Category: Case Studies

What AI Owners Can Learn From Journalism

By on January 30th, 2025 in Articles, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Case Studies, Commentary, Communication Technology, Ethics, Human Impacts, Magazine Articles, Privacy & Security, Social Implications of Technology, Societal Impact

The process of advancing AI technology and making AI-generated content attractive to and available to the general public is comparable to that of the printing press and its pivotal influence on newspapers and journalism.

Technology and Analytics for Global Development: Transforming Agriculture, Empowering Sustainable Livelihoods, and Ensuring Planetary Well-Being

By on November 30th, 2024 in Articles, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Case Studies, Editorial & Opinion, Environment, Ethics, Health & Medical, Human Impacts, Magazine Articles, Social Implications of Technology, Societal Impact

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.

The Ethics of Product Development—Houston, Do We Have a Problem?

By on November 15th, 2024 in Articles, Case Studies, Commentary, Environment, Ethics, Health & Medical, Human Impacts, Magazine Articles, Social Implications of Technology, Societal Impact

Though it is hard to find accurate figures on how many products introduced every year fail to meet safety and environmental standards—partly because market surveillance proves to be inadequate [6], while the assessment of market readiness is, in many cases, left to producers themselves [7] —the number may be higher than the public expects.

Food Security and Agriculture: Technology, Policy, Choices

By on October 1st, 2024 in Articles, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Case Studies, Editorial & Opinion, Environment, Ethics, Health & Medical, Human Impacts, Magazine Articles, Social Implications of Technology, Societal Impact

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.

Text Neck: Looking Down at Devices for Way Too Long

By on September 18th, 2024 in Articles, Case Studies, Commentary, Environment, Ethics, Health & Medical, Human Impacts, Magazine Articles, Social Implications of Technology, Societal Impact

Text Neck is a classic ergonomic issue that has come about as a direct result of technological innovation, as people have begun to increasingly use digital media of all types to text, talk, browse the internet, listen to music, watch videos, or play online games.

Enhancing Sustainability in Resource-Limited Environments: Government, Culture, and AI

By on July 10th, 2024 in Articles, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Case Studies, Commentary, Environment, Ethics, Health & Medical, Human Impacts, Magazine Articles, Social Implications of Technology, Societal Impact

Spain’s Comunitat Valenciana (Valencian Community) (Figure 1) has a rich agricultural history, with long traditions of resilience and innovation. This tradition,…  Read More

Technological Solutions to Online Toxicity: Potential and Pitfalls

By on July 3rd, 2024 in Articles, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Case Studies, Ethics, Human Impacts, Magazine Articles, Social Implications of Technology, Societal Impact

Social media platforms present a perplexing duality, acting at once as sites to build community and a sense of belonging, while also giving rise to misinformation, facilitating and intensifying disinformation campaigns and perpetuating existing patterns of discrimination from the physical world.

Sustainability in the Built Environment: The Galapagos Experience

By on May 16th, 2024 in Articles, Case Studies, Commentary, Environment, Ethics, Human Impacts, Magazine Articles, Social Implications of Technology, Societal Impact

The LLES Project promotes the transformation of the conventional construction paradigm, incorporating bioclimatic architecture strategies like passive measures to minimize heat gain and maximize cooling.

Respecting and Protecting Cultural Values in an Indigenous Virtual Reality Project

By on September 27th, 2023 in Articles, Case Studies, Commentary, Ethics, Human Impacts, Magazine Articles, Social Implications of Technology

Co-design and development of technology with indigenous communities requires respect and close partnership. Here, we reflect on our experiences working with a Māori (indigenous New Zealand) community as Pākehā (non-Māori). In particular, we consider the importance of protection as an underlying principle.

Knowing the Unknowable: Soft Laws and Hard Decisions

By on January 16th, 2022 in Articles, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Case Studies, Editorial & Opinion, Ethics, Magazine Articles, Social Implications of Technology, Societal Impact

If it were possible to formulate laws involving vague predicates and adjudicate them, what would be the implications of such minimalist formulations for soft laws and even for “hard” laws? The possible implications are threefold: 1) does possibility imply desirability; 2) does possibility imply infallibility; and 3) does possibility imply accountability? The answer advanced here, to all three questions, is “no.”

When Outlandish Science Fiction Becomes Real

By on September 5th, 2021 in Blog Posts, Case Studies, Environment, Health & Medical, Human Impacts, Social Implications of Technology, Societal Impact

The nuclear anxiety of the Cold War now seems quaint. While speculative writers of the late 20th-early 21st centuries have largely relegated nukes to the past, the situation at San Onofre reminds us of our sins — of assuming the future would take care of the future. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission enabled this consensual hallucination. Did it take climate change into consideration?

Facing the Fragility of the Man-Made World

By on August 7th, 2021 in Articles, Blog Posts, Case Studies, Environment, Ethics, Human Impacts, Social Implications of Technology, Societal Impact

When we see a built world, we tend to take its permanence and stability for granted. For those who have chosen coastal homes, that built world goes back at least 50 years, with few residents ever realizing that oceans, lakes, and rivers are living entities constantly in motion. The average person relies upon experts such as architects and civil engineers, and supposed guardrails such as state building codes and homeowner associations, to assess safety when purchasing property. But the 21st-century assumption that the built world is stable is a risky bet. Especially in “business-friendly” states. 

Being Human in a Global Village – IEEE 2020 Conference on Norbert Wiener in the 21st Century

By on May 22nd, 2021 in Artificial Intelligence (AI), Case Studies, Conferences, Environment, Ethics, Human Impacts, Social Implications of Technology, Societal Impact

https://21stcenturywiener.org/ 22-25 July 2021, Chennai, INDIA N R Narayana Murthy to present Opening Speech on 22 July 2021. Infosys co-founder…  Read More

Secrets and Lies

By on October 17th, 2019 in Book Reviews, Case Studies, Ethics, Magazine Articles, Social Implications of Technology, Societal Impact

Holmes’s idea of inventing a cheap, small, fast, reliable blood-testing system to creatively destroy most of the world’s existing infrastructure for blood tests ran into big problems early on. But with her chutzpah, persuasiveness, and eventually with the help of outright obfuscations and lies, Holmes kept Theranos going until a Wall Street Journal investigative reporter named John Carreyrou responded to a lead by a health-care blogger that something fishy was going on.