Category: Human Impacts

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

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.

Originally published in The Engineering Ethics blog, August 6, 2018.  In a recent New York Times opinion piece, science journalist Melinda Wenner…  Read More

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.

If digital technologies can be designed to maintain or sustain values, then the same technologies can be designed to manipulate or undermine those same values.

We define “good” technological ideas, as: sound technological designs, developed using participation-based methods, that seek to promote the beneficial uses of technology (through the harnessing of technological potential) while minimizing/potentially eliminating the undesirable effects on individuals and society. These approaches will ideally lead to the development and deployment of practical solutions that fulfill the need(s) of the intended end-user(s) and/or solve a given problem.

What are the potential consequences of mistrust, fear, or simple disinterest in technologies that have become an actual or perceived necessity to millions?

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.

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.

Do you want to attract the best people? Give them a problem with a purpose. Give them room to work. Give them recognition for their successes — not just internally, but encouraging them to share these at conferences, or in relevant peer communities.

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.

Prior to 2016 there was little press with occasional hype about artificial intelligence. Somewhere in the last two years we…  Read More

What year will we return to the Moon? When will we have our first colony there? What are the corresponding dates for Mars?

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.

I have an expectation that machine consciousness will emerge unexpected, unsought, and perhaps undetected.