{"id":5253,"date":"2018-02-21T19:00:38","date_gmt":"2018-02-22T00:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/afutureworththinkingabout.com\/?p=5253"},"modified":"2018-02-21T19:00:38","modified_gmt":"2018-02-22T00:00:38","slug":"my-review-of-ashley-shews-animal-constructions-and-technological-knowledge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/afutureworththinkingabout.com\/?p=5253","title":{"rendered":"My Review of Ashley Shew\u2019s ANIMAL CONSTRUCTIONS AND TECHNOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I have a review of Ashley Shew\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/rowman.com\/ISBN\/9781498543118\/Animal-Constructions-and-Technological-Knowledge\"><em>Animal Constructions and Technological Knowledge<\/em><\/a>, over at the <i>Social Epistemology Research and Reply Collective:<\/i> <a href=\"https:\/\/social-epistemology.com\/2018\/02\/13\/deleting-the-human-clause-damien-williams\/\">&#8220;Deleting the Human Clause.&#8221;<\/a><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/socialepistemologydotcom.files.wordpress.com\/2018\/01\/ashley-shew.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>From the essay:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>Animal Constructions and Technological Knowledge<\/em> is Ashley Shew\u2019s debut monograph and in it she argues that we need to reassess and possibly even drastically change the way in which we think about and classify the categories of technology, tool use, and construction behavior. Drawing from the fields of anthropology, animal studies, and philosophy of technology and engineering, Shew demonstrates that there are several assumptions made by researchers in all of these fields\u2014assumptions about intelligence, intentionality, creativity and the capacity for novel behavior\u2026<\/p>\n<p>Shew says that we consciously and unconsciously appended a \u201chuman clause\u201d to all of our definitions of technology, tool use, and intelligence, and this clause\u2019s presumption\u2014that it doesn\u2019t really \u201ccount\u201d if humans aren\u2019t the ones doing it\u2014is precisely what has to change.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I am a huge fan of this book and of Shew&#8217;s work, in general. Click through to find out a little more about why.<\/p>\n<p>Until Next Time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I have a review of Ashley Shew\u2019s Animal Constructions and Technological Knowledge, over at the Social Epistemology Research and Reply Collective: &#8220;Deleting the Human Clause.&#8221; From the essay: Animal Constructions and Technological Knowledge is Ashley Shew\u2019s debut monograph and in it she argues that we need to reassess and possibly even drastically change the way [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[1279,1278,1274,1120,1280,1284,123,1282,941,198,1117,1210,560,1208,1276,1264,628,1026,1281,1275,1229,1230,1235,1283,811,1277],"class_list":["post-5253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-animal-behaviour","tag-animal-cognition","tag-animal-constructions-and-technological-knowledge","tag-ashley-shew","tag-beavers","tag-birds","tag-book","tag-cetaceans","tag-cognition","tag-corvids","tag-disability-studies","tag-embodied-cognition","tag-my-words","tag-nonhuman-animals","tag-other-peoples-work","tag-philosophy-of-engineering","tag-philosophy-of-mind","tag-philosophy-of-technology","tag-primates","tag-reviews","tag-science-and-technology-studies","tag-science-technology-and-society","tag-social-construction-of-science","tag-spiders","tag-technology","tag-technoscience"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5WByP-1mJ","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5182,"url":"https:\/\/afutureworththinkingabout.com\/?p=5182","url_meta":{"origin":5253,"position":0},"title":"Outline: &#8220;The Minds of Others: What Will Be Known by and Owed To Nonhuman Persons?&#8221;","author":"Damien P. Williams","date":"September 16, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"This summer I participated in SRI International's Technology and Consciousness Workshop Series. The meetings were held under the auspices of the Chatham House Rule, which means that there are many things I can't tell you about them, such as who else was there, or what they said in the context\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"A Future Worth Thinking About\"","block_context":{"text":"A Future Worth Thinking About","link":"https:\/\/afutureworththinkingabout.com\/?tag=a-future-worth-thinking-about"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/afutureworththinkingabout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/OctMantPep.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/afutureworththinkingabout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/OctMantPep.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/afutureworththinkingabout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/OctMantPep.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/afutureworththinkingabout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/OctMantPep.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":5347,"url":"https:\/\/afutureworththinkingabout.com\/?p=5347","url_meta":{"origin":5253,"position":1},"title":"&#8220;Consciousness and Conscious Machines: What\u2019s At Stake?&#8221;","author":"Damien P. Williams","date":"January 16, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"[This paper was prepared for the 2019 Towards Conscious AI Systems Symposium co-located with the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence 2019 Spring Symposium Series. Much of this work derived from my final presentation at the 2017 SRI Technology and Consciousness Workshop Series: \"Science, Ethics, Epistemology, and Society: Gains\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"A Future Worth Thinking About\"","block_context":{"text":"A Future Worth Thinking About","link":"https:\/\/afutureworththinkingabout.com\/?tag=a-future-worth-thinking-about"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/afutureworththinkingabout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/disabilityprotest.