Smart Technologies as a Concept and Phenomenon: On Criteria

Smart technologies are explored as a phenomenon and concept. The focus on the subject is due to the wide spread of smart technologies, their ubiquitous use in everyday life, and the insufficient level of their reflection both as a phenomenon and as a concept. This contradiction does not always contribute to the efficient use of smart technologies. Smart technologies as a concept are largely determined by the specifics of their phenomenal functioning, which complicates the possibility of its clear definition. Therefore, in foreign and domestic studies, it is impossible to find a universal way of determining smart technologies due to the contextual factors in the form of social, cultural, value differences between different societies and countries. On the example of comparing connotations of the concept “smart technology” in English- and Russian-language studies, the differences in semantic nuances is demonstrated. The inaccuracy of translating “smart technologies” as “umnye tekhnologii” (“umnye” is a derivative of “um” [mind]) is justified, since this connotation is not unambiguously recognized either by foreign or domestic authors. More precisely, the concept “um” is not of the utmost importance in the concept under consideration in foreign literature. The Russian-speaking tradition of understanding the word “um” (“umnye”) also has certain specifics. In the domestic tradition, an understanding of “um/mind” as a “staircase wit” has developed, which significantly prevents the formation of value-based, cultural and social ontological foundations for the creation and effective use of smart technologies. This dependence of the definition of smart technologies on the practice of applying this phenomenon is also evident in other societies and countries. Criteria for distinguishing smart technologies from technologies of a traditional type are revealed: technological and generational. The characteristics associated with technological criteria are universal in nature, but their values are nevertheless determined by the values and cultural features of countries where smart technologies are exploited. The same applies to the generational foundation, which manifests itself all over the world regardless of culture and country and is due to the birth of generation Z. At the same time, the universalism of the generational plan does not negate the cultural values of this or that society, under the influence of which this factor is further leveled.

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