Yuk Hui
Professor of Philosophy, Erasmus University Rotterdam
About
Yuk Hui is a philosopher and Professor of Philosophy at Erasmus University Rotterdam, where he holds the Chair of Human Conditions and directs the Erasmus Institute for Philosophy and Technology. He studied computer engineering at the University of Hong Kong and completed his PhD under Bernard Stiegler at Goldsmiths, University of London. He originated the concept of 'cosmotechnics' — the idea that technology is not universal but shaped by the cosmic and moral orders of different cultures — and 'technodiversity' as an alternative to the homogenizing trajectory of Western technological modernity. His major works include The Question Concerning Technology in China (2016), Recursivity and Contingency (2019), Machine and Sovereignty (2024), and Kant Machine (2026).
Key Contributions
- Developed cosmotechnics, arguing that technology is always shaped by cosmology, culture, and forms of life
- Argues for technodiversity against the assumption that all societies must follow one universal technological path
- Wrote The Question Concerning Technology in China, putting Chinese and European philosophy of technology into direct conversation
- Extended philosophy of technology through cybernetics and recursion in works such as Recursivity and Contingency
- Offers AI debates a way to ask not only what systems can do, but what worlds and values they encode
- His work is conceptually rich, though its abstraction can make practical governance implications hard to specify
