New Article in Philosophy & Technology journal: What if “healthy” Is not all I Want to Be?
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Abstract
Health consciousness has become unavoidable, and with it an increase in the preoccupation to live according to the mandates of a specific lifestyle that promises to bring health, making us live better and longer. The rapid advances in AI-powered technologies contribute to the gathering and processing of millions of data points reflecting our health, which can be used to design more personalised plans that assist individuals in pursuing a healthier lifestyle. The result is a narrow conception of health that focuses on quantifiable data that can be analysed to generate a model of a healthy subject, who is, consequently, obsessed with optimising each of the variables that contribute to their health. This paper examines how technology delimits and prescribes specific concepts of health and well-being, being especially attentive to how the incorporation of AI into existing tracking medical devices exacerbates a quantified and reductive (self)interpretation of the individual.