Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory

The recent growing concerns surrounding the pervasive adoption of generative AI can be traced back to the long-standing influence of AI algorithms that have predominantly served as content curators on large online platforms. These algorithms are used by online services and platforms to decide what content to show and in what order, and they can have a negative impact, including the spread of misinformation, social polarization, and echo chambers around important topics. Frances Haugen, a former Facebook employee turned whistleblower, has recently drawn significant public attention to this issue by revealing the company's alleged knowledge about the negative impacts of their own algorithms. Additionally, a recent initiative to ban TikTok as a threat to US national security indicates the influence of recommender systems. The objective of this study is threefold. The first goal is to provide an exhaustive evaluation of the profound worldwide influence exerted by algorithm-based recommendations. The second goal is to determine the degree of priority accorded by the scientific community to pivotal subjects in recommender systems discussions, such as misinformation, polarization, addiction, emotional contagion, privacy, and bias. Finally, the third goal is to assess whether the level of scientific research and discourse is commensurate with the significant impact these recommendation systems have globally. The research concludes the impact of recommender systems on society has been largely neglected by the scientific community, despite the fact that more than half of the world's population interacts with them on a daily basis. This becomes especially apparent when considering that algorithms exert influence not just on major societal issues but on every aspect of a user's online experience. The potential consequences for humanity are discussed, such as addiction to technology, weakening relations between humans, and the homogenizing effects on human minds. One possible direction to address the challenges posed by these algorithms is the application of algorithmic regulation to promote content diversity and facilitate democratic engagement, such as the tripartite solution which is elaborated upon in the conclusion. Therefore, future research should not only be centered around further evaluating influence of this technology, but also the analysis of how such systems can be regulated. A broader conversation among all stakeholders should be evoked on these potential approaches, aiming to align AI with societal values and enhance human well-being.

This paper discusses the relations between three forms of altruism: behavioural, evolutionary and motivational. Altruism in a behavioural sense is an act that benefits another person. It can range from volunteering to a charity and helping a neighbour, to giving money to a non-profit organisation or donating blood. People often dedicate their material and nonmaterial resources for the benefit of others to gain psychological, social and material benefits for themselves. Thus, their altruistic acts are driven by egoistic motivation. Also, the final goal of an altruistic act may be the increase in the welfare of a group or adherence to a certain moral principle or a social norm. However, at least sometimes, the welfare of others is the ultimate goal of our actions, when our altruistic acts are performed from altruistic motivation. In evolutionary sense, altruism means the sacrifice of reproductive success for the benefit of other organisms. According to evolutionary theories, behaviour which promotes the reproductive success of the receiver at the cost of the actor is favoured by natural selection, because it is either beneficial for the altruist in the long run, or for his genes, or for the group he belongs to. However, altruism among people emerges as a distinctly human combination of innate and learned behaviours. Not only do we benefit the members of our own group, but we are capable of transcending our tribalistic instincts and putting the benefit of strangers at our own personal expense as our ultimate goal.

The socialist state run modernization produced low fertility throughout Eastern Europe. Fertility rates started falling soon after the end of the Second World War quickly reaching below replacement levels in many areas. This article examines the state responses to the falling fertility as well as birth control practices that individuals relied on in order to maintain small families. After outlining some common features of population policies under the state socialism, the article focuses on family planning policies in Yugoslavia. It is argued that liberal population policy and uninterrupted liberal abortion legislation in Yugoslavia, resulted, among other reasons, from the communist leadership's commitment to national and gender equality, respectively. It is further argued that gender hierarchy within the marriage and family remained almost untouched by the socialist project of women's emancipation and that these hierarchical gender relations shaped birth control practices in specific ways.

Abstract This paper explores the potential of a multidisciplinary approach to testing and aligning artificial intelligence (AI), specifically focusing on large language models (LLMs). Due to the rapid development and wide application of LLMs, challenges such as ethical alignment, controllability, and predictability of these models emerged as global risks. This study investigates an innovative simulation-based multi-agent system within a virtual reality framework that replicates the real-world environment. The framework is populated by automated 'digital citizens,' simulating complex social structures and interactions to examine and optimize AI. Application of various theories from the fields of sociology, social psychology, computer science, physics, biology, and economics demonstrates the possibility of a more human-aligned and socially responsible AI. The purpose of such a digital environment is to provide a dynamic platform where advanced AI agents can interact and make independent decisions, thereby mimicking realistic scenarios. The actors in this digital city, operated by the LLMs, serve as the primary agents, exhibiting high degrees of autonomy. While this approach shows immense potential, there are notable challenges and limitations, most significantly the unpredictable nature of real-world social dynamics. This research endeavors to contribute to the development and refinement of AI, emphasizing the integration of social, ethical, and theoretical dimensions for future research.

