The Architectonic Shift and the PrOGraMM model of agency

Central ethical issues of digital technologies, such as misinformation, deepfakes, and AI-generated content, disrupt our practices for acquiring and producing knowledge—our epistemic practices. Thus, the Internet is frequently conceptualized as a library, the paradigmatic place for acquiring knowledge. Discussions that assume this analogy (see Lynch 2016) typically focus on the books in that library (i.e., online content), asking whether they hold too many falsities or trivial information, so users are accountable for consuming and sharing information responsibly. However, two libraries with exactly the same books could produce starkly different outcomes, for example, if one offered a space to discuss calmly while the other played loud music and forced us to yell at each other. Consequently, I propose rethinking the analogy to look beyond the books to the library's design. This is what I call the Architectonic Shift. More formally, this shift moves from informational to agential challenges. The former concerns the quality of online content; the latter affects who has the power to shape our capacity to act (our agency) through design. To address the latter, I propose the ‘PrOGraMM’ model, on which epistemic agency is Plural, Ordered, Graded, Multidimensional, and Material. The framework has profound consequences for a hybrid ethics of technology. This shift shows that while online content is produced by many different agents, the deeper design choices of digital platforms are concentrated in a few U.S.-based big-tech companies, extending responsibilities beyond the user and putting issues of cognitive colonialism at the center. The PrOGraMM model analyzes these issues as an interplay of different agents, like users, designers, and AI, allowing us to differentiate them across its five main features. Finally, the framework promotes currently scarce collaborations between philosophers and the disciplines that build environments, especially architecture and urban design.