From Text to Technology: Exploring Ethics, AI, and Digital Humanities
This blog is written as a task assigned by the Head of the Department of English (MKBU), Prof. and Dr. Dilip Barad Sir, as part of the Digital Humanities course. Here is the link to the professor's blog for background reading: Click here
Introduction
As part of our classroom activity, I participated in the Moral Machine experiment. The activity is designed to explore how human beings make ethical decisions in situations involving self-driving cars and unavoidable accidents. Instead of simply asking how a machine should function technically, the activity asks a more important question: What should a self-driving car do when every possible decision may result in harm?
The activity presented a series of different situations in which I had to choose between two possible actions. In these situations, the self-driving car could not save everyone, so I had to decide which group of people should be protected. The scenarios included pedestrians and passengers, different numbers of people, and people with different characteristics. The screenshots included in my PDF document record the choices I made throughout the activity.
This activity helped me understand that Artificial Intelligence is not only a technological subject. It is also connected with ethics, morality, human values, social assumptions, and decision-making.
My Experience of the Moral Machine Activity
My experience with the Moral Machine was both interesting and challenging. At first, the activity seemed like a simple process of choosing between two options. However, as the situations became more complex, I realized that each decision involved a difficult moral question.
For example, some situations required me to decide whether the self-driving car should continue its current path or change its direction. In other situations, I had to consider whether the car should protect its passengers or pedestrians. The screenshots show several such scenarios, including situations involving groups of pedestrians, passengers, and different numbers of people.
The difficult part was that there was no completely correct answer. If I chose one option, some people would be saved while others would be harmed. Therefore, every decision required me to think about the value of human life, fairness, responsibility, and consequences.
This made me realize that when we talk about ethical AI, we are actually talking about human choices being translated into technological rules.
Difficult Moral Choices
One of the most important aspects of the activity was the conflict between different moral principles.
1. Saving More Lives
One major question was whether the self-driving car should always try to save the greatest number of people.
For example, if one choice could save several people while another could save only one or two, the activity required me to consider whether the larger number should automatically receive priority.
This introduced me to the idea of consequentialist thinking, where the consequences of an action are important in determining whether the action is morally acceptable.
However, the activity also made me question whether morality can always be reduced to numbers. Is saving five people necessarily more morally correct than saving one person? Such questions demonstrate the complexity of ethical decision-making.
2. Protecting Passengers
Another important issue was whether a self-driving car should prioritize the people inside the vehicle.
A passenger may expect the vehicle to protect them because they are using the vehicle. At the same time, pedestrians are also human beings whose lives have value.
The Moral Machine results included a specific category called “Protecting Passengers,” showing that this is an important ethical dimension in autonomous vehicle decision-making.
This made me think about the responsibilities of technology toward both its users and people outside the technological system.
3. Upholding the Law
The activity also considered whether the self-driving car should follow the law while making an ethical decision.
The final results included an “Upholding the Law” category.
This raises an important question: Should an AI system always follow legal rules, even when breaking a rule might save more lives?
For example, if avoiding an accident requires crossing a road boundary or violating a traffic rule, should the machine prioritize the law or human safety?
This demonstrates that legal decisions and moral decisions are not always identical.
My Moral Preferences
After completing the different scenarios, the Moral Machine generated a results section showing the moral tendencies reflected in my choices. The results included categories such as Saving More Lives, Protecting Passengers, and Upholding the Law.
The activity also examined several other preferences, including:
- Gender preference
- Age preference
- Species preference
- Fitness preference
- Social value preference
- Protecting passengers
- Saving more lives
- Upholding the law
The preference questionnaire and results pages in the PDF show how these different factors were used to understand the pattern of my decisions.
The results were particularly interesting because they demonstrated that moral decisions can be influenced by the way a situation is presented. Even when people believe that they are making completely rational decisions, their choices may reflect personal assumptions and values.
Moral Machine and Unconscious Bias
The activity also connects strongly with the concept of unconscious bias.
When we make decisions, we may believe that we are being objective. However, our decisions can be influenced by our experiences, social values, cultural background, and assumptions.
The Moral Machine made these hidden preferences more visible. By presenting different combinations of people and circumstances, it encouraged me to examine why I selected one option instead of another.
This is especially important when thinking about Artificial Intelligence. If humans create the rules, select the data, and design the systems used by AI, then human assumptions can become part of technological decision-making.
