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Digitalisation and emerging technologies affect our lives and are increasingly present in a growing number of fields. Ethical implications of the digitalisation process have therefore long been discussed by the scholars. The rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) has taken the legal and ethical discussion to another level. There is no doubt that AI can have a positive impact on the society. The focus here, however, is on its more negative impact. This article will specifically consider how the law and ethics in their interaction can be applied in a situation where a disabled person needs some kind of assistive technology to participate in the society as an equal member. This article intends to investigate whether the EU Guidelines for Trustworthy AI, as a milestone of ethics concerning technology, has the power to change the current practice of how social and economic rights are applied. The main focus of the article is the ethical requirements 'Human agency and oversight' and, more specifically, fundamental rights.

The current issue of Acta Baltica Historiae et Philosophiae Scientiarum is dedicated to our Ukrainian colleagues, who carry on their everyday work under appalling conditions. All the authors of the research papers and reviews in this issue come from Ukraine, the country that has been suffering under the ruthless aggression launched by its powerful neighbour on February 24 this year.

The current issue of Acta Baltica Historiae et Philosophiae Scientiarum is a regular one but there is still something special about it. The journal was launched as a result of the joint efforts of the key members of the associations of the historians and philosophers of science of the Baltic countries.

If it is the tendency of technology, and especially of information and communication technology, particularly in the context of the smart city, not to empower the human person but rather to disenfranchise them by curtailing their capability to judge and choose, how can one counter this dynamic? Code, make, talk, and pray are suggested as possible modes of resistance.

Today, the (Western) geopolitics dominant in the decade following the Cold War must consider the rivalling (Eastern) geopolitics. The present article deals with the use of the military bases situated abroad to support separatism in neighbouring countries. In the relations between Abkhazia, Southern Ossetia, Georgia and Russia in 1989 – 2008, special attention is paid to the periods of political standstill when the war was continued as the war of statements conducted by representative bodies in which even the UN Security Council came to be included. The article also focuses on the change of geopolitical visions of Georgia following the Rose Revolution or the waning of the myths of Shevardnadze and Russia's foreign policy intentions.

Carl Sagan (1990) famously lamented how "we live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows about science and technology. This is a clear prescription for disaster". One might add that in contemporary societies, people know about the philosophy of science and technology even less.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is developing rapidly. There are technologies available that fulfil several tasks better than humans can and even behave like humans to some extent. Thus, the situation prompts the question whether AI should be granted legal person- and/or agenthood? There have been similar situations in history where the legal status of slaves or indigenous peoples was discussed. Still, in those historical questions, the subjects under study were always natural persons, i.e., they were living beings belonging to the species Homo sapiens. We analyse the situation from moral-ethical and practical perspectives. The final conclusion is that the currently existing AIs are still so far removed from humans that there is simply no need to think seriously about legal person- or agenthood. Doing so would mean imposing obligations on the AI to follow. This, in turn, would mean that certain rights in relation to those obligations would have to be granted as well. By all evidence, this is something that humans are not ready to do yet and might never get that far.

Aunque la clasificación de los trabajadores de la economía gig lleva muchos años siendo motivo de controversia en el marco del derecho laboral europeo, la aparición de la pandemia de la COVID-19 la ha convertido en una prioridad. El papel de la economía gig ha cambiado: de ser una opción laboral para complementar los ingresos se ha convertido, para muchos, en la fuente principal de ingresos, por lo que la Unión Europea (UE) anunció su intención de abordar esta cuestión. En 2021, en el ámbito europeo, se realizó una intensa actividad en referencia a la jurisprudencia de la economía gig, con sentencias de tribunales supremos de varios estados miembros y nuevas leyes que han clasificado a los participantes en el mercado laboral de este sector. Este artículo parte de tres estudios de caso –Reino Unido, Países Bajos y España– para explorar los desarrollos recientes en jurisprudencia de la economía gig y sacar conclusiones para el futuro.