TEDxMaastricht – Luciano Floridi – “The fourth technological revolution”

Professor Luciano Floridi discusses his book — The Fourth Information Revolution — at TEDx Maastricht. In his work, Floridi examines the revolution in information that has taken place since the middle of the 20th century and its implications for a world that is becoming more data-oriented. Regarding the title of his book, Floridi argues that human history has experienced four major revolutions until the present: 1) the Copernican (humans are not immobile, at the centre of the universe); 2) the Darwinian (humans are not detached from the animal world); 3) the Freudian (humans are not rational creatures entirely transparent to themselves); and, finally, that of Alan Turing (humans are not disconnected agents, but informational organisms or ‘inforgs’, sharing with biological and engineered agents an environment that is basically informational — the info sphere). Floridi concludes by elaborating on the differences that the fourth revolution entails, including a certain democratisation of health information as well as the socialisation of health conditions.