Therefore, the question is not simply:
“Can AI make decisions?”
It is also:
“Whose values are represented in those decisions?”
Moral Machine and Artificial Intelligence
The activity helped me understand that Artificial Intelligence cannot be viewed as completely independent from society.
An AI system does not create its ethical framework in isolation. Human beings design its objectives, provide its training data, and establish the rules according to which it operates.
The Moral Machine therefore provides an important way of thinking about algorithmic ethics. If an autonomous vehicle has to make a life-and-death decision, its decision-making system must be based on some ethical principles.
But whose ethical principles should it follow?
Should it:
- Save the maximum number of people?
- Protect passengers?
- Protect pedestrians?
- Follow the law?
- Avoid intervention?
- Treat everyone equally?
- Consider age or other characteristics?
The activity shows that these questions do not have easy answers.
Moral Machine and Literary Studies
As a student of English Literature, I found the activity particularly relevant because literature also deals with human choices, morality, conflict, responsibility, justice, and consequences.
Literary texts frequently place characters in situations where they must make difficult moral decisions. Through such situations, literature asks readers to examine different perspectives rather than accepting one universal answer.
The Moral Machine creates a similar situation in a digital environment. It transforms an ethical question into an interactive experience.
This demonstrates an important connection between literary studies and digital humanities. Literary theory teaches us to question assumptions, examine perspectives, identify power structures, and understand how meaning is constructed. These skills can also be applied to Artificial Intelligence.
Connection with Digital Humanities
The activity helped me understand the practical importance of Digital Humanities.
Digital Humanities is not simply about using computers or digital tools for academic work. It also encourages us to examine how technology interacts with culture, society, language, ethics, and human knowledge.
The Moral Machine is a good example because it combines:
Technology + Ethics + Human Values + Decision-Making + Society
The activity therefore encouraged me to think critically about the technologies that increasingly influence everyday life.
What I Learned from the Activity
The Moral Machine activity provided several important learning outcomes.
1. AI involves ethical decisions
I learned that Artificial Intelligence is not limited to technical calculations. AI systems can be involved in decisions that have significant ethical consequences.
2. Human values influence technology
The activity showed me that technological systems can reflect human values because people design and program them.
3. There is no single universal moral answer
Different people may make different decisions when presented with the same moral dilemma. Therefore, creating a universal ethical system for AI is extremely difficult.
4. Personal preferences can influence decisions
The results showed how different preferences can emerge through repeated choices. The activity encouraged me to reflect on my own decision-making process.
5. Critical thinking is essential
Instead of accepting technological decisions as neutral or objective, we should question the principles behind them.
6. AI requires humanistic perspectives
Technical development alone is not enough. Questions of morality, culture, representation, justice, and responsibility must also be considered.
Reflection on the Activity
The most significant lesson I gained from the Moral Machine activity is that technology reflects human choices.
Before completing the activity, I might have thought of a self-driving car mainly as a technological innovation. After the activity, I understood that such technology can also become a space where difficult questions about human life and morality are negotiated.
The activity made me reflect on my own choices. In each situation, I had to make a decision within a few possible options, but real-world situations are much more complicated. Human beings cannot always be reduced to categories or numbers.
Therefore, the challenge for AI developers is not simply to create machines that can make decisions. The larger challenge is to create systems that can make decisions fairly, transparently, responsibly, and with awareness of human diversity.
Conclusion
The Moral Machine Activity was a valuable learning experience because it connected Artificial Intelligence with ethics, morality, human values, and critical thinking. The activity demonstrated that seemingly simple technological decisions can involve complex questions about human life and social values.
The results of the activity helped me recognize my own patterns of moral decision-making, while the different scenarios encouraged me to question ideas such as saving more lives, protecting passengers, following the law, and valuing different characteristics.
From the perspective of Digital Humanities, the activity taught me that technology should not be studied separately from human culture and society. AI is created by humans, influenced by human values, and used within human societies. Therefore, critical and ethical reflection is necessary when developing and using AI.
Here is the Link of the PDF: Click here
The Death of the Dead Book: From Text to Hypertext
The presentation explains the changing relationship between students and books in the digital age. Traditional printed books are static, while digital screens are interactive and responsive. Digital-native students are more familiar with technology, links, images, and multimedia. Therefore, education needs to move from the traditional “Text” to “Hypertext” to make learning more interactive and relevant.