A worrying trend of autocratization that has been spreading globally in recent years, has thrust forward a new wave of appeals for deliberative and participatory democracy as a remedy for the crisis. With a few exceptions, the majority of participatory and deliberative institutions were implemented in stable democracies. The efforts to institutionalize participatory and deliberative models are almost completely absent in Serbia and other Western Balkan countries. Yet, there has been a trend of citizen mobilization in the form of social movements and local civic initiatives, which are both a symptom of unresponsive and quite openly authoritarian institutions, as well as a potential pathway to democratization. The pace and scope of these developments in the undemocratic societies of the Western Balkan region, in terms of both bottom up and top-down democratic experimentation, call for a better understanding of their internal dynamics, and their social and political impact. Responding to this need, the articles in the special issue focus on social movement mobilizations and deliberative experimentation. To begin with, our introductory article focuses particularly on understanding the possible role deliberative institutions could have in hybrid regimes. It looks at the first two cases of deliberative mini publics (DMPs) ever organized in Serbia, analyzing their rationale, specific design, implementation, as well as considering the possible role deliberative institutions could play in the hybrid regime of Serbia.

The emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming how humans live and interact, raising both excitement and concerns—particularly about the potential for AI consciousness. For example, Google engineer Blake Lemoine suggested that the AI chatbot LaMDA might become sentient. At that time, GPT-3 was one of the most powerful publicly available language models, capable of simulating human reasoning to a certain extent. The notion of GPT-3 having some degree of consciousness could be linked to its ability to produce human-like responses, hinting at a basic level of understanding. To explore this further, we administered both objective and self-assessment tests of cognitive (CI) and emotional intelligence (EI) to GPT-3. Results showed that GPT-3 outperformed average humans on CI tests requiring the use and demonstration of acquired knowledge. However, its logical reasoning and EI capacities matched those of an average human. GPT-3’s self-assessments of CI and EI didn’t always align with its objective performance, with variations comparable to different human subsamples (e.g., high performers, males). A further discussion considered whether these results signal emerging subjectivity and self-awareness in AI. Future research should examine various language models to identify emergent properties of AI. The goal is not to discover machine consciousness itself, but to identify signs of its development, occurring independently of training and fine-tuning processes. If AI is to be further developed and widely deployed in human interactions, creating empathic AI that mimics human behavior is essential. The rapid advancement toward superintelligence requires continuous monitoring of AI’s human-like capabilities, particularly in general-purpose models, to ensure safety and alignment with human values.

In the last decades of the 20th century we have seen media theories and cognitive sciences grow, mature and reach their pinnacles by analysing, each from their own disciplinary perspective, two of the same core phenomena: that of media as the environment, transmitter and creator of stimuli, and that of embodied human mind as the stimuli receiver, interpreter, experiencer, and also how both are affected by each other. Even though treating a range of very similar problems and coming to similar conclusions, this still has not brought these two disciplines closer together or resulted in their interdisciplinary approach. They did coalesce in regards to traditional media such as film, but more points of connection are needed for untangling interactive and immersive media environments and their effects on human cognition, action, and perception. With the rise of VR and VR-like systems, especially as they start to evolve into the Metaverse as their main platform of interconnectivity, the tissue of the body becomes almost physically intertwined with that of the virtual surrounding it inhabits through immersion. Simultaneously, the interest in these disciplines arises anew, and especially the need to use their concepts in an interdisciplinary way. This paper?s main interest is to bring these disciplines together in problematising the position of a physical body and its sensory-motor capabilities and their development within synthetic surroundings as Metaverse and anticipate potential downsides of Metaverse?s uncontrolled growth. We will do so also by looking into Metaverse as an artificial-life-like phenomenon, following artificial-life rules and evolving a completely new ?corporeality?, a body which is completely adapted to virtual spaces. We call this body the Dry Body, an entity sharing cognitive resources with the physical body it is not a physical part of, but has to extend to.

