Scientific research in artificial intelligence has been immensely successful in recent years, ranging from the development of Large Language Models to the deeper integration of humanoid robots into everyday life. However. With the success of AI research come societal (Hopster, 2024) and conceptual disruptions (Löhr, 2023, ) of existing practices and norms that require adaptations on the level of larger social communities as well as the individuals embedded within.

Such disruptions and our adaptations to them (Hopster & Löhr, 2023) are yet to be fully understood and their examination requires collaboration between AI researchers and scholars from the humanities. A crucial challenge for interdisciplinary collaboration of this kind is however the lack of a common language between philosophers and scientists to address the indicated disruptions and associated problems. This makes the establishment of an overarching framework immensely challenging.

The main aim of this roundtable is to revive the collaboration between the Esdit Graviation Project and the Hybrid Intelligence Graviation Project (HI). Guido Löhr represents HI and Matthew Dennis represents Esdit. The topic of this roundtable is the notion of niche disruption caused by AI and its effect on human well-being and flourishing. The connection between disruption and flourishing has not been made sufficiently in the literature. The focus of this workshop will be to apply the recently widely discussed “niche-approach” in philosophy of science to the notions of social and conceptual disruption (Rietveld, E., & Kiverstein, 2014). The concept of niches is an established notion in biology but has recently found its way into the conceptual toolbox of philosophy of science (Coninx, S., & Stilwell, P. (2021).

The central idea is that humans and their abilities can only be understood in relation to the environment they are embedded in, including the social and linguistic niches they have diachronically constructed. Technologies often disrupt these niches and require the development of new patterns of behavior with the potential for significant benefits and risks. One of the key risks of disruptions is psychological. This is why several speakers will talk about the affective side of technological disruptions.

We will discuss the following questions:
What are technological disruptions? What exactly do they disrupt?
Can disruptions by AI be explained in terms of niche disruptions?
What is the (distinct) nature of social and conceptual disruptions caused by AI innovations?
What are the dark sides of technological disruptions and how can we adapt to them?
How can the negative impact of disruptive technologies on our well-being be tackled by AI researchers?