Understanding Hypertext
Hypertext is a digital form of text connected with images, sounds, videos, and other information through links. Unlike a printed book, hypertext allows readers to explore additional information immediately. It creates a more active relationship between the learner and the learning material. The presentation presents hypertext as an important part of modern digital pedagogy.
The “Salad Bowl” Model of Teaching
The presentation describes the modern classroom as a “Salad Bowl” because it combines different teaching approaches. Face-to-face teaching provides direct interaction, while the flipped classroom gives students digital materials before class. Blended learning combines traditional and digital methods, whereas mixed-mode teaching brings together physical and online learners. These methods provide different ways of engaging students.
Flipped Classroom and Blended Learning
In a flipped classroom, students can watch lectures, read blogs, or study online materials before coming to class. Classroom time can then focus on questions, discussion, and activities. Blended learning similarly combines classroom teaching with digital resources. The aim is to make students active participants rather than passive receivers of information.
Hypertext as a Tool for Understanding Literature
Hypertext can be particularly useful in teaching literature because students may face cultural, geographical, and historical distance when reading literary works. Digital resources can provide images, explanations, background information, and cultural references. In this way, technology can help students understand meanings that may not be immediately clear from the printed text.
Example of the “Hawthorn”
The presentation gives the example of the word “hawthorn.” A student may misunderstand it as a reference to the writer Nathaniel Hawthorne. A Google Image search can show that hawthorn is actually a flowering plant. This visual connection helps students understand the imagery of the poem. It shows how hypertext can act as a key to unlock difficult meanings in literature.
Hypertext and Deconstructive Reading
Digital technology can also support deconstructive reading. Students can explore not only the central subject of an artwork or text but also its marginal and less noticeable elements. Digital images allow students to zoom in and examine details that may be overlooked in a printed book. This encourages students to question fixed meanings and discover alternative interpretations.
The Fall of Icarus and Decentering
The presentation uses The Fall of Icarus as an example of digital and deconstructive interpretation. A traditional reading may focus on the main subject of the artwork, but digital viewing allows students to examine its edges and small details. The hidden or less visible figure of Icarus can therefore become important. This demonstrates the idea of “decentering the centre” and encourages students to look beyond obvious meanings.
Generative Literature
Another important topic is generative literature, in which computers and algorithms participate in producing literary texts. The presentation raises questions about whether a computer can write poetry and whether readers can distinguish between human-written and computer-generated poems. This development challenges traditional ideas of authorship, creativity, and literary production.
Digital Portfolio as Assessment
The presentation suggests using digital portfolios instead of depending completely on one-time examinations. Students can collect their assignments, projects, videos, reflections, and other academic work on a personal website or digital platform. This provides a record of their learning and shows their development over time.
Digital Citizenship
Digital education should also prepare students to become responsible digital citizens. Students need to learn how to create their own digital presence, organize their work, share knowledge, and use technology effectively. Education should therefore develop both subject knowledge and digital literacy skills.
Overall Learning
The presentation shows that the digital age has created new possibilities for teaching and learning. The movement from text to hypertext allows students to connect literature with images, websites, artworks, videos, and other resources. It also introduces new approaches such as generative literature, digital portfolios, and computational literary studies.
Conclusion
Overall, the presentation argues that moving from Text to Hypertext can make education more interactive, creative, and learner-centred. It does not mean completely rejecting books or traditional literary studies; rather, it encourages teachers to combine traditional knowledge with digital possibilities. The main message is to explore new pedagogical possibilities for digital-native learners and use technology to create richer experiences of literature and learning.
Part 1 : A Pedagogical Shift from Text to Hypertext
The presentation by Prof. Dilip Barad, Department of English, M. K. Bhavnagar University, focuses on the changing nature of teaching and learning in the digital era. It explores how traditional text-based education can be transformed through hypertext, digital pedagogy, blended learning, flipped classrooms, and mixed-mode teaching.
From Text to Hypertext
The presentation begins by explaining hypertext as a system that connects text, images, sound, and other digital information through direct links. HTML and HTTP make it possible for users to access and interact with web resources. This changes reading from a linear process into a more interconnected and interactive experience.
