Category: President’s Message

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.

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.

SSIT members have a history of getting into “good trouble” as they encourage IEEE toward more humanistic stances on ethics, transparency, sustainability, and global equity.

IEEE SSIT might better fit the dictionary’s secondary definition of community, by having a sense of fellowship because we share common goals. If so, what are those goals?

Critical thinking is a mainstream part of some educational traditions, but is it universally valued? Only some truths have an objective basis and many others depend on the eye of the beholder. No real society values everyone equally.

Unintended consequences of technological development matter in practice and thus are not just of academic interest. SSIT would do well to spark constructive and practical discussion about managing unintended consequences.

In 2020, our flagship ISTAS conference and the cosponsored conferences were huge successes, with record attendance, partly because going virtual allowed wider participation.

The IEEE SSIT Technology and Society (T&S) Magazine has been published for decades. The SSIT Board of Governors is very…  Read More

As new SSIT President, I congratulate the three people who were elected to the Member-at-Large positions on the SSIT Board of Governors for three-year terms beginning in 2019.

The level of state surveillance practiced in the supposedly illiberal regimes prior to fall of the Berlin Wall is now routinely accepted, from the widespread use of CCTV to online tracking and data recording. Therefore, instead of labeling a display of genuine concern as “paranoia,” perhaps a lack of genuine concerns should instead be stigmatized by a “disease” or a “disorder”: complacentosis, complyaphilia, complicivitis, ignorrhea.

The IEEE Society on Social Implications of Technology has a proud tradition of addressing some of the most challenging issues of the day. IEEE SSIT has served this role within IEEE due to our diversity of perspectives and breadth and depth of knowledge and insight.

This month I will briefly discuss the work of the IEEE Humanitarian Activities Committee, which I have the honor to chair this year.

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.

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.

While societal change often takes place over extended periods of time, at key times in the history of human society, innovation can be accelerated by a combination of necessity and serendipity. We are currently experiencing such an accelerated transition.

Pillar 2 is focused on professional and research ethics, ethics in the development of technologies, ethics in the context of Sustainable Development and Humanitarian Technology, as well as engineering ethics education.

Pillar 1: Sustainable Development and Humanitarian Technology IEEE Society on Social Implications of Technology volunteers are making significant progress in…  Read More

This is my last message as SSIT’s president. The past two years have been exciting ones for our Society: we’ve…  Read More

The year 1962 saw the publication of at least three important works related to technology and society. Rachel Carson, a…  Read More

Computers tell us what to do, every day, all the time. Is this a problem? I may get irritated when…  Read More