What is Pervasive ICT?

I wrote this description of PICT for the 3 (!) events in which I participated at the 2014 annual meeting of the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics. - Ken

Pervasive information and communication technology (PICT) is similar to ubiquitous computing (or ubicomp), pervasive computing, everyware, and ambient intelligence (AmI); it includes many different concrete artifacts, including sensors, tablets, and smartphones. Three characteristics distinguish PICT:

• It is, or could be, anywhere and everywhere – buildings, billboards, floors, restrooms, purses, pockets, coffee makers, pacemakers, eyeglasses, and the kitchen sink. 
• It detects, collects, organizes, acts upon, and transmits information, often wirelessly on the Internet. 
• Its presence and operation is often undetected by casual users, whether hidden physically (e.g., computer chips embedded in automobiles) or functionally. Functional invisibility occurs when a function or use of the technology is not announced (e.g., tracking online behavior), announced in a cryptic fashion (as in most terms of use), or becomes ambient through a process of familiarization, such as when smartphones become as ordinary as wallets and Facebook becomes a way of life. 

Ethical challenges posed by PICT are new and emerging, as are the technologies themselves. Our panels will be exercises in anticipatory ethics – “ethical analysis aimed at influencing the development of new technologies.”[1]

[1] Johnson, Deborah G. 2010. The role of ethics in science and engineering. Trends in Biotechnology 28(12): 589–590.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

Register now for Ethics'2014

Registration is now open for 2014 IEEE International Symposium on Ethics in Engineering, Science, and Technology:Ethics’2014, to be held Friday-Saturday, 23-24 May, 2014 at the Chicago Marriott O’Hare, Chicago, IL, USA.

The Program at a Glance shows  our panel on the PICT book on Saturday 9:45-11:15 am. I'll also be presenting a tutorial entitled "Working with Ethicists" on Friday, 9:30-10:30 am.

Register now! I hope to see you in Chicago.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

PICT at APPE

The PICT book will be featured three times at the upcoming 23rd annual meeting of the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics (APPE). Registration fees increase January 17; act now to secure your place!

The meeting will convene at the  Hyatt Regency Jacksonville, Riverfront Hotel in Jacksonville, Florida on February 27-March 2, 2014.

If you need further incentive to attend the APPE meeting, check out Promoting Research Integrity: A Workshop for Research Faculty and Administrators.

The events

Author Meets the Critics - Two eminent scholars will rip the book apart, I and two of the contributors will put up a brilliant defense, and the audience will set us all straight. The critics are Joseph R. Herkert, Arizona State U., and Kenneth W. Goodman, U. of Miami. The defenders are Cynthia M. Jones, U. of Texas-Pan American; Donald R. Searing, Syncere Systems; and me. The titles and abstracts of our chapters can be found below. Date and time TBA.

Lunch with an Author - "The authors and their book titles are listed in the program and conference attendees sign-up in advance to have lunch with [the author(s)] in the hotel banquet hall (usually 8-10 people sitting at a round table.)" February 28 or March 1, noonish.

Author Reception and Book Signing - Friday, February 28, 6:30-7:30 p.m.,  just before the banquet.

The chapters

Kenneth D. Pimple, Chapter 1:  Introduction: The Impact, Benefits, and Hazards of PICT

Abstract: This chapter opens with an extended definition and description of pervasive information and communication technology (PICT) as a sociotechnical system – in brief, an intertwined system of social practices and the technologies that make the social practices possible which in turn spur technological revision and innovation that simultaneously modify or transform social practices in a never-ending spiral. It then describes the following ten chapters. Chapter 2 presents and analyzes three case studies of actual recent events that highlight key aspects of PICT. Chapters 3, 4, and 5 tackle surveillance from three different angles, but together provide a primer on the ethical issues involved. Chapters 3, 6, and 7 focus on health care, an area of significant growth for PICT. Chapter 8 considers a particular type of PICT – augmented reality – and reveals its far-from-obvious ramifications. Chapter 9 provides a different kind of case study as a social scientist describes her experience working with technologists developing PICT with the goal (successfully achieved) of making ethics a design goal. Chapters 10 and 11 focus more narrowly on ethical guidance for PICT.