The presentation refers to Silvio Gaggi’s From Text to Hypertext: Decentering the Subject in Fiction, Film, the Visual Arts, and Electronic Media. Gaggi argues that in postmodern and electronic media, the subject or self becomes unstable, fragmented, and decentered. Digital environments also allow readers to become active participants rather than simply receiving information from an author.
Digital Pedagogy
A major focus of the presentation is Digital Pedagogy. In the digital environment, the traditional roles of teacher, learner, and fixed content are transformed. The learner becomes more active, and the authority of the teacher is no longer completely centralized.
The presentation suggests different pedagogical models such as:
- Blended Learning
- Flipped Classroom
- Mixed-Mode Classroom
- Online Assessment
- Synchronous Teaching
- Asynchronous Learning
- Digital Portfolios
- CMS and LMS platforms
These methods combine face-to-face teaching with digital resources and encourage students to participate more actively in the learning process.
Flipped Classroom and Interactive Learning
The flipped classroom is presented as a method that changes the traditional classroom structure. Students can engage with learning materials before class, while classroom time can be used for discussion, questions, interpretation, and interaction.
The presentation also demonstrates the use of digital tools such as Lightboard/Glassboard and OBS (Open Broadcaster Software). These technologies can make teaching more visual and interactive. Examples include teaching business letters, plays, poetry, and literary texts through digital presentations and moving images.
Teaching Literature Through Digital Tools
One of the most interesting aspects is the application of digital pedagogy to literary studies. The presentation demonstrates methods of teaching poems and literary texts through visual and digital techniques.
For example, Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 is approached through a deconstructive reading, encouraging students to watch, think, explore deeply, and discuss different meanings rather than simply accepting one fixed interpretation.
Mixed-Mode Teaching
The final part presents mixed-mode teaching, where classroom teaching and online learning are combined. Students can participate physically in the classroom while also connecting through digital platforms. This model creates flexibility and expands the possibilities of interaction between teachers and learners.
Learning Outcome
Overall, the presentation shows that digital technology is not merely a replacement for traditional teaching; it can transform the entire pedagogical process. The shift from text to hypertext also represents a shift from linear reading to interconnected reading, from teacher-centred learning to learner-centred learning, and from passive reception to active participation.
For literature students, digital pedagogy opens new possibilities for close reading, visual interpretation, collaborative discussion, multimedia learning, and deconstructive approaches. The presentation therefore encourages teachers to develop innovative pedagogical models that preserve the essence of language and literature while making learning more engaging for digital-age learners.
Part 2 : Digital Pedagogy and Teaching Literature
The presentation explores the challenges of teaching language and literature in the digital age and introduces innovative ways of using technology to make online learning more effective and engaging. It focuses especially on the use of digital pedagogy, collaborative platforms, hypertext, visual resources, and interactive teaching methods.
One of the initial challenges discussed is language teaching, particularly pronunciation, stress, and modulation. Students may sometimes find it difficult to understand the correct pronunciation and linguistic elements through conventional online teaching. To address this problem, the presentation introduces tools such as Live Caption in Google Chrome, which can provide real-time captions and help learners follow spoken language more effectively. It also demonstrates transcription and note-taking tools that can support online classes.
Another important focus is engaging learners through collaborative digital platforms. The presentation highlights the use of Google Drive in online and remote teaching. Digital tools can encourage students to collaborate, share resources, write together, and participate actively rather than remaining passive listeners. The presentation also discusses Glassboard/Lightboard technology, which provides teachers with a more visual and interactive way of explaining concepts during online classes.
Digital Pedagogy and Teaching Literature
A major part of the presentation deals with the question of how literature can be effectively taught online. It asks whether teachers can communicate the essence of poetry, prose, novels, drama, and short stories through digital platforms and whether students can understand and appreciate literature in an online environment.
The presentation also points out several challenges involved in teaching English literature as foreign literature. These include cultural anonymity, social codes of conduct, religious differences, mythical differences, differences in the collective unconscious, geographical remoteness, and historical distance. These factors can create difficulties for students when they try to understand literary texts from cultures different from their own.
Teaching Literature Through Visual Interpretation
An interesting example in the presentation is the teaching of a poem through images and visual references. The poem describes clouds, flowers, hills, and a blue pitcher. The presentation connects the poetic description with visual images of nature and with Susan Noon’s painting Blue Pitcher with Flowers. This demonstrates how images can help students visualize poetic language and develop a deeper understanding of literary imagery.
