All SSIT members are invited to submit brief reports and updates about upcoming and completed presentations and activities you are part of that are relevant to SSIT!

As announced previously, SSIT’s annual flagship conference, the International Symposium on Technology and Society (ISTAS) will take place from 18 - 20 September 2024 in Puebla, Mexico. The ISTAS 2024 conference theme is The Social Implications of Artificial Intelligence (AI), and the preliminary CFP is now live on the conference website.

SSIT invites participation from practitioners in academia, industry, and government who contemplate the impacts of technology on today’s society in the areas of ethics, sustainability, and equity, and who particularly examine social values within the tech industry. We also invite individuals involved in Technology Policy that would like to better understand the social implications that will arise with the use of AI.

The conference seeks to foster multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary and trans-disciplinary interactions with cross-sector conversations about legal and economic issues of AI and challenges for policymakers. Examples of risks include inadvertent malicious use of AI, or security risks when, say, medical guidelines produced by these systems may contain false information and cause the death of a patient. Plagiarism may occur with the use of AI in education, industry or government. As Society becomes more dependent on the use of AI, new social challenges will arise when AI and automation eliminate manufacturing jobs, requiring re-education of the workforce. AI offers new challenges in cybersecurity as well as new approaches for national and international security, AI ethics, ethics in autonomous weapons systems and the use of autonomous transportation vehicles.

Visit the conference website for the full list of topics of interest.

Important Dates
Paper submission deadline: 31 May 2024
Notification: 30 June 2024
Camera-ready paper deadline: 26 July 2024

Stay tuned for additional details about ISTAS 2024 in future SSIT newsletters!

This is the fourth installment of a new column introducing SSIT members to our Standards Committee activities. Previous newsletters featured Ruth Lewis (Chair, SSIT Standards Committee), Peter Reid (Working Group Chair, P7011 Standard for the Process of Identifying and Rating the Trustworthiness of News Sources), and Ben Bland (Working Group Chair, P7014, Standard for Ethical Considerations in Emulated Empathy in Autonomous and Intelligent Systems).

What is this standard?
P7010.1 provides recommendations for the next steps in applying IEEE Standard 7010 for use in sustainability initiatives and in meeting social responsibility goals in corporate and organization settings. It provides the framework to develop and execute action plans and maps elements to address in meeting the ethical standards of IEEE Standard 7010.

P7010 establishes recommended practices to assess ethical processes in the use of AI and advanced technologies, and establishes recommendations to adapt higher standards of performance. It introduces further considerations to assist in its use. P7010.1 focuses on the recommended practices for assistance in applying P7010 in corporate settings in the development of the new goals of sustainability and social development, validating the design of the published standard, and providing recommended practices for expanded multiple use.

Why is it important?
As the added goals of sustainability require new designs and processes—and integration of new goals into existing business processes—P7010.1 provides engineers, technicians, data scientists, and business line users with enabling mechanisms to fulfill ESG and SDG commitments. Furthermore, P7010.1 addresses the fundamental addition of technology to provide the required infrastructure and governance capabilities, with an ethical model for corporate use in the published corporate digital responsibility.

P7010.1 provides pathways to enlarge the capacity for sustainability, develop the capabilities that support action plans, and increase the power and ability to gain new values from corporate assets. It puts forward four building blocks that can remove barriers to achieving new goals and sets forth recommended actions, steps, and measures for these areas. The four areas include:

• Digital/Data Infrastructure
• Governance/Organization Culture
• Interdisciplinary Collaboration/Decision Making
• Metrics/Corporate Value*

*Glossary/Taxonomies for recognized international standards (metrics utilized are existing published and validated metrics).

P7010.1 will provide a roadmap to guide the desired level of change in pursuit of the desired results: compliance-meeting regulations, effective operations management, and optimized performance and sustainability.