Donald R. Searing and Elizabeth A. M. Searing, Chapter 2: Three Case Studies

Abstract: This chapter will introduce three real-world case studies involving pervasive information and communication technology (PICT) systems and the ethical issues which can arise during the development and deployment of these systems and technologies. The sensor-effector system model will be used to decompose the larger area of PICT into three areas of focus: sensors, effectors, and the systems these elements form with their control logic. Each of these areas will be examined through a real-world example and discussion of the issues inherent in the pervasive use of information technology in that area. In the first case, our over-reliance on GPS systems will serve as an example of the issues related to pervasive sensors. In the second case, the dangers of computer viruses and worms such as Stuxnet will illustrate what can arise with pervasive effectors. Finally, the Flash Crash experienced by the stock markets in 2010 will exemplify what can occur when sensors, effectors, and their control logic are combined into autonomous systems and deployed pervasively throughout a world.

Cynthia M. Jones, Chapter 6: Preserving Life, Destroying Privacy: PICT and the Elderly

Abstract: Issues of privacy are undeniably central moral concerns in pervasive information and communication technology (PICT), as many aspects of individual privacy seem to be unavoidable casualties of the increased ubiquity of such technologies. It appears that many people make this trade-off willingly, as attested by the number of users of Facebook, Google, and other technologies that routinely mine personal data for commercial use. This large and growing population may take it for granted that elderly people experiencing (or perceived as experiencing) increasing physical frailty, decreasing mental competence, and the concomitant reliance on health professionals and other caregivers should be expected to give up a degree of privacy if it means staying in their own homes rather than moving to a nursing home or assisted living facility. As the end of life approaches, it may seem to many that privacy is less important than comfort. This chapter examines the relationship between privacy, competency, paternalism, coercion, and the elderly – a group that will likely be among the first to have PICT forced upon them in their own homes, probably by their own adult offspring

Kenneth D. Pimple, Chapter 11: Principles for the Ethical Guidance of PICT

Abstract: As used in this chapter, principles offer moral or ethical guidance at a level of specificity between those of foundational ethical theories, such as the Golden Rule or Immanuel Kant’s Categorical Imperative, and detailed rules of conduct, such as the 600-some commandments in the Hebrew Bible or the ever-expanding U.S. Code of Federal Regulations. In this chapter I describe the utility of a principle-based approach and offer a preliminary set of principles intended to provide practical guidance to people and organizations who create, distribute, use, and regulate pervasive information and communication technologies (PICT). My goal is to articulate principles at a level of abstraction that will facilitate (a) the creation of appropriate rules and (b) ethically sound decision-making and behavior in circumstances that no rules cover.

I hope to see you there!

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

PICT at Ethics'2014

Join me and several of the contributors to Emerging Pervasive Information and Communication Technologies (PICT): Ethical Challenges, Opportunities and Safeguards (known to the cognoscenti as "the PICT book") at the 2014 IEEE International Symposium on Ethics in Engineering, Science, and Technology (Ethics'2014 for short).

The symposium will be held at the Chicago Marriott O’Hare, Chicago, IL, USA, on May 23-24, 2014. The PICT panel is scheduled for 9:45-11:15 on Saturday, May 24, in Grand Ballroom 6.

The additional panelists are

• Francis Harvey, U. of Minnesota
• Cynthia Jones, U. of Texas-Pan American
• Keith W. Miller, U. of Missouri-St. Louis
• Donald R. Searing, Syncere Systems
• Katherine D. Seelman, U. of Pittsburgh
• Katie Shilton, U. of Maryland-College Park

I'll let you know how to register for conference as soon as that information comes my way.

I hope to see you in Chicago. It will be a grand time.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

"Liberty and Security: A Town Hall Discussion"

Mini Conference at APPE, Mar 2014, Jacksonville FL - "Liberty and Security: A Town Hall Discussion" | @APPEOnline http://t.co/kjb02t5b1o
— Kenneth D. Pimple (@TeachRCR) December 12, 2013

"A Cheap Spying Tool With a High Creepy Factor"

CreepyDOL and the war on security researchers - "A Cheap Spying Tool With a High Creepy Factor" http://t.co/YrPZdsd92b
— Kenneth D. Pimple (@Ethical_PICT) August 3, 2013

Could it be coming to a location (uncomfortably) near you?

Geographic Information Ethics and GIScience

The annual meeting of the Association of American Geographers will include two special sections  on Geographic Information Ethics and GIScience.

