Computer software (operating systems, web browsers, word processors, etc.) structure our daily lives. Comprising both a user interface and the electronic circuits of the machine it is printed to, software represents a hybrid object at the crossroads of materiality and immateriality. But is it, strictly speaking, a technical object? By examining the status of software against the criteria of philosophy of classic techniques, in particular that of Gilbert Simondon, this book lays the groundwork of a philosophical reflection on this subject. Further, in order to help introduce readers to problematics, lines of code and explanatory schemas have been provided.

The subject of social robotics has enormous projected economic significance. However, social robots not only present us with novel opportunities but also with novel risks that go far beyond safety issues. It is a potentially highly disruptive technology which could negatively affect the most valuable parts of the fabric of human social interactions in irreparable ways. Since engineering educations do not yet offer the necessary competences to analyze, holistically assess, and constructively mitigate these risks, new alliances must be established between engineering and SSH disciplines, with special emphasis on the humanities (i.e. disciplines specializing in the analysis of socio-cultural interactions and human experience). The Robophilosophy Conference Series was established in 2014 with the purpose of creating a new forum and catalyzing the research discussion in this important area of applied humanities research, with focus on robophilosophy. Robophilosophy conferences have been the world’s largest venues for humanities research in and on social robotics. The book at hand presents the proceedings of Robophilosophy Conference 2020: Culturally Sustainable Social Robotics, the fourth event in the international, biennial Robophilosophy Conference Series, which brought together close to 400 participants from 29 countries. The speakers of the conference, whose contributions are collected in this volume, were invited to offer concrete proposals for how the Humanities can help to shape a future where social robotics is guided by the goals of enhancing socio-cultural values rather than by utility alone. The book is divided into 3 parts; Abstracts of Plenaries, which contains 6 plenary sessions; Session Papers, with 44 papers under 8 thematic categories; and Workshops, containing 25 items on 5 selected topics. Providing concrete proposals from philosophers and other SSH researchers for new models and methods, this book will be of interest to all those involved in developing artificial ‘social’ agents in a culturally sustainable way that is also – a fortiori – ethically responsible.

The interdisciplinarity between the biological and human sciences is here to serve a daring objective: to decipher, by means of a logical chain, the explanatory factors of human trajectories and imbalances between societies and nations. To do this, The World’s Construction Mechanism is based on an unprecedented analysis of the dynamics of the human species, combining the contributions of anthropology, archeology, biology, climatology, economics, geography, history and sociology. This book analyzes the roots of societal disharmony and presents ways of realizing a clear-sighted human project that is in step with the general interest of humanity.

This book analyzes the way in which restaurants are geographical objects that reveal locational logics and strategies, and how restaurants weave close relationships with the space in which they are located. Originating from cities, restaurants feed off the urban environment as much as they feed it ? participating in the qualification, differentiation and hierarchy of cities. Indeed, restaurants in both the city and the countryside maintain a dialogical relationship with tourism. They can be vital players in the establishment of emerging types of gourmet tourism, sometimes even constituting as gourmet tourist destinations in their own right. They participate in the establishment of necessary conditions for local development. Some restaurants are even praised as historic sites, recognized as part of the local heritage, which reinforces their localization and their identity as a gourmet tourist destination.

Tourist destinations are subject to the strategies and interactions of the people who reside in them, with complementary and sometimes conflicting interests. To ensure that these destinations remain competitive, Destination Management Organizations (DMOs) are tasked with stimulating cooperation between all partners (independents, organizations, networks). Tourist Destinations According to Stakeholder Strategies is based on a series of case studies that are analyzed and discussed from a dual geographical and managerial perspective. This enables us to extract operational typologies and propose recommendations for actors in the tourism sector. The authors have opted for an original and innovative name for the object of study, "Localized Tourism Systems" (LTS), thus emphasizing the triple aim of territorialization, tourism activities and actors that interact together in collective projects.

In a fully digitized world and hyper-connected society, artificial intelligence (AI) is developing more and more each day. In the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic, it seems appropriate to examine the real or imagined progress of AI in terms of human health. Like artificial intelligence, health is a field that involves a wide range of research disciplines. In order to better define and understand these social and technical developments, Al, Healthcare and Law brings together the thoughts and analyses of doctors, lawyers, economists and computer scientists. Through a wide range of original overviews of the issues involved, the book addresses questions such as the development of telemedicine, the use of medical data, the increased human perspective or medical ethics, and takes a multi-disciplinary and accessible approach to questioning the relationship between humans and computers, between the intimate and the machine.

The human specificity can be described by verticality/bipedalism, technique use, articulated language, high cognitive capacities, complex society at three levels: body, mind, social. In this book, is proposed an evolutionary process that make better understand how such humanity could have emerged in the long time (more than 6 million years). The process is based on a very early necessity to use technic for surviving correlated with neoteny which impulsed a darwinian evolutionary process, with four distinguished punctuation described as neotenizations.

At the heart of “tourismophobia”, past and present, is the question of the masses and the differentiation between those who call themselves “travellers”, denying their own tourism, and tourists. Tourismophobia studies the persistence of the repulsion for them, and though their number is infinitely greater today, they are no longer socially the same and practices have radically changed. This book brings this cultural invariant out of the shadows to understand the driving forces behind this social posture, which has taken a new turn with climate change. Without overlooking the negative effects of tourism, this book is a response to the current debate on “overtourism”, which is the most contemporary form of tourismophobia.

Organizations, both private and public, are now evolving in a globalized "information society" that has been accelerated by digitization. They find themselves drawn into a spiral of transformations fueled by the incessant reinvention of information and communication technologies (ICT) that are changing digital uses and practices. They transform through the mediating action of ICTs, work activities and associated action situations. Platform and Collective Intelligence analyzes a specific declination of an organization that has become irreversibly reticular: the "platform organization". The network, at the heart of this new conception, proposes a model combining cybernetics and computing. The organization can thus be seen as an interface for contact, via its information systems, for employees or citizens, whatever their geographical location. With a view going beyond technocentrism and technological determinism, this book combines collective intelligence and sociotechnics with the platform to arrive at the notion of "organizational experience".

The book explores, discusses, and considers new and innovative perspectives on the crossings, interactions, and transformations of non-formal, informal learning, and formal learning within or prior to FADS and Internship. The contributions provide a wider perspective on the alternating Final Architectural Design Studios and Internship programs as interfaces and interaction zones among different learning experiences that lead to professional and intellectual qualification.