Category: Editorial & Opinion

Whereas artificial intelligence and technological innovation continue to be heralded as producing ground-breaking advancements in society, the question of whether they will break free from Western technology’s cultural hegemony remains to be seen.

Opting in to the tech we want and need means being intentional with technology choices and time.

The question is no longer whether children will hear from AI because they already do; the real question is whether what they hear will be framed with care, context, and human intention, or left to the indifferent fluency of an algorithm optimized for prediction, not truth.

AI firms have harnessed vast amounts of capital from other technology companies, and they have used it to create a hugely disruptive technology.

Human Activity Recognition (HAR) enables applications that enhance daily living and foster smooth technology integration into personal routines. The pervasive use of HAR also introduces ethical dilemmas that must be carefully navigated.

The highly dubious practice of “Fake It Till You Make It” resurfaced recently, as it has periodically throughout high-tech’s history, when it was exposed in scandals involving the diagnostics technology company Theranos and the cryptocurrency exchange FTX.

Rather than reflexively accepting the need to cut budgets, services, and investment, let us take the time to critically examine the logic of austerity.

More than anything, building the future we want requires the courage and hope to imagine something radically different from the world we live in now.

The choices for development, roads, trains, and transport are just as essential to the social impacts of technology as the technologies themselves.

Given the urgency of the climate crisis, wealth and income inequality and affordability, and ongoing global conflicts and genocide, along with the erosion of centuries of democratic norms, it is imperative that academics stand up for their research and its practical applications.

When advanced AI capabilities remain concentrated among select countries and corporations, far-reaching implications emerge.

Cities’ abilities to lead on climate action and in democracy speak to the power of collective action and to the potential our individual action has when we can make common cause at the local scale.

The question at the heart of whether or not engaging with defense research is ethical probably boils down to this: does defense promote peace, or does it promote war?

The discipline of public policy is largely about the process and prioritization of decision-making and is deeply rooted in economics. It is about how to decide what to do or accomplish, based on countless variables and inputs. Preparing the next generation of policymakers means acknowledging that public policy and technology are inextricably entwined.

We initiated this special issue to highlight innovative and essential work underway on technology and analytics for global development. The panoply of important Adaptation and sustainability are essential, enabled by technologies that optimize crop production, improve quality, and protect the environment. topics discussed at ISTAS23 presented a difficult, but welcome challenge of deciding the theme for this special issue.

Regenerative agriculture involves improving, not depleting, the resources used. Cora and Mike’s methods emphasize the symbiotic relationship between the animals and the land, ensuring that both thrive in a balanced and healthy environment.

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.

While AI-generated responses can initially seem impressive, LLM and AI generated texts suffer from multiple risks, including hallucination and inaccuracy. 

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.

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.