Session organizers are Rodolphe Devillers, Department of Geography, Memorial University of Newfoundland; Francis Harvey, Department of Geography, University of Minnesota; and Dawn Wright, Environmental Systems Research Institute and College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences, Oregon State University.

From the organizers' Web site:

Ethical engagements with the multitude of GIS applications and uses, whether surreptitious or overt, have marked recent developments in the field. Indeed, the variety of applications of geographic information science & technology (GIS&T) has led the U.S. Department of Labor to highlight geospatial/geographic technologies as the third largest high-growth job field for the 21st century. While the potential benefits and risks of geographic technologies are becoming well known, these sessions provides a forum to engage ethical issues. For instance:

• Geographic technologies are surveillance technologies. The data they produce may be used to invade the privacy, and even the autonomy, of individuals and groups.
• Data gathered using geographic technologies are used to make policy decisions. Erroneous, inadequately documented, or inappropriate data can have grave consequences for individuals and the environment.
• Geographic technologies have the potential to exacerbate inequities in society, insofar as large organizations enjoy greater access to technology, data, and technological expertise than smaller organizations and individuals.
• Georeferenced photos, tweets and volunteered (and unvolunteered) geographic information can reveal private information. Those data that are increasingly publically available and used to study societal phenomena raise significant privacy concerns.

Papers in this session again engaged with the above issues in relationship to GIScience, including such topics as:

• case studies, curriculum development, or the pedagogy of teaching GIS ethical issues;
• issues of privacy, surveillance, inequity, erroneous or inappropriate data concerning geographic technologies;
• codes of ethics and conduct of professional organizations;
• GIS professional development;
• reflections on the changing nature of ethical issues in GIS&T

These sessions are co-sponsored by the AAG GI Systems & Science and Ethics, Justice, and Human Rights Specialty Groups.

My thanks to Deepsea Dawn Wright for sharing this information.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

Call for Abstracts: Governance of Emerging Technologies

Call for Abstracts

Governance of Emerging Technologies: Law, Policy and Ethics

May 20-21, 2013

Chandler, Arizona

The Center for Law, Science & Innovation at the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law at Arizona State University has issued a call for abstracts for proposed presentations at its upcoming First Annual Conference on Emerging Technologies: Law, Policy and Ethics.  Eleven other organizations from across the nation with an interest in emerging technologies are co-sponsoring this path-breaking event.

The national conference is slated for May 20-21 at the scenic Sheraton Wild Horse Pass Resort & Spa in Chandler, Ariz., just south of downtown Phoenix. Abstracts are due March 1, and should be submitted at law.asu.edu/emergingtechnologies. Successful applicants will be notified by March 22.

The conference will consist of plenary and session presentations and discussions on regulatory, governance, legal, policy, social and ethical aspects of emerging technologies, including, but not limited to, nanotechnology, synthetic biology, biotechnology, genomics, personalized medicine, stem cell and regenerative medicine, human enhancement technologies, telecommunications, information technologies, surveillance technologies, geoengineering, neuroscience and robotics.

Keynote speakers include George M. Church, Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School and Director of PersonalGenomes.org, George Poste, Co-director and Chief Scientist, Complex Adaptive Systems Network, Regents' Professor and Del E. Webb Chair in Health Innovation, ASU, and Andrew D. Maynard, NSF International Chair of Environmental Health Sciences, and Director, University of Michigan Risk Science Center.

There is much to be learned and shared from and across the governance experience and proposals for these various emerging technologies, said Gary Marchant, Faculty Director of the Center for Law, Science & Innovation.

"What's clear is that for every single technology – from nanotechnology and neuroscience to robotics and surveillance technologies – the way we regulate them and their risks is not working," Marchant said. "Traditional forms of regulation fail because they lag so far behind the science. These technologies are going forward at an unprecedented pace, and they cut across many different industries and sectors. And the set of governance issues they raise are of unprecedented diversity and importance."

An example is autonomous weapons systems, which are capable of accomplishing military and other missions with little or no human intervention. "We are on the verge of having the technological capability to enable robots to make decisions about killing people, but we don't yet have in place any principles or methods for governing this capability," Marchant said. "We need to look at both the substance – what is the ethical thing to do? – and the process – how do we make these decisions in society? We will be exploring these issues at our conference."

The conference will bring together government regulators, technology innovators, scientists and engineers, scholars from law, public policy, philosophy and ethics, policymakers, non-governmental organizations, students and journalists.

