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We love to talk about the unintended consequences of others’ technological innovations. We document the air pollution and traffic congestion accompanying automobile dependence, the surrender of personal privacy in order to gain online convenience, and the political violence abetted by social media algorithms optimized to generate advertising revenue.

The observation that the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted workplace relationships and working practices is trite; it is nonetheless true. One significant change has been that the massive increase in call-center employment in the past 20 years has been mirrored during the pandemic by a corresponding increase in remote working or working-from-home. However, the call-center sector is, at least anecdotally

Edison, by author Edmond Morris, is the latest of a number of biographies penned on inventor Thomas Alva Edison that date back to 1910, when Frank L. Dyer, Thomas C. Martin, and William Meadowcroft teamed up to write the first authorized biography of Edison, Edison: His Life and Inventions, with collaboration, approval, and some text written by Edison himself.1 Ever since that time, many biographies

One should probably not spend a lot of time trying to parse the title of this appealing book: it is neither a work focused on the built environment nor a history of the electric light. Instead, one might consider the author’s words that his intention is to study cases that “suggest an architectural history of spaces that have been generated or extensively reconstituted by electric light.” His thesis

“ Indeed, in my opinion the three most magnificent works of Rome, in which the greatness of her empire is best seen, are the aqueducts, the paved roads and the construction of the sewers .” –Dionysius of Halicarnassus [1]

It is an open question whether or not the sharing economy model—utilizing unused for-profit private resources by sharing them for public use through a digital intermediary—could be adopted for public utility and service delivery in the developing world. This article addresses the question using the electric power sector in India as a case study. Six major components of the sharing economy are taken

The COVID-19 pandemic has loomed over the world for the better part of a year now; yet, many still cannot shake the disbelief that it is here. Nonetheless, countries around the world continue to be ravaged by death, and the healthcare workers battle on. As vaccine distribution makes its way to the mainstream, I cannot help but wonder, will people even take the vaccine? In an already divided country

The transcripts which follow speak to the potency and promise of dialogue. They record two in a continuing series of “COVID-19 In Conversations” hosted by Oxford Prospects and Global Development Institute (OPGDI), an interdisciplinary research center of Regent’s Park College, University of Oxford. Dedicated to promoting discussion and inspiring new ideas on the development of China-U.K. relations in

Shuangge Wen (SW): The test and trace systems in operation in many countries are a key strategy to lower the reproduction rate and control the virus, with technology enabling measures such as tracing of close contacts, notifying local alerts, and venue check-ins using QR codes. From your technological expertise, how do you see these systems working, and do you see any alternatives which should be explored

Shidong wang (SW): Please share with us the pandemic experience of Peking University and Oxford University. How has your university adapted its education and teaching to COVID-19 conditions?

Editor’s note: This article was written before the publication by the EU Commission of its proposal for an artificial intelligence (AI) regulation [29] . In a first and provisional analysis of the proposed regulation, we observe that the proposed regulation incorporates some of the basic principles laid down in our article: it prioritizes fundamental rights and incorporates some human rights principles

We live in an era where problems are global in scale (e.g., climate change) and solutions must also be coordinated on a global scale in the international context. The 2030 agenda for sustainable development goals (SDGs) was ratified in 2015 as a continuation of the millennium development goals (MDGs). In this sense, the SDGs, as MDGs were in their day, are a global mechanism that urges governments

Operating at a large scale and impacting large groups of people, automated systems can make consequential and sometimes contestable decisions. Automated decisions can impact a range of phenomena, from credit scores to insurance payouts to health evaluations. These forms of automation can become problematic when they place certain groups or people at a systematic disadvantage. These are cases of discrimination—which

As artificial intelligence (AI) permeates across social and economic life, its ethical and governance implications have come to the forefront. Active debates surround AI’s role in labor displacement, autonomous vehicles, military, misinformation, healthcare, education, and more. As societies collectively grapple with these challenges, new opportunities for AI to proactively contribute to social good

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Reflective thinking [1] , [2] allows humans to examine the past with intentionality, learn from what happened, and adapt accordingly. We explore thoughts, feelings, and actions, mine out insights, and enhance awareness. Our community incorporated reflective thinking to learn from a unique year in which our world was significantly disrupted due to COVID-19.

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We are coming off one of the most difficult years in human memory, yet the IEEE Society on Social Implications of Technology (SSIT) managed to perform quite well in spite of the pandemic and its fallout. In 2020, our flagship ISTAS conference and the cosponsored conferences were huge successes, with record attendance, partly because going virtual allowed wider participation. Our new publication, IEEE

Artificial Intelligence for Equity (AI4Eq) [1] is proposed as an interdisciplinary field of study and action that aims to promote the ethical development and use of autonomous and intelligent systems for the advancement of mankind [2] , especially for the United Nations’ sustainable development goals.

