Category: Magazine Articles

Food Security and Agriculture: Technology, Policy, Choices

By on October 1st, 2024 in Articles, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Case Studies, Editorial & Opinion, Environment, Ethics, Health & Medical, Human Impacts, Magazine Articles, Social Implications of Technology, Societal Impact

Food security and agriculture are complex systems that interconnect with many other issues, including poverty and environmental sustainability. These urgent issues inspire proposals for technological solutions. Emerging technologies are often proposed as ways to increase food supply to end hunger. Other proposals target agricultural practice, grounded in the knowledge that agriculture has a large carbon footprint, and the fear that the negative climate impacts of agriculture would worsen as the population increases.

Call for EIC/Co-EICs of IEEE Transactions on Technology and Society

By on September 19th, 2024 in Announcements, Articles, Blog Posts, Human Impacts, Magazine Articles, Social Implications of Technology, Societal Impact, SSIT Announcements, Transactions

The Society on Social Implications of Technology (SSIT) of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) seeks applications and nominations for the position of Editor-in-Chief (EIC) or Co-Editors-in-Chief (Co-EICs) of the IEEE Transactions on Technology and Society (TTS) for a three-year term (once renewable) beginning 1 January 2026.

Text Neck: Looking Down at Devices for Way Too Long

By on September 18th, 2024 in Articles, Case Studies, Commentary, Environment, Ethics, Health & Medical, Human Impacts, Magazine Articles, Social Implications of Technology, Societal Impact

Text Neck is a classic ergonomic issue that has come about as a direct result of technological innovation, as people have begun to increasingly use digital media of all types to text, talk, browse the internet, listen to music, watch videos, or play online games.

Advancing Gender Equality Through Interdisciplinarity

By on August 28th, 2024 in Articles, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Commentary, Human Impacts, Magazine Articles, Social Implications of Technology, Societal Impact

There is a clear parallel between conceptualizations of comedy clubs and AI labs as masculine spaces, and jokes and technology as for men. As Sutko writes, [AI] technology often gets equated with “men’s power,” while women and girls are portrayed as less technologically skilled and less interested than their male counterparts. Such stereotypes can contribute to the gender gap in women’s participation in related fields.

Enhancing Sustainability in Resource-Limited Environments: Government, Culture, and AI

By on July 10th, 2024 in Articles, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Case Studies, Commentary, Environment, Ethics, Health & Medical, Human Impacts, Magazine Articles, Social Implications of Technology, Societal Impact

Spain’s Comunitat Valenciana (Valencian Community) (Figure 1) has a rich agricultural history, with long traditions of resilience and innovation. This tradition,…  Read More

Technological Solutions to Online Toxicity: Potential and Pitfalls

By on July 3rd, 2024 in Articles, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Case Studies, Ethics, Human Impacts, Magazine Articles, Social Implications of Technology, Societal Impact

Social media platforms present a perplexing duality, acting at once as sites to build community and a sense of belonging, while also giving rise to misinformation, facilitating and intensifying disinformation campaigns and perpetuating existing patterns of discrimination from the physical world.

AI and Data Technologies in Advancing Sustainable Development Goals

By on June 15th, 2024 in Articles, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Editorial & Opinion, Environment, Ethics, Health & Medical, Magazine Articles, Social Implications of Technology, Societal Impact

The articles in this special issue focus on the connected nature of the SDGs and the need to address them using community-based approaches and span essential steps for widespread SDG attainment, including planning, implementation, and monitoring.

Sustainability in the Built Environment: The Galapagos Experience

By on May 16th, 2024 in Articles, Case Studies, Commentary, Environment, Ethics, Human Impacts, Magazine Articles, Social Implications of Technology, Societal Impact

The LLES Project promotes the transformation of the conventional construction paradigm, incorporating bioclimatic architecture strategies like passive measures to minimize heat gain and maximize cooling.

Climate Change News – AI and Climate Change

By on May 6th, 2024 in Articles, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Environment, Magazine Articles, News and Notes, Social Implications of Technology, Societal Impact

At the Recent international negotiations on climate change in Dubai in 2023, the potential for artificial intelligence (AI) to play a critical role in addressing climate challenges was recognized through the initiative “AI for Climate Action (#AI4ClimateAction).”

Introducing the Editorial Board—Part I

By on April 29th, 2024 in Articles, Magazine Articles, News and Notes, Social Implications of Technology, Societal Impact

Publications are only as strong as the people who make them work. As part of this new chapter in IEEE Technology and Society Magazine (TSM), this is the first in a series of pieces to introduce the new associate editors who represent a powerhouse of knowledge on the social implications of technology.

A Social Technical Journey to SSIT

By on April 19th, 2024 in Articles, Editorial & Opinion, Ethics, Human Impacts, Magazine Articles, Social Implications of Technology, Societal Impact

IEEE Technology and Society Magazine is a rare place where social and technological concerns come together in a way that respects both the technological details as well as the critical, social areas that influence technological invention and adoption.

Human Centricity in the Relationship Between Explainability and Trust in AI

By on March 20th, 2024 in Articles, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Editorial & Opinion, Human Impacts, Magazine Articles, Social Implications of Technology, Societal Impact

The term “explainability” is a multifaceted concept within the realm of computer science. In essence, it encompasses various aspects and capacities of a system to effectively convey its internal processes, decision-making, capabilities, and constraints to its users. Providing explanations can notably enhance initial trust, especially when trust is measured as a multidimensional concept that includes aspects such as competence, benevolence, integrity, intention to return, and perceived transparency.

Gender Equality in Engineering: An Institutional Reflection

By on February 28th, 2024 in Articles, Editorial & Opinion, Ethics, Human Impacts, Magazine Articles, Social Implications of Technology, Societal Impact

We identified five key issues to prioritize when addressing gender equality: Reaching critical mass; Improving lived and living experience (maintaining critical mass); Selection and resource-allocation criteria; The misconception of merit in academia; Beyond gender equality.

On Aerial Perspective, Socio-Technical Systems, and Interdisciplinarity:

By on February 16th, 2024 in Articles, Commentary, Human Impacts, Magazine Articles, Social Implications of Technology, Societal Impact

These modernists aim to cultivate in readers the capacity to “think cybernetically”—that is, to develop strategies for responding in creative and generative ways to the 20th century’s complex sociocultural (and socio-technical) environment.

Words, Acronyms, Languages, and Perceptions: The Human Mind, Life, and Semantics Interoperability

By on January 20th, 2024 in Articles, Human Impacts, Magazine Articles, President's Message, Social Implications of Technology, Societal Impact

In June 2013 Presidents Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama signed a historic agreement to begin cooperation on cybersecurity. The mutual understanding developed through previous work in 2011 was to define critical terminology for a cyber conflict. I was part of the U.S. team that held the Russia-U.S. Bilateral discussions on cybersecurity. The aim was to build collaborative relationships between many nations in defining a common vocabulary so that mistakes would not be made because of misinterpretations of a certain word. It took us months just to agree on 20 terms