Category: Ethics

The Special Session “Guiding Responsible Neurotechnological Innovation” took place during IEEE International Symposium on Technology and Society (ISTAS)  2021 on 28 October 2021….  Read More

The book documents Limbaugh’s formative role in turning an old technology into an instrument of power that transformed the Republican Party and political discourse in the United States. The talk-radio host proved to be a success as both a propagandist and a ratings builder. Station owners were quick to join his syndicated network and to hire personalities who combined Limbaugh’s smooth delivery, ability to empathize with his audience, biting humor, and relentless attack on all things liberal—real or imagined. Profit mattered but winning the “culture war” counted for as much if not more than Rosenwald cares to consider.

When faced with an ethical problem such as a conflict of interest in which codes of ethics or available ethical problem-solving methods cannot help us decide upon the moral course of action to take. A method claimed to be helpful in such situations is The New York Times Test.

The “Integrating Virtue Ethics into STEM Courses” session took place during ETHICS 2021 on 31 October 2021. It was moderated by…  Read More

The “Author Meets the Critics—Engineering Ethics: Contemporary and Enduring Debates by Deborah Johnson” session took place during IEEE ETHICS 2021…  Read More

The “Ethical and Responsible Research Program (ER2) at the US National Science Foundation” session took place during IEEE ETHICS 2021…  Read More

The “Corporate Social Responsibility and Engineering Education” session took place during IEEE ETHICS 2021 on 28 October 2021. It was…  Read More

Emerging social contexts add new requirements to the knowledge that successful roboticists need. Much of this additional knowledge comes from the social sciences and humanities.

By failing to attend to the source, disinformation can be stored along with information, making it difficult to distinguish the good penny from the bad penny.

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.

At their March 8, 2022, Board of Governors meeting, The IEEE Society on Social Implications of Technology (SSIT) unanimously passed a motion approving the following statement: “The IEEE Society on Social Implications of Technology actively supports any IEEE initiative that helps the Ukrainian refugees.”

How can tech organizations of whatever size and industry build more ethical systems? IEEE 7000™ aims to provide organizations with “ethical specs.”

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.”

The negative effects of technological innovations can be foreseen, and more importantly, mitigated through more intentional and skillful engineering. Systematic efforts to address these impacts remain peripheral to the engineering profession. The Canada-based Engineering Change Laboratory has identified a set of behaviors that take a value sensitive approach to the practice and culture of engineering.

The promise of 4IR is overblown and its perils are underappreciated. There are compelling reasons to reject—and even actively oppose—the 4IR narrative.

Lethal autonomous weapon systems  have the potential to radically transform warfare. Can open source technology help regulate their development?

Hackathons and other well-intentioned efforts to solve social problems using technology must also include the meaningful participation of affected individuals…  Read More

AI4Eq — Mark your calendars for Wednesday, Oct 27 from 9 AM – 5 PM (EDT)

PIT acknowledges that technological potential can be harnessed to satisfy the needs of civil society. In other words, technology can be seen as a public good that can benefit all, through an open democratic system of governance, with open data initiatives, open technologies, and open systems/ecosystems designed for the collective good, as defined by respective communities that will be utilizing them.

An element of the expansion of digital technologies is a shift in Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology from research laboratories into the hands of anyone with a smartphone. AI powered search, personalization and automation are being deployed across sectors, from education to healthcare, to policing, to finance. Wide AI diffusion is then reshaping the way organizations, communities and individuals’ function. The potentially radical consequences of AI have pushed nation states across the globe to publish strategies on how they seek to shape, drive and leverage the disruptive capabilities offered by AI technologies to bolster their prosperity and security.