Category: Social Good

Activities that lead to greater social good.

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Humanities Science Science News Social Good Technology

The Heir Conditioner

Sometimes, maybe you can have too much technology?

In 1944 B.F. Skinner, and his wife Yvonne, invented an “air crib” in which to raise their second daughter, Deborah. In 2004, Deborah Skinner wrote an essay “I Was Not a Lab Rat”, which was published in The Guardian, to set the record straight.

Hannah Zeavin discusses the Skinner episode in her new book about parenting “MOTHER MEDIA: Hot and Cool Parenting in the 20th Century“, which will be coming out April 29 from the MIT Press.

But who can stop technology? See this April 10 news item from the new Scientist: “World’s first baby born by IVF done almost entirely by a machine“. Just check out the menu near the bottom in the machine interface picture (below) – “Shoot Laser”, “CLick (sic) and shoot”. This gamified technology belongs to “The World’s First End-To-End Automated IVF Lab“.

Image from New Scientist article

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Engineering Humanities Science Social Good Technology

IEEE Online Forum on Climate Change Technologies (OFCCT)

IEEE has organized a conference on climate change technologies. It is a virtual even and will be held in two parts, November 04-07 and December 02-05. To look at the program, go here (https://ieee-ofcct.org/program/). To register for the conference, go here (https://ieee-ofcct.org/registration/).

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Engineering Social Good Technology

OpenAI or Members Only?

Altman
OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman takes photos with attendees during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Leaders' Week in San Francisco on Nov. 16. Photographer: Julie Jammot/AFP via Getty Images

If you read news from the tech world, you couldn’t have missed the kerfuffle involving OpenAI this past week.

Below are takes on the situation from a couple of columnists. They start out from different angles but converge on similar conclusions:

Parmy Olson: “I say all this knowing full well that OpenAI will find a way to neuter its nonprofit board so that the events of last week don’t ever happen again. It will probably look a lot more like other tech boards that lack teeth […].”

Matt Levine: “Is control of OpenAI indicated by the word “controls,” or by the word “MONEY”? […] the money kind of won.”

OpenAI diagram

See also this piece by Levine where he concludes: “Coming from the world of finance, all of this feels odd to me […]. Everyone just trusted each other? Seems like a mistake.”

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Engineering Social Good Technology

Looking To Give Back?

Mentoring

How about visiting some classrooms around the globe to share your technical and professional knowledge?

Share your story and technical expertise with pre-university students. Your visit could be a career QA session, a presentation on a particular technical topic, technical mentoring to support a hands-on activity challenge, judge a competition, etc. Join the programs and Share. Give Back. Inspire.

Learn more about classroom visits in IEEE’s TRYEngineering program. I think it will be interesting and fulfilling so I signed up.