The need for this project comes from the three driving forces universally impacting corporations and organizations: climate change, responsibility for social impact, and digital transformation. These forces are disrupting current organization models and, combined with the economic demands for agility and resilience, require the full use of our human intelligence and digital resources to meet these additional demands. In other words, they require “new” specifications, designs, processes, and supporting systems.

What is a real-world example/case study of how this might help?
Recognized need for new recommendations is evidenced in the fact that corporations are setting goals and targets but are limited in the ability to stretch current resources to add new goals, support, and scale action plans to achieve the target goals. New designs are required to embed sustainability and social responsibility into businesses processes with more transparency and accountability for results.

What stage is it at?
All Working Group members are actively engaged in the draft development (ensuring unified endorsement of the focus, components to be included, and the fundamental infrastructure with the ethical implementation of advanced technology). Completion of the draft, to prepare for balloting, is scheduled to be completed in the first or second quarter of 2024. The Working Group has approved the publication of a white paper on corporate digital responsibility in the first quarter of 2024 as a guiding principle for the ethical use of technology.

What is the current geographical or disciplinary spread of your working members?
Care is being given to build recommended practices that apply the relevant and appropriate standards needed to make this PAR relevant across national boundaries, industries, and organizations of various sizes. The roadmap of recommended practices is being written to support interdisciplinary members that are responsible for project initiatives and/or building internal and external sustainability practices. Our Working Group represents Europe, Asia, the United States, and Australia.

What type of people might be interested or well suited for this standards group?
This Working Group welcomes new members with focus/interest in sustainability and ethical use of AI. P7010.1 will engage members’ expertise in sustainability, artificial intelligence, ethical practices, new corporate value and metrics, and professional/technical writing.

What triggered your own interest in this area?
As Chair, my interest in this area began with my collaboration with IEEE in the ethical development and use of AI, and the rapid development of the international aspirational vision of the larger United Nation goals (i.e., UN Sustainable Development Goals “SDG’s”). The need to provide corporate and organization systems with tools to enlarge their ability to meet the goals of people, the planet, and prosperity is of the utmost importance; pursuing those goals with “ethical practices” can become an example of the vision of SSIT.

Call to action
We welcome all interested parties to contribute to this important body of work, either as Working Group Members, Advisory Members, and/or Technical Editors. To sign up, please email Christy Bahn at [email protected].

As a reminder, an anonymous donor has made the generous offer to match all donations made to SSIT through the IEEE Foundation between now and 31 December 2023, up to a total of US$5000. Donate now to double your impact!

SSIT brings together interdisciplinary communities to support and inform our understanding of:

• Sustainable Development & Humanitarian Technology
• Ethics and Human Values
• Technology Access
• Societal Impact of Technological Innovation
• Protecting the Planet
• Gender Equality and Social Inclusion

We work within the technology community, but draw our ideas from practitioners, researchers, inventors, policy makers, professionals and students across many fields. We also influence the direction of technology adoption and development, from awareness and concepts, to standards and professional practice.

These programs are making a difference! Funds will be invested in further strengthening and expanding:

• Standards development related to social impacts of AI, ethical design, human-robot interaction, and more
• International Chapter, Young Professional and Student Activities
• Conference and Distinguished Lecturer Programs addressing society’s most pressing issues
• related to technology
• Online Publishing and Education Programs

Ways to Contribute
Donate to SSIT online at https://ieeefoundation.org/ieee_ssit
You can make a gift to SSIT in honor or memory of someone who has touched your life

Note that donations to SSIT are managed by the IEEE Foundation, the philanthropic arm of IEEE. IEEE and the IEEE Foundation are U.S. 501(c)3 non-profit organizations. For more information contact: [email protected] or +1 732 465 5871.

Submitted by Ketra Schmitt

The Centre for Engineering in Society (CES) at Concordia University invites applications for a tenure-track faculty position at the rank of Assistant Professor in the broad areas of Technology, Sustainable Innovation, and Society as they relate to engineering. The application deadline is 15 January 2024.

For full details, please see the job posting on Concordia’s website.