This paper explores the phenomenon of revisionism in historiography, while focusing in particular on illegitimate revisionism and negationism. It is indisputably true that historiography must be subject to constant revisions. Like all scientific theories, it needs to be characterized by a sort of ?conservative? openness towards new ideas; however, revisions and negations are often put forward without scientific grounding. They reject the well-established historiographical methods, while opening themselves to various kinds of ideologies, biases and manipulations. The paper further offers a synthesized overview of the revisionist practice in dominant parts of the society and historiography in post-communist Serbia. The change in the ideological paradigm that occurred in the 1980s was accompanied by a politically motivated reinterpretation of the past, which primarily focused on World War II in Yugoslavia. In Serbia in the 1990s, Tito?s Partisans were no longer celebrated as national heroes and fighters against fascism; they were replaced by the royalist and nationalist Chetniks led by Draza Mihailovic, whose collaboration with the occupying forces was purposefully glossed over. The nationalist interpretation of history and the new revisionist politics in Serbia were supported by the state and the activities of its three branches: legislative, executive and judicial. In spite of the political changes that took place in Serbia in 2000, the dominant nationalist matrix in historical interpretations and revisionist politics remained unchanged.

Rare diseases are a heterogenic group of disorders with a little in common except of their rarity affecting by less than 5 : 10.000 people. In the world is registered about 6000-8000 rare diseases with 6-8% suffering population only in the European Union. In spite of rarity, they represent an important medical and social problem due to their incidence. For many rare diseases have no treatment, but if it exists and if started on time as being available to patients, there is a good prognosis for them to be able for normal life. The problems of patients affected by rare diseases are related to the lack of diagnosis and timely undergoing as well as their treatment or prevention. Orphan drugs are products intended for treatment, diagnosis or prevention of rare diseases, but for their development and marketing the industry has not been interested in yet because of their marketing reasons. Patients suffering from a rare disease although belonging to the vulnerable group for their specific health needs, is becoming invisible in the health care system due to their additional needs un properly recognized. Ethical problems faced by patients, but also health care professionals are related to the allocation of medical diagnostics, unequal approach to health care, inappropriately specialized social services as well as therapy and rare orphan drugs unavailability. Ethical questions related to clinical trails on orphan drugs, population screening and epidemiology testing on rare diseases will also be discussed in this paper.

Abstract This article addresses trauma, its absence, and the creation of a collective memory among the contributors to the journal Symposion following the 1999 bombing of Serbia. By examining the group’s e-mails and conducting interviews with some of its members, it explores how their shared narrative patt erns constitute a mnemonic community, and asks what are the shared cultural frameworks that create a space for collective remembering within that community. The article argues that past and current politics of memory in Serbia have been built on discourses of a victimized nation and therefore do not recognize the specific ethnic, class or gender positions of individuals as they were during the bombing. Conversely, the national discourse on memorializing the bombing fails to articulate individual experiences and commemorative practices. This article therefore aims to present and analyse some of them.

Abstract This article examines the role, status and perceptions of the Serbian cultural heritage in Kosovo from both Kosovo Albanian and Serbian perspectives. The analysis focuses on two cases, which attracted particular resistance on each of the two sides: the passing of legislation in the Kosovar parliament in 2012 that aimed to protect Serbian cultural heritage and the 2015 unsuccessful Kosovo bid for unesco membership. Both moments demonstrate how cultural heritage is primarily approached from the statehood perspective and used to additionally deepen inter-ethnic distances. The authors shed more light on the discrepancies between the international peacebuilding efforts and the internationally imposed legal framework, challenging the reduction of the peacebuilding efforts to institutional design, while dominant discourses of both Serbian and Albanian elites essentially deepen the enmity and serve as resistance mechanisms to the international peacebuilding strategies.

