Doing Philosophy of Technology


Book Description

As science becomes more deeply embedded in a complex technological infrastructure, has this changed the relationship between the sciences and the various technologies that support them? As our technologies help shrink our world, can we restrict our ethical concerns or must we find a way to face the fact that we are now one world? What do new forms of architecture say about whom we are? Is the design process the new epistemological paradigm? The answers to all of these is "yes" according to Joseph C. Pitt (VirginaTech). Doing Philosophy of Technology presents an updated and integrated overview of the most important thinking from this prominent philosopher of technology. Throughout his career Joseph C. Pitt has defended the view that to say anything meaningful about the value of a technology one must know something about that technology and how it functions in the world. This starting point leads naturally to a pragmatist philosophical stance, since it is the real world consequences of introducing a technology that must be the basis for any further normative judgements. In the book we find an extended set of arguments that challenge the idea that there are eternal philosophical issues that transcend the impacts that technologies make on human beings and their world. Rather, it is claimed that as our technologies transform our world they transform us and the kinds of questions we find important to answer.




Early American Technology


Book Description

This collection of original essays documents technology's centrality to the history of early America. Unlike much previous scholarship, this volume emphasizes the quotidian rather than the exceptional: the farm household seeking to preserve food or acquire tools, the surveyor balancing economic and technical considerations while laying out a turnpike, the woman of child-bearing age employing herbal contraceptives, and the neighbors of a polluted urban stream debating issues of property, odor, and health. These cases and others drawn from brewing, mining, farming, and woodworking enable the authors to address recent historiographic concerns, including the environmental aspects of technological change and the gendered nature of technical knowledge. Brooke Hindle's classic 1966 essay on early American technology is also reprinted, and his view of the field is reassessed. A bibliographical essay and summary of Hindle's bibliographic findings conclude the volume. The contributors are Judith A. McGaw, Robert C. Post, Susan E. Klepp, Michal McMahon, Patrick W. O'Bannon, Sarah F. McMahon, Donald C. Jackson, Robert B. Gordon, Carolyn C. Cooper, and Nina E. Lerman.




Doing Good with Technologies:


Book Description

20th century technologies like cars, the Internet, and the contraceptive pill have altered our actions, changed our perceptions and influenced our moral ideas, for better and worse. Upcoming technologies are bound to fulfill their own unique social roles. How can we advance this social role so that it will support the good live and limit undesired changes? This book explores whether we can take a forward looking responsibility to optimize the social roles of technologies. In doing so, the book discusses three issues: first, it aims to understand the social role of technologies; second, it explores what it means to accept responsibility for this social role, and; third, it searches for some forward looking tools that help us to see how new technologies may influence human behavior. In a rather unique approach, this book combines the influential sociological research of Bruno Latour on the social impacts of technologies with the contemporary Aristotelianism of Alasdair MacIntyre.




Persuasive Technology


Book Description

Can computers change what you think and do? Can they motivate you to stop smoking, persuade you to buy insurance, or convince you to join the Army? "Yes, they can," says Dr. B.J. Fogg, director of the Persuasive Technology Lab at Stanford University. Fogg has coined the phrase "Captology"(an acronym for computers as persuasive technologies) to capture the domain of research, design, and applications of persuasive computers.In this thought-provoking book, based on nine years of research in captology, Dr. Fogg reveals how Web sites, software applications, and mobile devices can be used to change people's attitudes and behavior. Technology designers, marketers, researchers, consumers—anyone who wants to leverage or simply understand the persuasive power of interactive technology—will appreciate the compelling insights and illuminating examples found inside. Persuasive technology can be controversial—and it should be. Who will wield this power of digital influence? And to what end? Now is the time to survey the issues and explore the principles of persuasive technology, and B.J. Fogg has written this book to be your guide.* Filled with key term definitions in persuasive computing*Provides frameworks for understanding this domain*Describes real examples of persuasive technologies




What Do Science, Technology, and Innovation Mean from Africa?


