28 RTAIM "Embodied sovereignty and the phenomenology of enhancing our health and intelligence via wearable AI technologies"

Hanna Poikonen, Tuukka Toivonen

rTAIM(Rebuilding Trust in AI Medicine) Monthly Seminars

 Seminar #28

Embodied sovereignty and the phenomenology of enhancing our health and intelligence via wearable AI technologies

ANNA POIKONEN (ETH Zurich, Switzerland) & TUUKKA TOIVONEN (Loughborough University London, United Kingdom)  

We are happy to announce the forthcoming 28th rTAIM Online Seminar, with the participation of Anna Poikonen and Tuukka Toivonen on 27 May 2026, 10h00-11h00 Lisbon Time Zone, via Microsoft Teams.

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# Seminar 28: Is a strong prioritisation of lived experience (Merleau-Ponty) and vital reason (Ortega y Gasset) a de facto prerequisite for enhancing our intelligence and health via wearable AIs that not only extract data from our bodies but also interpret their measurements? And is the conscious cultivation of our embodied intelligence another such requirement? The purpose of this submission is to address “the riddle of the smart ring” through a phenomenological and neuroscientific approach, recognising that wearables can and do disrupt users’ felt bodily experience. Modest nods to somatic signals notwithstanding, devices such as the Oura ring always risk confounding individuals’ own embodied intelligence. Algorithmic intelligence may fragment our holistic intelligence while yielding mixed health outcomes. Brain research shows distinct large brain networks for externally and internally directed attention. These two opposing networks cannot activate simultaneously. Hence, relying solely on external wearable data may drift us further away from observing our internal experiences. Echoing debates on cognitive sovereignty, we propose the concept of embodied sovereignty—contrasted with cognitive surrender—to denote (1) the right to the primacy of direct, unsullied experience in human-AI relations as well as the active cultivation of our holistic, embodied faculties and confidence required to actualise that right. Our position is that merely encouraging interoceptive awareness through wearables and AI does not go far enough. A genuine transformation that takes seriously the deep cultivation of embodiment beyond AI itself and in interaction with it is needed to enable genuinely dialogic practices between intimate somatic and external technological intelligence.

Short bio: Hanna Poikonen is a neuroscientist, biomedical engineer, and dancer affiliated with ETH Zurich. Her research focuses on neuroscience of expertise, extending from dance and music to mathematics and education, and rehabilitation including mental health and dementia. She holds a PhD in neuroscience of movement, music, and dance from the University of Helsinki and is the founder of WiseMotion, a neuroscience-based movement rehabilitation method. Tuukka Toivonen, PhD (Oxon) is Reader in Regenerative Design & Innovation at Loughborough University London as well as the PI of the UKRI-funded Becoming Regenerative project and a faculty member at UCL STEaPP. Trained as a sociologist at the University of Oxford and at two Japanese universities, his current work investigates embodiment, regeneration, integrated modes of being and self-cultivation from a phenomenological perspective, in the context of technological advancement and disruption. He writes regularly about ecology, being and aliveness for Rick Rubin's Tetragrammaton and most of his essays can be found on his Total Being Substack page.

rTAIM Seminars: https://ifilosofia.up.pt/activities/rtaim-seminars

https://trustaimedicine.weebly.com/rtaim-seminars.html

Organisation:
Steven S. Gouveia (MLAG/IF)
Mind, Language and Action Group (MLAG)
Instituto de Filosofia da Universidade do Porto – UIDB/00502/2020
Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT)

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