Category: Editorial & Opinion

Wiener was far ahead of his time in recognizing that our habits of technology-fueled consumption pose significant threats to health and the environment. He predicted that within the foreseeable future we would be facing growing coal and gas shortages, growing scarcity of water with which to supply our cities, growing rates of infection due to increased air travel and antibiotic resistance, growing problems related to processed and synthetic foods, growing risks of nuclear power accidents, and growing risks of nuclear war.

The arc of Norbert Wiener’s fascinating life became clear to us one day in the M.I.T. Institute Archives. In one…  Read More

Governments and corporations gather, store, and analyze the tremendous amount of data we chuff out as we move through our…  Read More

In this issue of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine we acknowledge one of the quintessential multi-disciplinarians of our time, Dr….  Read More

Mary Catherine Bateson in an interview from the 2014 Norbert Wiener Conference in Boston.   In the early part of…  Read More

“So will computers be smarter than humans? It depends on what you consider to be a computer and what you…  Read More

Historically, the evolution of research in the areas of robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) has always been related, although with…  Read More

“Resistance is futile” is a catchphrase that has become synonymous with the adoption of new technologies [1]. The idea was…  Read More

As 2015 marked the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Holocaust concentration camps, I downloaded an audio recording of…  Read More

We are living in an age of information. Staggering amounts of information are collected, stored, and widely disseminated. Yet, we…  Read More

Blockchains are a new form of information technology that could have several important future applications. One is blockchain thinking, formulating…  Read More

Meteoric progress in sensor, computer, and telecommunication technology has catapulted healthcare into the realm of pharmaco-electronic medicine, where increasingly we…  Read More

Shakespeare has a lot to say about social media and social networks. In a quick review of the literature, we…  Read More

September 27, 2015 Dear Prof. Turkle, I agree with the premise in your Sept. 26, 2015 New York Times Opinion…  Read More

Figure 1. Concept map of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine article headings (March 2010–July 2015) generated using Leximancer.    …  Read More

When I was 8 years of age my older sister who was 8 years my senior was diagnosed with paranoid…  Read More

Figure 1. Privacy concerns arise for individuals when there is a high expectation of control over information pertaining to them…  Read More

Surfing in the ocean. S. PILEGGI   This evening I sat down to reflect on some significant happenings in the…  Read More

At the top of some children’s Christmas present wish list in 2015 would have been the new Hello Barbie doll…  Read More

At the 2015 IEEE International Symposium on Technology and Society (ISTAS’15), SSIT was greatly honored with an opening address to…  Read More