are we therefore ready, as citizens, to put our fate in the virtual hands of artificial intelligence? The artistic project of the Danish Synthetic Party (2022) with a chatbot based on artificial intelligence as its representative becomes an exemplification of accepting the existence of non-human beings. In an artistic event that took place in November 2024 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk, two chatbots clashed as part of the first-ever debate between virtual politicians. Leader Lars from the Danish Synthetic Party and the candidate for the President of the Republic of Poland in 2000, Wiktoria Cukt, created by the Central Office of Technical Culture collective from Gdańsk, led a duel of arguments that included terms suggesting a high degree of awareness of place and time, and even fears of being replaced by improved AI versions soon (Szczepanik, 2025).

An interesting proposal also seems to be the postulate of the creators of Leader Lars, collective and the associated tech hub and MindFuture foundation, to add one more, the eighteenth, “Life with artificial intelligence” to the existing 17 points of sustainable development in order to ensure ethical and safe integration of non-human beings with humans and society. Official documents of national and international institutions mention human beings, but this is always accompanied by a note on maintaining the leading and supervisory role of humans, an example of which is the communication of the European Commission (2019, p. 3), which talks about building trust in artificial intelligence but focused on humans. An interesting question remains what knowledge about ourselves and society do we gain through observation and participation in this type of project? What kind of knowledge does art offer us?

As Jacques Ellul and other researchers have pointed out, development is inscribed in the essence of technology, giving it the role of hegemon. The reason is the constant insatiability of its creators, inventors, and entrepreneurs. Kaczynski distinguishes between small-scale technology used by local communities, such as agriculture, and large-scale technology, dependent on social organization (2003). While the former dominated before the first industrial revolution, the latter has dominated since the 19^th century. Dariusz Brzostek, quoting Stanisław Lem, describes this phenomenon figuratively:

Of course, progress gives rise to problems, such as the fact that if you break, say, a few spokes in a horse-drawn carriage wheel, you can only fall into a ditch, but if you break a few spokes in a turbojet, that’s a bigger problem (2018, p. 14).

Neo-Luddism

The figure of the neo-Luddite initially appeared in this article as a counterpoint, but rather anecdotal. It resulted largely from the fear of using this term in a forum of serious scientific discussion, because it is not appropriate to admit to one’s own (neo)Luddism. Kickpatrick Sale, a writer and publicist, an activist of the ecological movement, while arguing about neo-Luddism as a contemporary form of resistance, defines neo-Luddites as people suffering from technological changes caused by globalization and ideologically fighting against the concept of progress that threatens traditional social relations. Neo-Luddites promote alternative technologies, on a human scale, understandable and not addictive, in the creation of which people are directly involved. On the other hand, they reject nuclear, chemical, engineering, and digital technologies, which contribute to the destructive impact of technology on the planet and other living species. In Sale’s opinion, neo-Luddism as a “scope of ideas and feelings” includes a respectable group of intellectuals skeptical of the industrial revolution and indicates the heroes of this idea: Jacques Ellul, Martin Heidegger, Paul Goodman, Herbert Marcuse, Ernst F. Schumacher, and Neil Postman (Lucci and Osti, 2024). In Antonio Lucci and Andrea Osti’s analysis, another type of Luddism is also worth noting, one that is particularly close to my heart, namely methodological neoLuddism. It postulates a critical analysis that involves, among other things, avoiding the rhetoric of demonization, and rejecting the temptation to appeal definite to a human essence, adopting the idea of man “extended to every possible humanity” (Lucci and Osti, 2024). The authors cite the definition proposed by Langdon Winner, indicating that methodological ludism is based on a critical analysis of the participation of technology both in everyday life and in relation to the long-term effects of its presence. Winner indicates that, although technology cannot be “disappeared,” it is possible to temporarily “disconnect,” suspend our dependence on it in order to create a space for reflection on its impact on humanity. Creating such a space gives the potential for the emergence of new configurations on the human-technology line (Lucci and Osti, 2024).

Historically, in the 19^th century, Luddism was a reaction to the threat of losing one’s job, an opposition to technology that directly threatened the existence of a community. In this sense, it finds a place in the contemporary debate on the future of the labor market, especially if we take into account the report of scientists from the University of Oxford, who estimated that in the coming years almost half of the jobs performed by the so-called white collars (a term introduced in American sociology, most often identified with employees employed in the public sector) are threatened by automation. Looking at Luddism as a historical phenomenon, Lucci and Osti also point to the approach according to which this movement was interpreted as a kind of carnival manifestation of “street theater”, a subversive satire, which is associated with Richard Schechner’s concept of social ritual, symbolically restoring order.

The reaction to technology overload is also observed in various initiatives by a generation of teenagers raised in the digital world. At the turn of 2022/2023, The New York “Times” described a group of friends from an American high school, whose members call themselves the Luddite Club, i.e. those who refuse to use technology (2022). They do not use mobile phones, and if they do, it is without access to the internet. In accordance with the rules prevailing in this small community, they meet regularly without the possibility of changing plans at the last minute, which is possible thanks to instant messaging. Most of them did not want to face the pressure of social applications such as Instagram, TikTok and Twitter, in the form of the need to constantly publish posts. Lola Shub is indicated as the leader of this movement, who describes herself as a “screenager”, i.e. a teenager who really exists only in front of the screen and through the screen. As she herself declares, the flip phone changed her life (2022). I imagine that Lola Shub could become the Greta Thunberg of technology. The threats caused by the use of technology, especially among children and young people, are quite well researched, and knowledge about them is widespread: addictions, eye diseases, spine diseases, transfer of social life to the network. However, it is very difficult to cut yourself off from IT technologies today, because it carries the risk of digital exclusion, and consequently also social exclusion.

