Category: Magazine Articles

While it is true that technology is addressing problems and making elements of some people’s lives easier, there are aggregate measures that suggest a troubling trajectory.

How can local (grassroots) contributive justice be used as a driving force for the common good?

The IEEE Society on Social Implications of Technology (SSIT) has had many volunteers step into leadership positions for purposefully limited terms over the past half-century. We address the challenges and opportunities of our day and then move on, unlike some world leaders who cannot bear to fade away.

PeaceTech is “the movement to use technology to end violent conflict and extremism.”

Scholars critique physical infrastructure approaches as ineffective because flooding routinely exceeds defense structures and disaster assistance and removes the incentive for property owners to reduce their risk. As an educational and engagement tool, the flood resilience challenge (FRC) game aims to build the capacity of stakeholders to improve flood resilience and enhance flood risk governance, including collective decision-making.

In this time of massive growth in the scale and scope of technological innovations, it is more important than ever to look critically at the nature of these innovations and to challenge a naïve, techno-utopian attitude that innovation is synonymous with progress.

People around the world are increasingly holding corporations accountable for their practices and seeking ways to rectify their unequal distribution of the risks and benefits among differently positioned populations.

Organizations are gaining awareness that digital products and services targeted at the children’s market segment need to go beyond adopting the “mindset” of a child. Rather, it is necessary to actually invite children to participate in the design process.

Ruth Lewis, IEEE SSIT Standards Committee Chair, has been named a 2022 recipient of the IEEE Standards Medallion for leadership in promoting the development of IEEE technology and society standards.

The call for responsible innovation is a call to address and account for technology’s short- and long-term impacts within social, political, environmental, and cultural domains. Technological stewardship stands as a commitment to anticipate and mitigate technology’s potential for disruption and especially harm and to guide innovation toward beneficial ends. Dialogue and collaboration across diverse perspectives is essential for developing actionable technological solutions that attend in responsible ways to the evolving needs of society.

All the deep philosophical questions, starts the joke, were asked by the classical Greeks, and everything since then has been footnotes and comments in the margins, finishes the punchline.

This Anniversary Year provides a reason to reflect on the fact that many members have been involved with the IEEE Society on Social Implications of Technology (SSIT) throughout their full professional careers.

This year, 2022, marks 50 years of history within IEEE for the Society on Social Implications of Technology. It is a moment to reflect on what has transpired in the realm of technology and society over this time, and on the accomplishments of SSIT and its members in helping to guide technological development in directions that benefit humanity. It is also a moment to look forward and imagine what the next 50 years will bring. What should SSIT be doing now to prepare for that future? We welcome participation by everyone who has an interest or stake in issues related to technology and society – which is all of us.

If caregiving is the very essence of being human, why would we consider turning it over to robots? Technology—and artificial intelligence (AI, in particular—have created a world in which automation is prioritized and digital is seen as an improvement on analog—more accurate, more portable, and more controllable. Caregiving is as analog as it gets and it is a field with a serious labor shortage. That makes it ripe for automation—and in fact, the robot caregivers are already here.

Social robotics is poised to impact society by addressing isolation and providing companionship by augmenting human interaction when none is available.

Worldwide, there are 55 million individuals living with dementia and it is projected that by 2050, this number will increase to 139 million. Technological devices and solutions that can benefit the dementia community also carry ethical implications such as privacy and issues of consent. AI-driven LBS solutions may exacerbate the marginalization of individuals living with dementia.

In the first six months of 2018, eight New York City yellow cab drivers, impacted by big tech disruption on the taxi industry, took their own lives. “I am not a Slave and I refuse to be one,” wrote one in his suicide note.

Having a philosophical road map to what is required, might help those with skills to design intelligent machines that will enable and indeed promote human flourishing.

The term “modern indentured servitude” did not originate with this workshop, but we hope that this special issue has highlighted many of the different shapes and processes it can take, some more insidious than others. We would like to think that, if each paper could talk, they would get up one after the other and say, “No, I’m Spartacus.” In these dark times, each of us needs the courage to be Spartacus.

Where do historical debates take us? Their political and economic contexts are similar to ours, and even the list of technological issues is familiar. Many decades later, institutions still feel shaky, economies remain inequitable, geopolitics are increasingly multipolar, and societies are riven by technological change.