I have an expectation that machine consciousness will emerge unexpected, unsought, and perhaps undetected.

In “Finding the Wonder Woman Within,” values like courage, wonder, equality, grace, and power are addressed, often in very powerful ways.

Information generated on social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, and Instagram are fast becoming powerful and ubiquitous new sources of time-critical data needed to aid decision making during extreme weather events and emergency situations.

The accumulation of data points for every person on earth continues at an amazing rate, and from an amazing diversity…  Read More

We must challenge ourselves to transcend our familiar notion of the IT artifact as just an inanimate tool standing by for our use like some sort of mechanical device, neatly separable and distinct from us. It is far more productive to view Information Technology as practice.
Citizen trust and confidence in the public institution and notions of the public good are, in many ways, the bottom line for the public sector.

Zuckerberg’s acknowledgement of the need to address issues related to election influence, “fake news,” and social media addiction is a significant step.

Today, over 90% of U.S. teenagers are online. When it comes to social media, 50% of all teenagers log on at least once a day, with 22% logging on more than 10 times a day. We, like our parents and their parents before them, are worried about the effect that technology is having on the development of our kids. The author discussed the five rules for teaching teens to live with technology responsibly.

The ability to grow animal muscle from a few cells into meat for the kitchen is a significant technological advance. The book Clean Meat proposes that beef and other meat be lab-grown.

As technological advances disrupt existing markets and value networks, change can outpace our ability to adapt.

The Trump administration cannot simply reject current theories of climate change based on nothing more than that it may conflict with a constituency’s self-interest or one’s sheer lack of understanding.

Cybersecurity expert Yan Shoshitaishvili joins Heather Ross to talk about the cybersecurity and social implications of the FCC’s December 2017…  Read More

The Wall Street Journal points out that China has collected 54 million DNA records, and the U.S. FBI holds 13…  Read More

Australian Aboriginal sovereignty is no longer just about Aboriginal communities retaining rights to their own land. The most brutal types of dispossession are the latest forms of data retention, decreased privacy, and unwarranted use of this personal data as a result of activities being collected, analyzed, and intelligently manipulated by geographically remote entities, all thanks to the Internet.

The Wall Street Journal reports that “Facebook Concedes to Effects on Health.” The social media health impact acknowledged is related…  Read More

Twenty-five years ago we didn’t know that solar energy, including modular photovoltaic (PV) plants ranging in size from 1 kW to hundreds of megawatts, along with increasingly larger, electronically-aided wind generators (up to 8-MW offshore units), would become in just 25 years the cornerstones of a revolution in power production that is drastically changing the face and fate of power systems.

While societal change often takes place over extended periods of time, at key times in the history of human society, innovation can be accelerated by a combination of necessity and serendipity. We are currently experiencing such an accelerated transition.

Unmet local concerns related to renewable energy projects can result in costly project delays or cancellation. Strong political and financial incentives encourage state authorities and renewable energy developers to address issues of social acceptance.

Frugal innovations are all the rage. Their appeal stems from lower costs to society at large.

The IEEE Society on Social Implications of Technology announces the selection of Jeremy Pitt, Professor of Intelligent and Self-Organizing Systems at Imperial College, London, U.K., as Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine, beginning January 1, 2018.

It is delightful when high profile leaders of high tech companies present the case for positive social benefit