Category: Magazine Articles

SSIT launches FutureProof, a refereed blog of concise, authoritative posts surfacing critical topics on the social implications of technology.

Developers face a conundrum when launching software that must be equipped to make a moral judgment. Algorithms are being programmed to make consequential decisions that align with laws and moral sensibilities.

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.

The increasing number of dam projects deployed in developing countries over the last two decades that perform poorly illustrate a disconnect between planners, stakeholders, and technological energy solutions of choice.

Thank You for Playing explores the very personal experiences of a family battling cancer, and the beauty and hope that can be found in the artistic process, while also examining the age-old question of where the boundaries lie in representing difficult emotional experiences in art.

The aim of this special issue is to evaluate the social impact and social implications of new and emerging technologies on governance, politics, public administration, and policy-making, and to evaluate the future prospects of digital democracy, and its transformative potential for increasing public engagement, community empowerment, and social entrepreneurship.

It can be glibly asserted that technology makes accomplishing various activities easier. But it is not always obvious for whom it makes it easier to accomplish what. For example, the Internet has had a profound impact on academic publishing, and the transition from printed paper to digital format has ostensibly made it “easier” for academics to put their work in the public domain and, if they can actually get attention in a social-media sound-bite distracted world, reach a wider audience than ever before.

Social media (SM) usage is increasing across the globe. Of the 7.6 billion people populating earth, 4 billion are believed to be Internet users. Over 3 billion are SM users, representing over 40% global penetration.

SSIT Pillar 4 is dedicated to Societal Impact of Technology. Pillar 4 focuses on highlighting and supporting the development of technologies that incorporate the principles of safety, security, and privacy by design.

Our authors nail rich scholarship to our portal, thus inviting healthy disputation. In this issue, we considered the value of a mesh of connective vehicles used to overcome the digital divide.

When thanks to drone use soldiers rarely come home in body bags, members of the public are not often prompted to care about or even notice military activity half a world away.

Orman poses “information overload” as a paradox and gives us three mechanisms through which such paradox arises. The paradox is that technologies help us know more, but in the process, we know less.

Mobile technology isn’t just in your pocket 24/7. It’s everywhere around us today, with its continual byproduct — data — trailing us everywhere we go. The great nexus of this 21st-century trend isn’t really your smartphone — it’s the city where you live, work, and play.

It is necessary to start somehow, even if you’ve got no map, no knowledge of the destination, and no milometer to measure the distance that has been covered. This can sometimes be the essence of collective action for addressing wicked problems. Sometimes human behavior defies top-down direction and even nudge, and begins instead with a single initiating event and snowballs from there.

As an IEEE technical Society whose focus on all aspects of societal implications of technology complements the technical activities of all other IEEE Societies, SSIT members have a proud history of contributions to sustainable development and humanitarian technology. We have long focused on addressing ethical implications, interdependencies, context, and socio-cultural norms that are essential to avoid unintended and unanticipated consequences. One of our core strengths as a community has been our collaborative, partnership-based approach.

Is it unreasonable for us to want more from the AI-inspired — something more than, for example, a robot that can get up off the ground, and recover from being hit with a club?

Jonathan Rees’s Refrigeration Nation has a great deal to say about the way refrigeration technology brought about profound changes in eating habits, agricultural practices, and even entire national economies over the last two centuries.

Petrick provides historic perspectives of how computer technology was developed in the United States allowing persons with disabilities full participation in their own lives and in the society.

The big issue is the mass scale big data collection strategies using social media intelligence, CCTV, behavioral biometrics using facial recognition and visual analytics to monitor human activities, the keystroke-level tracking of end-users by third parties on Internet websites, the use of in-bound technology devices that conduct ICT surveillance and home monitoring, and even fitness trackers we carry alongside our mobile phone that are set to control our health insurance premiums.

Information generated on social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, and Instagram are fast becoming powerful and ubiquitous new sources of time-critical data needed to aid decision making during extreme weather events and emergency situations.