Analiza polazi od Rawlsova stajališta da autonomne osobe u liberalnom društvu trebaju 
\nposjedovati dvije moralne moći – kapacitet koji se odnosi na smisao za pravdu te za for-
\nmiranje, slijeđenje i reviziju koncepcije dobra. Politički ili neutralni liberalizam podržava 
\nopravdanost državne intervencije za poboljšanje prvog kapaciteta, ujedno proglašavajući 
\nutjecaj na drugi kapacitet nelegitimnim. Kritika ove pozicije izložena je kroz analizu staja-
\nlišta Jonathana Quonga i Marthe Nussbaum, ukazujući na to da ona vode do dozvoljava-
\nnja iracionalnih i autoritarnih pozicija u obrazovanju, odnosno do zapostavljanja razvoja 
\nvrijednih kapaciteta. Premda institucionalni utjecaj može biti pristran i paternalistički, u 
\npojedinim se slučajevima može ukazati na legitimnost institucionalne intervencije u osigu-
\nravanju uvjeta koji poboljšavaju sposobnost osoba da procjenjuju, preispituju i revidiraju 
\nvlastite koncepcije dobra.

Participation in deliberation in stable democracies produces effects which are beneficial for democracy, while the results of deliberative innovations in non-democracies are more ambiguous. This article contributes to the debate about the effects of participatory democratic innovations on attitudes, related to democratic commitments, political capacities and political participation, in the increasingly ubiquitous hybrid regimes. We present the evidence collected from the participants before and after deliberative mini publics (DMPs), held in Serbia in 2020. Serbia is an exemplary case of a recent wave of autocratization, which had led to it becoming a hybrid regime, and it had no track record of deliberative innovations. When conducting the mini publics, we introduced an innovation in the standard design, by including active citizens - representatives of local initiatives or social movements particularly interested in the issue of DMPs. We could not find evidence that the democratic innovation affected attitudes of participants regarding democratic commitments, political capacities and political participation. However, we did find that participants of the DMPs became less satisfied with the functioning of the democracy on the local level. We argue that the anti-democratic wider context of hybrid regimes can produce adverse effects when introducing participatory democratic innovations, at least when it comes to this specific dimension of political participation. We conclude with the suggestions for further research, and a call for consideration of the wider political context when designing democratic interventions in hybrid regimes.

This article has three parts: in the first part the authors discusses two theoretical ways of interpreting revival and revitalization of religion in Serbia. The first way takes religion as a public institution and implies mutual support of religious and non-religious factors, while the other way describes independent, internal religious revival emerging from the very core of religion and church as a divine institution and individual spiritual needs of believers for religiousness (terminal faith). In the second part, the author points to two different interpretations of empirical data on attachment to religion and church in Serbia accumulated in the last thirty years. The third part compares socio-demographic characteristics of religious people from twenty-five years ago and characteristics of contemporary believers.

OBJECTIVES: We aimed to (1) develop a novel instrument, suitable for the general population, capturing intentional non-adherence (iNAR), consisting of non-adherence to prescribed therapy, self-medication and avoidance of seeking medical treatment; (2) differentiate it from other forms of non-adherence, for example, smoking; and (3) relate iNAR to patient-related factors, such as sociodemographics, health status and endorsement of irrational beliefs (conspiratorial thinking and superstitions) and to healthcare-related beliefs and experiences ((mis)trust and negative experiences with the healthcare system, normalisation of patient passivity). DESIGN: То generate iNAR items, we employed a focus group with medical doctors, supplemented it with a literature search and invited a public health expert to refine it further. We examined the internal structure and predictors of iNAR in an observational study. SETTING: Data were collected online using snowball sampling and social networks. PARTICIPANTS: After excluding those who failed one or more out of three attention checks, the final sample size was n=583 adult Serbian citizens, 74.4% female, mean age 39.01 years (SD=12.10). PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOME MEASURES: The primary, planned outcome is the iNAR Questionnaire, while smoking was used for comparison purposes. RESULTS: Factor analysis yielded a one-factor solution, and the final 12-item iNAR Questionnaire had satisfactory internal reliability (alpha=0.72). Health condition and healthcare-related variables accounted for 14% of the variance of iNAR behaviours, whereas sociodemographics and irrational beliefs did not additionally contribute. CONCLUSIONS: We constructed a brief yet comprehensive measure of iNAR behaviours and related them to health and sociodemographic variables and irrational beliefs. The findings suggest that public health interventions should attempt to improve patients' experiences with the system and build trust with their healthcare practitioners rather than aim at specific demographic groups or at correcting patients' unfounded beliefs. STUDY REGISTRATION: The design and confirmatory analyses plan were preregistered (https://osf.io/pnugm).

