Pub Date : 2022-09-26DOI: 10.1109/TTS.2022.3208821
Lucille Nalbach Tournas;Walter G. Johnson
Novel neurotechnologies such as brain-computer interfaces aim to offer new treatment options for those suffering with mental or neurological diseases or defects. At the same time, legal tools to regulate and manage these advancements remain underdeveloped in light of various policy challenges. Soft law mechanisms are likely one valuable tool for early management of the development of BCIs. These mechanisms should be flexible enough to grow with the technology as well as be hardened into binding law if necessary. These softer tools will need to be guided by standards and code of conducts that respect the privacy, agency, identity, and dignity of individuals and communities. Here we review three examples – across intergovernmental, civil society, and standard-setting bodies – illustrating the development of early mechanisms to manage BCIs. While these are important first steps, we argue stakeholders must now look to ways to actively, rather than passively, monitor and evaluate outcomes under these soft legal instruments.
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Pub Date : 2022-09-20DOI: 10.1109/TTS.2022.3207991
Dirk van der Linden;Brittany I. Davidson;Orit Hirsch-Matsioulas;Anna Zamansky
Digital technologies that help people take care of their dogs are becoming more widespread. Yet, little research explores what the role of technology in the human-dog relationship should be. We conducted a qualitative study incorporating quantitative and thematic analysis of 155 U.K. dog owners reflecting on their daily routines and technology’s role in it, disentangling the what-where-why of interspecies routines and activities, technological desires, and rationales for technological support across common human-dog activities. We found that increasingly entangled daily routines lead to close multi-species households where dog owners conceptualize technology as having a role to support them in giving care to their dogs. When confronted with the role of technology across various activities, only chores like cleaning up after their dogs lead to largely positive considerations, while activities that benefit themselves like walking together lead to largely negative considerations. For other activities, whether playing, training, or feeding, attitudes remain diverse. In general, across all activities both a nightmare scenario of technology taking the human’s role and in doing so disentangling the human-dog bond, as well as a dream scenario of technology augmenting human abilities arise. We argue that the current trajectory of digital technology for pets is increasingly focused on enabling remote interactions, an example of the nightmare scenario in our thematic analysis. It is important to redirect this trajectory to one of technology predominantly supporting us in becoming better and more informed caregivers.
{"title":"On the Role of Technology in Human–Dog Relationships: A Future of Nightmares or Dreams?","authors":"Dirk van der Linden;Brittany I. Davidson;Orit Hirsch-Matsioulas;Anna Zamansky","doi":"10.1109/TTS.2022.3207991","DOIUrl":"10.1109/TTS.2022.3207991","url":null,"abstract":"Digital technologies that help people take care of their dogs are becoming more widespread. Yet, little research explores what the role of technology in the human-dog relationship should be. We conducted a qualitative study incorporating quantitative and thematic analysis of 155 U.K. dog owners reflecting on their daily routines and technology’s role in it, disentangling the what-where-why of interspecies routines and activities, technological desires, and rationales for technological support across common human-dog activities. We found that increasingly entangled daily routines lead to close multi-species households where dog owners conceptualize technology as having a role to support them in giving care to their dogs. When confronted with the role of technology across various activities, only chores like cleaning up after their dogs lead to largely positive considerations, while activities that benefit themselves like walking together lead to largely negative considerations. For other activities, whether playing, training, or feeding, attitudes remain diverse. In general, across all activities both a nightmare scenario of technology taking the human’s role and in doing so disentangling the human-dog bond, as well as a dream scenario of technology augmenting human abilities arise. We argue that the current trajectory of digital technology for pets is increasingly focused on enabling remote interactions, an example of the nightmare scenario in our thematic analysis. It is important to redirect this trajectory to one of technology predominantly supporting us in becoming better and more informed caregivers.","PeriodicalId":73324,"journal":{"name":"IEEE transactions on technology and society","volume":"4 4","pages":"352-362"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-09-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=9896207","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47789627","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-09-14DOI: 10.1109/TTS.2022.3202323
Tamara Bonaci;Katina Michael;Pablo Rivas;Lindsay J. Robertson;Michael Zimmer
Security is a fundamental human requirement. We desire the security of our person against injury, security of our capability to provide for our families, security of income linked to needs (food, water, clothing, and shelter), and much more. Most also hope for security of a way of life that is fulfilling and pleasant and peaceful [1]