Memory and Technology: Extended Perspectives

Technologies and artificial intelligence are present in our daily life. We use smartphones, clouds, connected calendars, GPS, browsers, etc. Human environment is now technological and it has consequences on human cognition. To understand these consequences we will focus our attention on human memory which is one of the key topics in cognitive science. Some recent empirical work shows that the technological environment modifies mnemic strategies (Risko and Gilbert 2016; Soares and Storm 2018; Eliseev and Marsh 2021). In the same way, some clinical studies show that technological devices can be used as cognitive prosthesis to fill memory impairments and manage everyday memory tasks (Scullin et al. 2021).

Philosophers of memory have interpreted in different ways these works. According to a moderate interpretation supported by hypotheses of embedded and scaffolded cognition, the technological environment influences memory processes and states (Arango-Muñoz 2013). According to a stronger interpretation supported by hypotheses of extended and distributed cognition, memory processes and states can, under certain circumstances, be constituted by resources of the technological environment (Sutton 2010; cf. Michaelian 2012). The objective of this workshop is, on the one hand, to discuss how technology impacts memory and, on the other, to determine if this technological impact on memory supports moderate or strong perspectives on the boundaries of cognition. The workshop aims then to discuss tentative answers for such following questions (although this list is not exhaustive):

• How technologies impact mnemic strategies (encoding, storage, retrieval strategies)?
• What are the implications of the impact of technology on memory for philosophical accounts of remembering?
• Is it possible to develop testable hypotheses involving technology to support the extended mind hypothesis?
• Can artificial intelligence be considered as a constitutive part of a distributed memory system?
• What kind of ethical consequences are raised by the hypothesis of a technologically distributed memory?

Organizers: Nicolas Crozatier (Centre for Philosophy of Memory, Université Grenoble Alpes), Juan F. Álvarez (Centre for Philosophy of Memory, Université Grenoble Alpes).