Participants will have a unique opportunity to explore the challenges that cut across many fields, the convergence of emerging technologies, and the societal impact of a bewildering array of transformative tools and techniques, said Wendell Wallach, of the Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics at Yale University, a co-sponsor of the conference.

"We have entered a critical juncture," Wallach said. "There are still opportunities to provide direction as to which technological possibilities should be embraced and those potential harms that must be addressed. But some of the opportunities to effectively monitor, manage and modulate the emerging technologies will disappear relatively soon."

Multidisciplinary discourse, creative thinking and innovative approaches are fundamental to striking an appropriate balance between the risks and rewards, said Diana Bowman, Assistant Professor, University of Michigan Risk Science Center and the Department of Health Management and Policy. The Risk Science Center also is sponsoring the conference.

"Autonomous vehicles – drone warfare – sophisticated materials for tissue engineering – what once belonged only in the pages of science fiction is very much science fact today," Bowman said. "And with the promise of new, emerging and disruptive technologies on the horizon, our capacity to grapple with the legal, policy and societal issues posed by the promised applications shall be challenged."

Additional sponsors of the conference are the Center for Nanotechnology in Society at ASU; the Lincoln Center for Applied Ethics at ASU; The Hastings Center; Institute for Ethics & Emerging Technologies; Initiative on Governance of Emerging Technological Systems, University of Minnesota; Ethics & Emerging Sciences Group, California Polytechnic State University; Neuroethics Studies Program, Center for Clinical Bioethics, Georgetown University Medical Center; The Science & Technology Innovation Program, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars; and Center for Earth Systems Engineering and Management, Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at ASU.  For additional sponsorship opportunities, email gary.marchant@asu.edu. For more information about the conference and to register, visit law.asu.edu/emergingtechnologies.

About the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law

Arizona State University's Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law is one of the leading public law schools in the country. Currently ranked No. 26 nationally by U.S. News & World Report, and No. 8 among all public law schools, the College has moved up further and faster in national rankings than nearly any other law school. The College is the preeminent law school in metropolitan Phoenix, the nation's sixth-largest city. In addition to its renowned faculty, the College is home to several leading centers and programs recognized for excellence, including the Center for Law, Science & Innovation, the Center for Law and Global Affairs and the Indian Legal Program. Its students choose and benefit from numerous opportunities for experiential and practical-skills training as well as an array of theoretical courses. With a writing program that is ranked No. 8 nationally by U.S. News, a wide range of clinical opportunities, a breadth of externship offerings, and a pro bono program that annually contributes more than 100,000 hours of legal and law-related services to the community, the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law is pursuing a path of boundless impact, excellence, engagement and opportunity. For more information, visit law.asu.edu. 

Call for abstracts: Geographic Information Ethics and GIScience

Call for AAG 2013 Abstracts: 

Geographic Information Ethics and GIScience

http://dusk.geo.orst.edu/aag_ethics13.html

Following successful sessions at the 2009-2011 AAG meetings on ethics and GIScience, we are organizing sessions to continue and expand discussions of this important topic. Ethical engagements with the multitude of GIS applications and uses, whether surreptitious or overt, have marked recent developments in the field. Indeed, the variety of applications of geographic information science & technology (GIS&T) has led the U.S. Department of Labor to highlight geospatial/geographic technologies as the third largest high-growth job field for the 21st century. While the potential benefits and risks of geographic technologies are becoming well known, these sessions provides a forum to engage ethical issues. For instance:

• Geographic technologies are surveillance technologies. The data they produce may be used to invade the privacy, and even the autonomy, of individuals and groups.
• Data gathered using geographic technologies are used to make policy decisions. Erroneous, inadequately documented, or inappropriate data can have grave consequences for individuals and the environment.
• Geographic technologies have the potential to exacerbate inequities in society, insofar as large organizations enjoy greater access to technology, data, and technological expertise than smaller organizations and individuals.
• Georeferenced photos, tweets and volunteered (and unvolunteered) geographic information can reveal private information. Those data that are increasingly publicly available and used to study societal phenomena raise significant privacy concerns. 

Papers in this session again engaged with the above issues in relationship to GIScience, including such topics as:

• case studies, curriculum development, or the pedagogy of teaching GIS ethical issues; 
• issues of privacy, surveillance, inequity, erroneous or inappropriate data concerning geographic technologies;
• codes of ethics and conduct of professional organizations;
• GIS professional development;
• reflections on the changing nature of ethical issues in GIS&T

These sessions are co-sponsored by the AAG GI Systems & Science and Ethics, Justice, and Human Rights Specialty Groups.