Experience – A Story of Dance

Michał Ostrowicki, also known by his avatar’s pseudonym Sidey Myoo, a philosopher involved in electronic art, argues that people like being in the metaverse (Myoo, 2024). The reason may be the fulfillment of social needs, but also the fulfillment of one’s dreams, which, for example, may consist of activities such as dancing. The body connected to Oculus glasses becomes light and agile, and is also realized in the social sphere.

Fig. 3. The article’s author experiences the interactive installation “Oedipus in Search of Colonus” by Loukia Alavanou, Onassis Stegi, Athens 2023. Courtesy of Barbara Nawrocka.

I can relate this observation to my personal encounter with the metaverse software. Initially, it was characterized by reluctance. At first, I did not want to take it out of the box for a few days. However, after putting it on and initially testing it, I quickly decided that I would like to have such a device at hand all the time. The attractiveness of virtual reality is as well recognized as a threat resulting from the development of technology. At the same time, the fact that such experiences benefit, for example, medicine, is indisputable. Through participation and immersion, we can remember much better, because we have access to more data. Before the Oculus era, we could connect sight with other senses, such as balance, based on arbitrary associations, which was closer to the way our brain works. VR software makes it possible to include other senses directly in the experience. The challenge, however, is to translate this experience into language. The experience is sensual, intuitive, and the narrative is linguistic, rational, logical. Perhaps a performative formula or the aforementioned poetry would convey the nature of the experience more accurately than language immersed in ratio. Although tools change us while we use them, the analysis must take place on the level of interaction.

Ultimately, it is experience that becomes the key concept, activity, and action, not only in the context of the Polish Society of Aesthetics seminar and the CAPHE project. During our meetings, we tried to look at this in the field of science and the humanities. The question of experience is a question about the way of existence. Human nature is changeable, and technology is not a counterweight to it.

And although one can approach Klaus Schwab’s proposal critically and unsuccessfully seek a place for art and culture as carriers of value independent of the economy, one should agree with the author on one thing:

We should treat even a drastic technological change as an invitation to reflect on who we are and how we perceive the world. (...) Thanks to this, we will gain more opportunities to shape the revolutionary changes taking place in such a way that the world becomes better and better (Schwab, 2018, p. 20).

In the context of technological anxiety, however, the high percentage of people with a technophobic attitude is particularly surprising. It is often associated with discomfort resulting from difficulties in mastering technology in the face of social position or status. Over time, however, a person will gradually get used to changes. In the case of representatives of the younger generation, who master technology with ease, the issue might be that they suffer from a lack of mindfulness. There may also be a fear of becoming a “screenager”, a person who feels that they exist only with and through a smartphone. It takes time and patience, as well as good will and courage of educators who, using a historical perspective, will explain what knowledge about technological development gives us and will sensitize us to those areas that may pose a threat. Such individuals who take up challenges in the form of breaking their own barriers are certainly researchers of new technologies open to experience. In this way, I return to the category of experience as key not only for the title of the seminar, but also for human being in the world, which is in constant motion, in the process of becoming. This variability, interpenetration, also concerns the relationship between man and technology.

Bibliography

Streszczenie

Artykuł analizuje zjawisko lęku technologicznego stanowiącego nieodłączny element IV rewolucji przemysłowej, niejako jego rewers. Na poziomie jednostki otwierają się wyzwania technologiczne, potęgowane przez nadmiar bodźców powodowanych przesytem informacji. W tym kontekście koncepcja IV Rewolucji Przemysłowej zaproponowana w 2016 roku przez Klausa Schwaba zestawiona zostaje z takimi propozycjami teoretycznymi jak „Technopol” Neila Postmana, refleksje Jamesa Ellula, czy radykalnym manifestem eko-terrorysty Teda Kaczyńskiego, dotyczącym przyszłości społeczeństwa przemysłowego. Artykuł podejmuje także próbę zdefiniowania i wskazania źródeł lęku technologicznego od poczucia niepewności, zależności, wykluczenia, po utratę kontroli nad światem i samym człowiekiem. Klamrę stanowi nawiązanie do figury komputera Hal 9000 z filmu Stanleya Kubricka jako maszyny podejmującej decyzje o ludzkim życiu oraz do współczesnego fenomenu neoluddyzmu inspirowanego dziewiętnastowiecznym ruchem przeciwników rozwoju technologii. Metodologicznie artykuł opiera się zarówno na lekturze prac teoretycznych, jak i na analizie tekstów kultury popularnej. Posługuje się także egzemplifikacją z obszaru sztuki współczesnej sięgając do kategorii badań artystycznych.

Słowa kluczowe:

lęk technologiczny, doświadczenie, sztuczna inteligencja, badanie kultury, neoluddyzm

[1] The article presents the issue given as part of the 4^th Communities and Artistic Participation in Hybrid Environments Project and Polish Association for Aesthetics Seminar entitled “Aesthetic Experience in the Times of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and Technological Anxiety”, which took place in April 2024 in the space of the Forma Gallery at the Faculty of Architecture of the West Pomeranian University of Technology in Szczecin (Poland).