Those who have recently published a book looking at the intersection of science, technology, and society must wish that they could have delayed its appearance. As I write this in the summer of 2020, the world is dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic and is looking for a medical fix, a life-saving vaccine. The public’s faith in science and technology has never been higher. Computer “apps” that explore

” Hacking Diversity: The Politics of Inclusion in Open Technology Cultures ” is a study of the efforts of open technology communities to “hack” the issues around the lack of diversity that pervades not only their volunteer communities, but also their related disciplines at large. Open technology communities are loosely organized, volunteer, online groups, focused on development and distribution of

From the 1970s onward, we started to dream of the leisure society in which, thanks to technological progress and consequent increase in productivity, working hours would be minimized and we would all live in abundance. We all could devote our time almost exclusively to personal relationships, contact with nature, sciences, the arts, playful activities, and so on. Today, this utopia seems more unattainable

We are all aware of the huge potential for artificial intelligence (AI) to bring massive benefits to under-served populations, advancing equal access to public services such as health, education, social assistance, or public transportation, for example. We are equally aware that AI can drive inequality, concentrating wealth, resources, and decision-making power in the hands of a few countries, companies

The last few years have seen a large number of initiatives on artificial intelligence (AI) ethics: intergovernmental-institution initiatives such as “Ethics Guidelines for Trustworthy AI” from the high-level expert group on AI of the European Commission [1] or the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Council Recommendation on Artificial Intelligence [2] , government initiatives

The United Nations (UN) 2030 Agenda and other movements toward setting global goals such as the Paris Agreement and the European Green Deal/U.S. Green New Deal are laying the groundwork for a transformation beyond purely market-based economics toward sustainability and inclusiveness [1] , in which technological innovation and, in particular, artificial intelligence (AI) can play a central role. The

In the last decade, there has been an explosion in the progress and applications of artificial intelligence (AI) in our society. For the first time, the applications of AI have left the laboratory to reach society in a broad, visible, and relevant way. This fact has raised numerous questions about the potential of AI in the future and its implications in our lives. The benefits of AI do not come alone;

As secretary general of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres said during the 2020 Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture, “COVID-19 has been likened to an X-ray, revealing fractures in the fragile skeleton of the societies we have built.” Without a doubt, the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed and exacerbated existing global inequalities. Whether at the local, national, or international scale, the gap between the

The increasing trend of mental health issues, especially among younger people, is not a new phenomenon. World organizations, leaders, and decision-makers are recognizing its devastating effect, resulting in mental health well-being appearing in goal 3 of the 17 UN sustainable development goals (SDGs) [1] . Among mental health issues, stress, anxiety, and depression (SAD) seem to be on the forefront—reaching

Intelligent technologies offer the potential to generate unprecedented levels of prosperity for all, while posing increasing challenges in the ethical, moral, legal, humanitarian, and sociopolitical spheres. In this regard, the recently released the United Nations (UN) report on extreme poverty and human rights 1 warns of the risk of a digital dystopia driving a growing inequality that is facilitating

Equity can be defined as a state, quality, or ideal of being just, impartial, and fair [1] . The World Health Organization (WHO) defines equity as “the absence of avoidable or remediable differences among groups of people, whether those groups are defined socially, economically, demographically, or geographically.” When benchmarking those who operationalize equity well, five Ps are often used as an

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The book focuses on the group of Americans who live a life of digital hyper-connectivity. Mostly under age 50, this would include what are called Generation X (born between 1965 and 1979), Millennials (born between 1980 and 1999), and their offspring — some, as we have seen, still infants. A leitmotif of the book is that these “digital natives,” as she calls them have been untethered from the American

Presents an interview conducted with Geoffrey Goodell who is currently a Senior Research Associate in Computer Science at University College London (UCL).

In this paper, we seek to explore the impact of engineering’s persisting predominant whiteness in the United States. Its persisting maleness is also relevant, and we will address this a little more below, but what we want to do here is share a framework that has helped our thinking in this space, and we hope it can inform yours.

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Reports on the concept of Public Interest Technology (PIT). PIT is defined as “technology practitioners who focus on social justice, the common good, and/or the public interest” or “an emphasis on the development of technologies and technical expertise that advance the public good.

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D E C E M B E R 2 0 2 0 ∕ IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE eaders of a certain age may recall John Berger’s Ways of Seeing, the early 1970s BBC TV series­ turned­book that became a staple of college syllabi for the better part of a quarter century. Berger, a prolific painter, novelist, and critic who died in 2017 at the age of 90, set out in Ways of Seeing to take on the art history establishment

Food security is a societal issue of increasing importance requiring careful consideration of the way we produce, process, and distribute food [2], [6]. Digital technologies are increasingly used to optimize processes to support these activities, and therefore, bear important implications for food security. In this article, we focus in particular on technologies used for an important aspect of such

The debate on the development and deployment of lethal autonomous weapon systems (LAWS) as an emerging technology is of increasing importance, with discussions stalling and technological development progressing. Monitoring the progress of increasingly autonomous weapons systems in civilian and military use [1] as well as regulating possible autonomous systems early on is demanded by civil society actors

In late 2018, Jet Blue, American Airlines, and Delta began utilizing facial recognition software (FRS) in American airports: Jet Blue explained that the company had, "in partnership with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), today announced the roll-out of its first fully-integrated biometric self-boarding gate." The airlines' cooperation with the CBP, the Department of Homeland Security, and the

Never before has cybersecurity been as significant for societies as today; its importance is still on the rise as people rely on computer systems every day. Recently, the ever-growing issues of personal data being stolen or misused have been addressed by several legal regulations, the most significant of them being the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The paper deals with a specific cybersecurity

Societies today have come closer together as a result of the development of communication technologies and the greater ease with which business is transacted. Consequently, technological tools and devices are being transferred from industrial societies to other countries at dazzling speeds. The transfer of technology to non-industrialized societies with their own histories, civilizations, and backgrounds

adio Frequency Identification (RFID) is a key part of the infrastructure underlying the burgeoning Internet of Things. RFID tags, which can be attached to objects and then scanned with readers to give these objects a digital signature, can be as small as a grain of rice. To take just a few examples, RFID tags can be embedded in subway cards, articles of clothing in retail shops, and living beings like