To participate: 

1. Please register for the AAG 2013 meeting and submit your abstract online following the AAG Guidelines (http://www.aag.or/cs/anualmeeting/call_for_papers).
2. Please send your paper title, PIN, and abstract no later than Wednesday, October 20 to Rodolphe Devillers (rdeville@mun.ca), Francis Harvey (fharvey@umn.edu), or Dawn Wright (dwright@esri.com).

Call for abstracts: 5th World Congress on Social Media, Mobile Apps, Internet and Web 2.0 in Medicine, Health, Biomedical Research

Call for Abstracts

Medicine 2.0'12 @ Harvard, Boston 

5th World Congress on Social Media, Mobile Apps, Internet and Web 2.0in Medicine, Health, Biomedical Research

Sept 15-16, 2012 

Medicine 2.0 is the annual academic World Congress on Social Media in Medicine and Health, this year with a new focus on mobile health applications. Last years' 2011 World Congress at Stanford was attended by 450 participants from 26 countries, with over 100 speakers, and sold out.

Medicine 2.0 is about the future of medicine using emerging technologies such as mobile apps, social media and Internet-based approaches for public health and medicine, and looks beyond the hype of other health 2.0 conferences, by focussing on an evidence-based, data driven approach. Medicine 2.0 is the only conference in this area with a research focus (although we also have a practice and a business track).

Full papers of conference presentations can be PubMed-indexed and may be eligible for publication in the leading ehealth/mhealth journal, the Journal of Medical Internet Research (Impact Factor: 4.7).

As a published researcher or potential speaker in this field we hope that you will submit an abstract in the following areas:

• Blogs and Twitter in Health 
• Building virtual communities and social networking applications for health professionals
• Building virtual communities and social networking applications for patients and consumers
• Business models in a Health 2.0 / Web 2.0 environment
• Science 2.0, collaborative biomedical research, academic / scholarly communication, publishing and peer review
• Consumer empowerment, patient-physician relationship, and sociotechnical issues
• Ethical & legal issues, confidentiality and privacy
• Health information on the web: Supply and Demand
• Innovative RSS/XML applications and Mashups
• Personal health records and Patient portals
• Public (e-)health, population health technologies, behavior change applications
• Digital Disease Detection and Biosurveillance using Twitter and other social media/mhealth/Internet sources
• The Quantified Self: tracking behavior and health
• Search, Collaborative Filtering and Recommender Technologies
• Semantic Web ("Web 3.0") applications
• The nature and dynamics of social networks in health
• Usability and human factors on the web
• Virtual (3D) environments, Second Life
• Web 2.0 approaches for behaviour change and public health
• Web 2.0 approaches for clinical practice, clinical research, quality monitoring
• Web2.0-based medical education and learning
• Wikis
• Business modelling in eHealth
• Communities in health care
• Digital Learning
• e-Coaching
• Health disparities
• Human-Computer Interface (HCI) Design
• Online decision technology
• Participatory health care
• Persuasive communication and technology
• mHealth Applications
• Ubiquitous, pervasive ehealth; domotics; Internet of things
• New and emerging Technologies

For more information: http://www.medicine20congress.com/ocs/index.php/med/med2012/schedConf/cfp

Book event: World Wide Mind: The Coming Integration of Humanity, Machines and the Internet

I received this meeting notice from Jason Borenstein, to whom my thanks. - Ken

---

Book event: World Wide Mind: The Coming Integration of Humanity, Machines and the Internet

Monday, March 21, 2011
12:15 p.m. - 1:30 p.m.

New America Foundation
1899 L St NW, Suite 400
Washington, DC 20036

What if digital communication felt as real as being touched? This question led acclaimed science writer Michael Chorost to explore profound new ideas triggered by lab research around the world, and has resulted in World Wide Mind: The Coming Integration of Humanity, Machines and the Internet (Free Press; February 2011) - the first book to explain exactly how humans and computers could be merged and the risks, implications, and amazing possibilities that await us in the future. World Wide Mind takes mind-to-mind communication out of the realm of science fiction and reveals how we are on the verge of a radical new understanding of human interaction.