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/afutureworththinkingabout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/disabilityprotest.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/afutureworththinkingabout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/disabilityprotest.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/afutureworththinkingabout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/disabilityprotest.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":5316,"url":"https:\/\/afutureworththinkingabout.com\/?p=5316","url_meta":{"origin":5253,"position":2},"title":"My Appearance on The Machine Ethics Podcast&#8217;s A.I. Retreat Episode","author":"Damien P. Williams","date":"October 23, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"As you already know, we went to the second Juvet A.I. Retreat, back in September. If you want to hear several of us talk about what we got up to at the then you're in luck because here are several conversations conducted by Ben Byford of the Machine Ethics Podcast.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"algorithmic bias\"","block_context":{"text":"algorithmic bias","link":"https:\/\/afutureworththinkingabout.com\/?tag=algorithmic-bias"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/ownE2zxTN2U\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5375,"url":"https:\/\/afutureworththinkingabout.com\/?p=5375","url_meta":{"origin":5253,"position":3},"title":"2017 SRI Technology and Consciousness Workshop Series Final Report","author":"Damien P. Williams","date":"March 8, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"So, as you know, back in the summer of 2017 I participated in SRI International\u2019s Technology and Consciousness Workshop Series. This series was an eight week program of workshops the current state of the field around, the potential future paths toward, and the moral and social implications of the notion\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"A Future Worth Thinking About\"","block_context":{"text":"A Future Worth Thinking About","link":"https:\/\/afutureworththinkingabout.com\/?tag=a-future-worth-thinking-about"},"img":{"alt_text":"Image of a rectangular name card with a stylized \"Technology & Consciousness\" logo, at the top, the name Damien Williams in bold in the middle, and SRI International italicized at the bottom; to the right a blurry wavy image of what appears to be a tree with a person standing next to it and another tree in the background to the left., all partially mirrored in a surface at the bottom of the image.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/afutureworththinkingabout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/20190308_021228.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/afutureworththinkingabout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/20190308_021228.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/afutureworththinkingabout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/20190308_021228.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/afutureworththinkingabout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/20190308_021228.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/afutureworththinkingabout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/20190308_021228.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/afutureworththinkingabout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/20190308_021228.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":5899,"url":"https:\/\/afutureworththinkingabout.com\/?p=5899","url_meta":{"origin":5253,"position":4},"title":"ChatGPT is Actively Marketing to Students During University Finals Season","author":"Damien P. Williams","date":"April 4, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"It's really disheartening and honestly kind of telling that in spite of everything, ChatGPT is actively marketing itself to students in the run-up to college finals season. We've talked many (many) times before about the kinds of harm that can come from giving over too much epistemic and heuristic authority\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"A Future Worth Thinking About\"","block_context":{"text":"A Future Worth Thinking About","link":"https:\/\/afutureworththinkingabout.com\/?tag=a-future-worth-thinking-about"},"img":{"alt_text":"Screenshot of ChatpGPT page:ChaptGPT Promo: 2 months free for students ChatGPT Plus is now free for college students through May Offer valid for students in the US and Canada [Buttons reading \"Claim offer\" and \"learn more\" An image of a pencil scrawling a scribbly and looping line] ChatGPT Plus is here to help you through finals","src":"https:\/\/cdn.bsky.app\/img\/feed_fullsize\/plain\/did:plc:ybkylffhwhn2an2ic2lxh76k\/bafkreidh6mhffosfxhbgnxx6aybjycvgj3c2ygzto2xhzvsohdsv3g6evm@jpeg","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/cdn.bsky.app\/img\/feed_fullsize\/plain\/did:plc:ybkylffhwhn2an2ic2lxh76k\/bafkreidh6mhffosfxhbgnxx6aybjycvgj3c2ygzto2xhzvsohdsv3g6evm@jpeg 1x, https:\/\/cdn.bsky.app\/img\/feed_fullsize\/plain\/did:plc:ybkylffhwhn2an2ic2lxh76k\/bafkreidh6mhffosfxhbgnxx6aybjycvgj3c2ygzto2xhzvsohdsv3g6evm@jpeg 1.5x, https:\/\/cdn.bsky.app\/img\/feed_fullsize\/plain\/did:plc:ybkylffhwhn2an2ic2lxh76k\/bafkreidh6mhffosfxhbgnxx6aybjycvgj3c2ygzto2xhzvsohdsv3g6evm@jpeg 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":5269,"url":"https:\/\/afutureworththinkingabout.com\/?p=5269","url_meta":{"origin":5253,"position":5},"title":"My Review of Shannon Vallor&#8217;s TECHNOLOGY AND THE VIRTUES","author":"Damien P. Williams","date":"May 10, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"My piece \"Cultivating Technomoral Interrelations,\" a review of\u00a0Technology and the Virtues: A Philosophical Guide to a Future Worth Wanting has been up over at the Social Epistemology Research and Reply Collective for a few months, now, so I figured I should post something about it, here. 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