This method shows that digital pedagogy can bring together text, image, sound, video, and interpretation. Instead of reading a poem only from a printed page, students can explore its visual and cultural associations through digital resources.
Hypertext and Interactive Learning
The presentation finally introduces a valuable digital resource for teaching literature through hypertext. The example of The Fall of Icarus provides different stories, images, artworks, and learning materials. Students can move between interconnected resources and explore the subject from different perspectives.
The lesson plan connects the myth of Icarus and Daedalus with a webquest and encourages students to understand the myth, explore myth-making techniques, and engage with the theoretical concept of “decentering the centre” and deconstructive reading.
Conclusion
Overall, the presentation demonstrates that digital pedagogy can transform the teaching of language and literature. Technology can help overcome problems of pronunciation, cultural distance, learner engagement, and literary interpretation. Tools such as Google Drive, Live Caption, Glassboard/Lightboard, visual resources, and hypertext make learning more collaborative, interactive, and learner-centred.
The presentation therefore suggests that teaching literature in the digital era should not simply transfer traditional classroom methods to an online platform. Instead, teachers should explore new digital methods that allow students to watch, listen, read, interact, collaborate, visualize, question, and interpret. In this way, digital pedagogy can make literature more accessible and meaningful to contemporary learners.
Part 3 : From Creative Literature to Generative Literature
The presentation explores the transition from creative literature to generative literature and examines how computers, algorithms, and digital technologies are changing the production, reading, and study of literature. It connects the development of generative literature with the broader field of Digital Humanities and introduces new ways of understanding literary texts through computational tools.
From Creative Literature to Generative Literature
The presentation defines generative literature as literary texts produced through a specific dictionary, a set of rules, and algorithms. Unlike traditional literature, where a human author directly creates the text, generative literature involves a computer in the process of producing literary texts. This changes some traditional concepts of authorship, creativity, reading, and literary time.
The presentation raises an important question: Can a computer write poetry? It demonstrates this question through examples of computer-generated poems and activities such as “Bot or Not,” where readers are asked to identify whether a poem was written by a human or generated by a computer. These examples encourage us to reconsider the boundaries between human creativity and machine-generated creativity.
Digital Humanities
Another important topic is Digital Humanities, particularly its role in English departments. Digital Humanities brings together literary studies and computational methods. Instead of studying literature only through traditional close reading, researchers can use digital tools to examine large collections of texts, patterns, language, characters, and cultural data.
The presentation introduces Aiden and Michel’s work on big data and human culture, showing how large-scale digital data can become a lens through which culture and human behaviour can be studied.
Corpus Linguistics and Literary Studies
The presentation also introduces corpus linguistics as a useful method for studying literature. The CLiC web app, developed as part of the CLiC Dickens project, demonstrates how computer-assisted corpus stylistics can be applied to literary texts. It allows researchers to examine language patterns and gain new insights into how readers perceive fictional characters.
The example of the 19th-century reference corpus demonstrates how a large collection of literary texts can be explored digitally through features such as concordances, subjects, clusters, and keywords. This shows how computational methods can support and expand traditional literary analysis.
Digital Portfolio and Digital Citizenship
The presentation further discusses digital portfolios as a form of assessment. Students can collect and hyperlink their classroom work on personal websites, creating a digital record of their learning and development.
The presentation also emphasizes the importance of preparing students for digital citizenship. Students need not only knowledge of their core subject but also digital literacy skills. They should learn how to create their own digital presence and share their learning effectively and purposefully with the wider world.
Learning Outcome
The presentation shows that the Digital Era has created new possibilities in pedagogy and literary studies. The movement from text to hypertext and from creative literature to generative literature encourages students and teachers to explore new forms of reading, writing, research, and learning.
For me, the most important learning from this presentation is that technology does not simply replace traditional literature; rather, it opens new possibilities for understanding what literature can be. Generative literature challenges the traditional idea of the author, while Digital Humanities provides new computational methods for studying literary and cultural materials. The presentation therefore encourages learners to explore the possibilities of the digital age and move confidently “from text to hypertext.”
References:
Barad, Dilip. “Pedagogical Shift from Text to Hypertext: Language & Literature to the Digital Natives.” Dilip Barad | Teacher Blog, 18 Sept. 2021, https://blog.dilipbarad.com/2021/09/pedagogical-shift-from-text-to.html
Thank you!
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