Please join us for a conversation with writer Michael Chorost on how we communicate, how we can connect more fully with one another in a hyper technological age, and how our addiction to email and texting can be countered with technologies that put us-literally-in each other's minds.

Featured Speaker

Dr. Michael Chorost

Author, World Wide Mind

Moderator

Andrés Martinez

Director, Bernard L. Schwartz Fellows Program

New America Foundation

To RSVP for the event, go to the event page:
http://www.newamerica.net/events/2011/world_wide_mind

For questions, contact Stephanie Gunter at (202) 596-3367 or gunter@newamerica.net.

Update: "A Faustian Exchange"

This appears to be an update of an earlier post. My thanks to Jason Borenstein for sending this my way. - Ken

AI & SOCIETY: Celebrating the 25th birthday anniversary

Call for Papers

Theme: ‘A Faustian Exchange: What is to be human in the era of Ubiquitous Technology?’

As part of the celebration of the 25th birthday anniversary of AI&Society in 2012, we are planning three inter-linked activities: a Special Birthday volume; Academic Workshop/Conference in Cambridge, and a Public installation event at the Dana Centre, Science Museum, London. In the age of pervasive and streaming technologies, we get a deep sense that the more we get caught up in a process of self-commodification, the more we are threatened with the loss of our existential autonomy. We have become accustomed to perceiving and thinking in singularities and individualism, rooted deeply into the techno-industrial culture of competitiveness and the possibilities inherent in technology. Since its inception, the theme of Judgment to Calculation has been central to the ongoing debates in the journal. In the early days of AI, Prof. Weizenbaum in his seminal book, Computer Power and Human Reason (1976), warned us against instrumental reason and giving machines the responsibility for making genuinely human choices.

There is a legitimate concern that further advances in pervasive technology could create profound social disruptions and even have dangerous consequences, forcing humans to learn to live with machines which increasingly copy human behaviours. But how is it possible to reconcile the widening gaps between constructed reality and the basic reality of the human condition? The challenge is to recalibrate the spiral of Judgment to Calculation, moving forwards from Calculation to Judgment. We feel that the time has now come to square the circle and provide a forum for a debate on the theme of ‘Faustian Exchange: what it is to be human in Ubiquitous Technology’, reflecting the complex, uncertain, multicultural and interconnected world we live in.

Issues and Concerns
Pervasive technology has great potential and possibilities in many realms of human society, including medicine, healthcare, agriculture, transportation, education, commerce, arts and culture, scientific research and discovery. However, we should remain vigilant about the profound implications of the mediating technologies on human life.

• What are the consequences of man’s reliance on technology in deciding and pursuing what is truly valuable?
• What is it to be human when being mediated by technology in contrast to how we are in the presence of others?
• How do we make our presence felt in the wilderness of the post-human and the extended mind?
• How does this new pervasive technology affect society? How do we interact with the technologies embedded in our world? Have we gone beyond the frontiers of control?
• How do we deal with the dilemma that singularity represents not simply the passing of humankind from center stage, but that it contradicts our most deeply held notions of being?
• A robot for granny – Is there a technocratic fix for every social “problem”?
• What would it be like designing technological systems for nurturing the well-being of human kind?
• What can arts, literature, music and culture contribute to the debate on Faustian Exchange?
• Can the sorcerer’s apprentice shed some light on increasing preoccupation of technologising the academy and turning universities into theme parks of extended websites?
• How do we transcend the ‘bipolar tendency’ of the market culture, and ‘deal with the swings between prophesies of doom that serve only to paralyze us further, and the unbridled consumerism that makes things worse’?
• Does the recent financial crisis at last make us see through the myth of the culture of ‘anti-intellectualism’ and the ‘end of history’?
• What have we gained and what have we lost in the Faustian Exchange? Have we already bargained our soul for the seductive power of instrumental technology?

