The digital matrix and the hybridisation of society

Abstract

The enhancement of human beings through digital technologies (ICT, AI, robots) compels us to evaluate whether, how, and when these technologies feed the flourishing or, vice versa, the alienation of humanity. Social identities, relations and organizations are forced to take shape in the environment of a Digital Matrix (DM) that is a symbolic code which tends to replace all the ontological, ideal, and moral symbolic matrices that have structured societies in the past. As a form of Tech-Gnosis, the peculiarity of the DM is that of making the boundaries between human and non-human labile and crossable in every way in order to foster hybrids. Hybrids, however, are not random or purely contingent entities. They stem from complex interactional networks, in which social relations are mediated by the DM. The processes of hybridisation of social identities and relations are selective and stratified according to the ways in which the human / non-human distinction is thought of and practiced. Three scenarios of hybridisation are outlined along with three kinds of societal morphogenesis: adaptive, turbulent, and relationally steered. The chapter examines these alternatives and their possible consequences.