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To Trust or Not to Trust Cybots: Ethical Dilemmas in the Posthuman Organization

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New Horizons for Industry 4.0 in Modern Business

Abstract

Replacing human-centric trust by digital-centric trust in Industry 4.0 as a posthuman organization, stakeholder relationships (that comprise human and technological agents) get hugely impacted. The mutual knowledge, value sharing, regard, and respect among various organizational agents, affecting the firm’s performance, tend to alter enormously. We make a qualitative theoretical critique of the concept of digital trust as a contradiction in ethical terms within Industry 4.0 as a posthuman organization. The dilemma of ethics in Industry 4.0 becomes a moot issue, and our theoretical intervention intends to find a direction beyond this dilemma. Furthermore, we take recourse to French philosopher and social thinker Michel Foucault’s ethics of curiosity which helps us understand the socio-economic impact of Industry 4.0 on its employees and the dilemma of trust. It allows us to comprehend how the employees may engage with the uncertain futures in Industry 4.0 that have the potency to impact livelihoods. Finally, we intended to critically probe the ethical issues around digital trust of anthropomorphic condition of Industry 4.0. We conclude that overreliance on digital trust may result in technocentricity, that comes at the cost of displacement of the human employees and anthropocentric trust. However, we theoretically conclude that the avoidance of the same is possible either through community-care resistance or adoption of fragmented process. We perceive a future where anthropocentric trust will undercut the digicentricity of anthropomorphic condition. We also highlight future research agenda.

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  1. Faculty of Humanities, Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, Administrative Building, Alliance University Chandapura-Anekal Road, Bangalore, Karnataka, 562106, India

    Arindam Das

  2. P. B. College, RS Kanakpur, Panskura, West Bengal, 721171, India

    Debojoy Chanda

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  1. School of Computer Science, Duy Tan University, Da Nang, Vietnam

    Anand Nayyar

  2. AIBS, Amity University, NOIDA, India

    Mohd Naved

  3. Thapar University, Patiala, India

    Rudra Rameshwar

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Das, A., Chanda, D. (2023). To Trust or Not to Trust Cybots: Ethical Dilemmas in the Posthuman Organization. In: Nayyar, A., Naved, M., Rameshwar, R. (eds) New Horizons for Industry 4.0 in Modern Business. Contributions to Environmental Sciences & Innovative Business Technology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20443-2_9

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