State represents a social phenomenon which is constantly changing - just like all political actors. The direction of that evolution is determined by the development and current state of the art in technological domain. That explains how the rise of social media and new ICTs has shaped the contemporary political communication. This paper sheds light on the manner in which digital tools are exploited in an unpredictable social ambience which is characterized by numerous political crises. Special attention has been given to the phenomenon of digital astroturfing and political disinformation trends in Venezuela and Brazil. We have found that the dynamic technological development combined with the use of political bots has been creating the potential for fake news, thus impacting election processes and endangering democracy. Therefore, these phenomena need further scientific examination.

Abstract This paper addresses the nexus between contingency, social engagement and change, through investigating the potential of severe (“disruptive”) contingency to bring about new forms of joint agency. By challenging Boltanski's notion of existential tests (which can only be experienced in isolation), the paper argues that social actors can experience disruptive contingent events in an inherently intersubjective manner. Although they severely hinder social interaction, disruptive contingent events enable a possibility of what might be called “negative common knowledge” between social actors which in turn renders certain societal norms meaningless. This possibility is mediated through processes of mutual engagement (calls between actors) that could, further, be transformed into a new “norm circle” (Dave Elder‐Vass). Social domination – in particular its “complex” variety – in this context appears as the obstructing of such transformation. A recent political episode in Serbia is analyzed to demonstrate the emancipatory potential of contingency and the logic of complex domination.

This paper focuses on rational choice theory and its potential to explain prosocial behaviour, precisely charitable giving, defined as monetary contributions to nonprofit organisations. When deciding whether to donate money, rational individuals apply the principle of maximal utility. There are three motives that drive rational individuals to donate: 1) self-interest and enlightened self-interest; 2) pro-social preferences; 3) reciprocity. Although rational choice theory allows for different motives, they are all expressed in terms of utility gained by the decision maker. This paper shows that rational choice theory while appearing to explain "everything", it does not really explain much. Without the reference to the complexity of people's motivation and the social and institutional factors that shape our choices, behaviour cannot be understood.

This paper is the product of a roundtable discussion held at the international conference Horizons of Engagement: Eternalizing Bourdieu, organized by the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory of Belgrade, Serbia, the Centre for Advanced Studies of The University of Rijeka, Croatia, the ?cole Normale Sup?rieure of Paris, France, and the French Institute in Serbia. The event was planned on the occasion of the ninetieth anniversary of the birth of one of the world?s leading sociologists - Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002). The greatest indicator of the scope of Bourdieu?s influence is the fact that he has become the world?s most cited sociologist, ahead of ?mile Durkheim, and the world?s second most cited author in social sciences and the humanities, after Michel Foucault and ahead of Jacques Derrida. As part of this discussion, we address the subject of ?Bourdieu and Politics?, politics - broadly constructed. We evoke Pierre Bourdieu?s involvement in public affairs during the 1990s, while taking into account the concept of the collective intellectual that Bourdieu introduced into social sciences by giving it a specific meaning.

Volunteering is conceptualised as an activity when time is given freely to benefit another person, group or cause. Such activity can be done through formal organisations and informal groups, but time can also be given directly to people in need. However, volunteering to formal organisations tend to predominate in the research, and our knowledge on the factors that promote such behaviour mostly comes from countries where this form of giving time is well developed, particularly from Anglo-Saxon and Western and Northern European countries. Focussing on three forms of giving time in Serbia: volunteering to formal organisations, volunteering in informal groups and helping individuals, this paper seeks to address these gaps in the literature. Data analysed in this paper come from the first encompassing national survey on pro-social behaviour (N= 1,528) carried out in Serbia in 2014. This research shows that providing direct help to people (71.2%) is by far a more common activity than volunteering to formal organisations (27.7%) and participating in the activities of informal groups (22.8%). There are differences in giving time according to socio-demographic characteristics. In general, respondents who reported giving time are likely to be found among the younger population, among students and those without health problems. Also, different socio-demographic groups of population engage in different forms of giving time.