Smart Living in the Digital Age

Abstract

The digital age is the age of smart systems. Smart living has already emerged as the conceptual hallmark of the digital future. We have we or will soon have smart homes, cities, and all sorts of smart interconnected objects. This paper deals, firstly, with the meaning of smart as related to the Greek concept of metis or cunning intelligence, the contexts of use being not only of human beings but also of gods, animals and artificial devices. The 19th century application of the concept referred to devices in general and in the 20th century to digital devices and systems in particular for which the leading sense is human intelligence. At present, it is not human but digital intelligence that leads the meaning of smart. Artificial smart systems receive their goals from the outside even if they can further develop such goals, giving the impression that they have conceived their goals on their own. They behave as if they were guided by a 'who' while in fact it is just a reified one, or a 'what'. The difference between who and what is the basis of ethical thinking in the age of smart systems.