Human-Technology Cooperation

Short description of the future field

Human-Technology Cooperation belongs to the new future fields, which have been elaborated within the Foresight-Process as focal issues in future research activities. Interviews with experts at home and abroad as well as an online survey and bibliometric investigations led to the following definition and delineation:

Definition and Delineation

This new future field provides an integrated research perspective on the complex interplay between human and technical change. In view of our increasingly dense technological surroundings and the expanding technical structure of human life, novel configurations of the human and technology must be embraced in all their complexity. Technological innovation can only be achieved in connection with a deep understanding of human thought, feeling, communication and behaviour to provide a new quality of seamless Human-Technology Cooperation. A reorientation of the human against the background of technological change is therefore just as central as is reviewing the concept of the machine in terms of new machine agents. Further research must cover the relationship of these two parties, whether in the form of human-technical teams or in the wider perspective of human-machine culture.

This new cooperation across various spheres of knowledge is a major corner-stone in achieving sustainable breakthroughs in central areas of innovation such as »ambient intelligence«, humanoid robotics, context-sensitive services or neuroprosthetics.

The goals of Human-Technology Cooperation research include

• integrating the hitherto separate knowledge bases of the human and technology,
• a rethink, from the technically-adapted human to human-adapted technology,
• design principles of technology as a relief and support, not as a burden and excessive demand, based on a comprehensive understanding of people, and
• a holistic technical development focusing on the complex interplay of the overall concept of the human and technology.
  

More on this topic

Report

The complete chapter on this new future field from the Foresight report is available for download here.

Your thoughts and comments

We appreciate your thoughts and comments about the methodology and the results of the Foresight process. You are invited to leave your comments here.