Category: Human Impacts

BOOK REVIEW: The Revenge of Analog

By on September 5th, 2019 in Book Reviews, Human Impacts, Magazine Articles, Social Implications of Technology, Societal Impact

“From today, painting is dead!” is said to have been proclaimed by the French painter Paul Delaroche in 1839 after seeing his first daguerreotype. His was an early name on the list of people who have made fools of themselves when prognosticating a future resulting from a new medium or invention. Motivated by either techno-euphoria or pessimism they have become famously wrong.

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Letter to the Editor

By on August 9th, 2019 in Human Impacts, Magazine Articles, Social Implications of Technology

“Nudging” is the term used in the IEEE standards work on Ethics for AI Design. An AI system that applies deep learning to manipulating human decisions, with detailed analysis of the targeted individual, is a disturbing potential that must affect our trust in both the systems and those that direct their applications.

Efficiency Versus Creativity as Organizing Principles of Socio-Technical Systems

By on April 10th, 2019 in Commentary, Ethics, Human Impacts, Magazine Articles, Social Implications of Technology, Societal Impact

What sense of worth and dignity can a person have when their daily activities are confined within systemic contraptions where personal input, originality, and initiative are either undesirable, or quantified as targets to be maximized?

Technology for Governance, Politics, and Democracy

By on March 16th, 2019 in Editorial & Opinion, Ethics, Human Impacts, Magazine Articles, Social Implications of Technology, Societal Impact

Innovative Information and Communication Technologies play an important role in e-governance and digital democracy. There is unprecedented opportunity for community collective choice, whereby citizens who are affected by a set of governing rules can help to select policy options and rank spending priorities.

Assessing Artificial Intelligence for Humanity

By on February 1st, 2019 in Artificial Intelligence (AI), Editorial & Opinion, Ethics, Human Impacts, Magazine Articles, Robotics, Social Implications of Technology, Societal Impact

Will AI be our biggest ever advance — or the biggest threat? The real danger of AI lies not in sudden apocalypse, but in the gradual degradation and disappearance of what make human experience and existence meaningful.

Implantable Technology

By on January 1st, 2019 in Editorial & Opinion, Human Impacts, Magazine Articles, Robotics, Social Implications of Technology, Societal Impact

Many recent advances in implantable devices not so long ago would have been strictly in the domain of science fiction. At the same time, the public remains mystified, if not conflicted about implantable technologies. Rising awareness about social issues related to implantable devices requires further exploration.

Making It Useful Even When It Seems to Be Useless

By on October 13th, 2018 in Editorial & Opinion, Human Impacts, Magazine Articles, Social Implications of Technology, Societal Impact

Technology has provided the source of intrinsically liberating devices, even if a number of them have proved themselves to be lethal. All this is precisely what defines the technological endeavors that constitute the backbone of our civilization.

BOOK REVIEW: The Camera Does the Rest: How Polaroid Changed Photography

By on September 30th, 2018 in Book Reviews, Human Impacts, Magazine Articles, Social Implications of Technology, Societal Impact

Peter Buse, in his The Camera Does the Rest, stakes out different territory. His focus is on the social meaning of the Polaroid camera: how did it change photography? How were the cameras used? And how did Land intend them to be used — a concept that often differed from their actual use.