This special 25th anniversary issue of AI&Society will explore ways to optimize technology for society beyond the question of could we and should we. We welcome contributions for this special volume, and look forward to receiving expressions of interest, position papers/ abstracts, full papers:

Call for papers: 5 October 2010          
Abstracts: 25 January 2011 (approx 500 words)
Full articles (upto 6000 words): 15 July 2011    
Publication: July/August 2012

Karamjit S Gill
Editor, AI&Society: journal of knowledge, culture ad communication
kgillbton@yahoo.co.uk

Securing Emerging Technologies: Medical Devices, Robots, Cars, and More

Securing Emerging Technologies: 
Medical Devices, Robots, Cars, and More

Tadayoshi (Yoshi) Kohno
Assistant Professor
Department of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE)
University of Washington

Today’s and tomorrow’s emerging technologies have the potential to greatly improve the quality of our lives. Without the appropriate checks and balances, however, these emerging technologies also have the potential to compromise our digital (and physical) security and privacy. A key goal of the University of Washington CSE Computer Security Lab is to help us achieve the best of both worlds: The wonderful promises offered by the new technologies without the associated security and privacy risks. This talk will examine several strands of our research, including our discoveries of security vulnerabilities in emerging technologies ranging from wireless implantable defibrillators to cars, and our development of defenses to mitigate these vulnerabilities.

This lecture is free and open to the public.

Wednesday, October 20, 2010
4:00-5:30 pm
State Room East (IMU, 2nd floor)

Indiana University Bloomington

Tadayoshi Kohno is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington. His research focuses on computer security and privacy, broadly defined. In fact, he believes that almost every topic in computer science can have an exciting security-related twist. Originally trained in applied and theoretical cryptography, his current research thrusts span from secure cyber-physical systems (including wireless medical devices and automobiles) to private cloud computing. Kohno is the recipient of a National Science Foundation CAREER Award, an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, an MIT Technology Review TR-35 Young Innovator Award, and multiple best paper awards. He received his PhD in computer science from the University of California at San Diego.

Financial support for this lecture comes from the New Frontiers in the Arts and Humanities program (Office of the Vice Provost for Research) and the Poynter Center’s project on Ethical Guidance for Research and Application of Pervasive and Autonomous Information Technology (PAIT), made possible by the National Science Foundation (grant number SES-0848097).

A .PDF of this announcement is available at https://oncourse.iu.edu/access/content/user/pimple/Kohno-Oct20.pdf.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

2nd World Congress on Computer Science and Information Engineering (CSIE 2011)

Call for Papers and Exhibits

17-19 June 2011, Changchun, China

http://world-research-institute.org/conferences/CSIE/2011

CSIE 2011 intends to be a global forum for researchers and engineers to present and discuss recent advances and new techniques in computer science and information engineering. Topics of interests include, but are not limited to, data mining & data engineering, intelligent systems, software engineering, computer applications, communications & networking, computer hardware, VLSI, & embedded systems, multimedia & signal processing, computer control, robotics, and automation.

All papers in the CSIE 2011 conference proceedings will be indexed in Ei Compendex and ISTP, as well as included in the IEEE Xplore (The previous conference CSIE 2009 has already been indexed in Ei Compendex and included in the IEEE Xplore). IEEE Catalog Number: CFP1160F-PRT. ISBN: 978-1-4244-8361-7.

Changchun is the capital city of Jilin province, situated in the central section of China's northeast region. There are many natural attractions to entertain residents and visitors around Changchun. The grand Changbai Mountain renowned for its spectacular landscape, charming scenery, glamorous legends, as well as rich resources and products, has been praised as the first mountain in the northeast, outstanding as one of the China’s top-ten famous mountains. Other attractions in or around Changchun include Songhua lake (Songhuahu), Jingyue Lake (Jingyuetan), Changchun Movie Wonderland, Changchun Puppet Palace (Weihuanggong), Changchun World Sculpture Park, and Changchun World Landscape Park, etc.

Important Dates

• Paper Submission Deadline: 20 September 2010
• Review Notification: 15 November 2010
• Final Paper and Author Registration Deadline: 6 January 2011

Contact Information
If you have any inquiries, please email us at CSIE2011@cust.edu.cn.

2011 Conference of the Society for Philosophy and Technology: Technology and Security

From the conference Web site:

The University of North Texas is proud to host the 17th international biennial conference of the Society for Philosophy and Technology. SPT is the leading international organization devoted to the philosophical examination of technology. The 2011 conference theme is Technology and Security. We encourage contributions that examine the role of technology in fostering and sustaining security as well as creating or exacerbating insecurities. The theme of security suggests a wide range of issues such as national security, social security (poverty, age, disability), cyber security, food security, environmental security, energy security, etc. SPT 2011 will, of course, welcome contributions on any philosophical dimension of technology -- from the perspective of any academic discipline as well as perspectives outside of the academy.

Thanks to Colin Allen for bringing this to my attention.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director