Technology for Big Data, and its brother-in-arms Machine Learning, is at the root of, and is the facilitator of, deliberate string-pulling design choices. These design choices are made by people, and so the question actually becomes, do the design choices enabled by Big Data and Machine Learning have the capacity to alter, diminish and perhaps actually “destroy” what it means to be fundamentally human.
Why would anyone own, or even need to own, a driverless car, if they do not get to drive it? Which in turn begs the question, if the central tenet of the personal car ownership model (i.e., ownership) no longer holds, then what is the replacement business model?
It is essential not only to estimate the sales potential of driverless cars, but also to debate how they will affect the society and cities’ livability.
Meeting traveler’s expectations, and properly exploiting available transport resources, is becoming a more and more complex task.
The role of driverless cars in future transport systems remains debatable, in terms of their potential to replace other transport modes or have a novel, unique, and complementary functionality.
In the age of driverless cars, rail — as a means of transportation that takes many people from one central station to another central station — has lost justification for its existence.
I am Alba Victoria
A biopsychologist highly interested in conservation
Dedicated to engaging science communication
Who is simply trying to find more sustainable ways
To support our current and future generations
Smart Cities demand new strategies and forms of control. The traditional model of public regulation is challenged by a renewed relationship between technology, government, and society. We highlight the difficulties and possible solutions for regulation in the context of a Smart City, provided by the largest city in Brazil: São Paulo.
U.K. democracy is out of date. It isn’t built to deal with digital tools that have unprecedented potential to manipulate the public.
Innovative Information and Communication Technologies play an important role in e-governance and digital democracy. There is unprecedented opportunity for community collective choice, whereby citizens who are affected by a set of governing rules can help to select policy options and rank spending priorities.
Politics required dialogue, deliberation, negotiation, and compromise. But now there is a dispute over the facts themselves.
Will AI be our biggest ever advance — or the biggest threat? The real danger of AI lies not in sudden apocalypse, but in the gradual degradation and disappearance of what make human experience and existence meaningful.
Given the current lack of regulation, there is nothing in principle to stop unscrupulous organizations from deploying surreptitious robotic olfaction.
As VR has hit the mainstream, much debate has arisen over its ethical complexities. Traditional moral responsibilities do not always translate to the digital world. One aspect we argue is essential to ethical responsibility for virtual reality is that VR solutions must integrate ethical analysis into the design process, and practice dissemination of best practices.
Many recent advances in implantable devices not so long ago would have been strictly in the domain of science fiction. At the same time, the public remains mystified, if not conflicted about implantable technologies. Rising awareness about social issues related to implantable devices requires further exploration.
Technology has provided the source of intrinsically liberating devices, even if a number of them have proved themselves to be lethal. All this is precisely what defines the technological endeavors that constitute the backbone of our civilization.
The time of robotic deception is rapidly approaching. We are being bombarded regarding the inherent ethical dangers of the approaching robotics and AI revolution, but far less concern has been expressed about the potential for robots to deceive human beings.
If digital technologies can be designed to maintain or sustain values, then the same technologies can be designed to manipulate or undermine those same values.
We define “good” technological ideas, as: sound technological designs, developed using participation-based methods, that seek to promote the beneficial uses of technology (through the harnessing of technological potential) while minimizing/potentially eliminating the undesirable effects on individuals and society. These approaches will ideally lead to the development and deployment of practical solutions that fulfill the need(s) of the intended end-user(s) and/or solve a given problem.
As social media serves to transform free speech the world over, a pervasive infiltration of the information highway is underway by individuals and entities using bots and human agencies to invade our privacy and channel extremist, hateful speech in propaganda-like campaigns bent on undermining democratic institutions.
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