The Institute of Advanced Studies Köszeg (iASK), Hungary, hosts a research group “to shed lights on the frontiers of human and machine knowledge, and to initiate international discourse on the seething area of humanity in the digitally driven revolution” – called Human 2.0 Research Group.

The first workshop of the group was organised on 29 October 2019 in Köszeg.

The introduction to the message of information history for contemporary debates on digital future and digital humanism was made by iASK Research Fellow László Z. Karvalics, Professor at the Department of Human Information Science and Cultural Heritage at the Faculty of Arts, University of Szeged (see photo above). He is author of several books in Hungarian on control theory and information society theory. Currently, he is providing a publication for the UNESCO Information for All Program (IFAP), where he is bureau member in its intergovernmental council, and a leader of the information preservation working group.

Alistair Duff, Professor of Information Policy at the Edinburgh Napier University, was guest keynote speaker on Architects of the Information Age, namely, Machlup, Porat and Bell. It was the latter to whom Duff conceded a grand social theory before Castells. Discussing the postindustrial and knowledge society, Duff criticised Bell for forgetting about social justice as to the political realm and for following Weber’s idea that capitalism would depend on religion as to the cultural realm. However, Duff states against libertarianism coming to the fore in neoliberalism, “universals are more important than the particulars”.

Here you can listen to Duff’s talk. A video is available on request. (Credits: audio and video: iASK; photo: Hofkirchner)

Programme

Wolfgang Hofkirchner was invited to participate. Future iASK-GSIS collaboration was agreed.