Book Description

Explorations of science, technology, and innovation in Africa not as the product of “technology transfer” from elsewhere but as the working of African knowledge. In the STI literature, Africa has often been regarded as a recipient of science, technology, and innovation rather than a maker of them. In this book, scholars from a range of disciplines show that STI in Africa is not merely the product of “technology transfer” from elsewhere but the working of African knowledge. Their contributions focus on African ways of looking, meaning-making, and creating. The chapter authors see Africans as intellectual agents whose perspectives constitute authoritative knowledge and whose strategic deployment of both endogenous and inbound things represents an African-centered notion of STI. “Things do not (always) mean the same from everywhere,” observes Clapperton Chakanetsa Mavhunga, the volume's editor. Western, colonialist definitions of STI are not universalizable. The contributors discuss topics that include the trivialization of indigenous knowledge under colonialism; the creative labor of chimurenga, the transformation of everyday surroundings into military infrastructure; the role of enslaved Africans in America as innovators and synthesizers; the African ethos of “fixing”; the constitutive appropriation that makes mobile technologies African; and an African innovation strategy that builds on domestic capacities. The contributions describe an Africa that is creative, technological, and scientific, showing that African STI is the latest iteration of a long process of accumulative, multicultural knowledge production. Contributors Geri Augusto, Shadreck Chirikure, Chux Daniels, Ron Eglash, Ellen Foster, Garrick E. Louis, D. A. Masolo, Clapperton Chakanetsa Mavhunga, Neda Nazemi, Toluwalogo Odumosu, Katrien Pype, Scott Remer




Do You Remember Technology


Book Description

Remember the cell phones that weighed enough to serve double duty as a bludgeon? What about the first time you saw an Apple IIsi, or heard the THX sound check? And who could forget the inimitable hiss and whirr of an 8-track loading up? The ultranostalgic team behind Do You Remember TV? is ready to take you back on another sentimental road trip down memory lane with their latest, Do You Remember Technology? You'll find it complete with the smart-aleck sensibility, eye popping design, and trademark visual puns that sold over 100,000 copies of their first two books. In this one, we see the technological world of yesterday that has become the glamorous and successful belle of the millenium ball. Get ready to revisit the laughable roots of today's wizardry and reminisce over doohickey's of decades pastwhen Pong was a gnarly challenge, 0.7734 viewed upside down on a calculator cracked you up, and vacations was a time when you couldn't be contacted. Do you Remember Technology? is a must have for everyone from media junkies and web slaves to those who yearn for the good old days of typewriters and rotary phones.




Race After Technology


Book Description

From everyday apps to complex algorithms, Ruha Benjamin cuts through tech-industry hype to understand how emerging technologies can reinforce White supremacy and deepen social inequity. Benjamin argues that automation, far from being a sinister story of racist programmers scheming on the dark web, has the potential to hide, speed up, and deepen discrimination while appearing neutral and even benevolent when compared to the racism of a previous era. Presenting the concept of the “New Jim Code,” she shows how a range of discriminatory designs encode inequity by explicitly amplifying racial hierarchies; by ignoring but thereby replicating social divisions; or by aiming to fix racial bias but ultimately doing quite the opposite. Moreover, she makes a compelling case for race itself as a kind of technology, designed to stratify and sanctify social injustice in the architecture of everyday life. This illuminating guide provides conceptual tools for decoding tech promises with sociologically informed skepticism. In doing so, it challenges us to question not only the technologies we are sold but also the ones we ourselves manufacture. Visit the book's free Discussion Guide: www.dropbox.com




Think, Play, Do


Book Description

"This book shows how the innovation process is changing profoundly, with significant implications for managers and public policy-makers."--Book jacket.




The New IT: How Technology Leaders are Enabling Business Strategy in the Digital Age


Book Description

Introducing a Powerful New Business Model for Today’s IT Blogger, speaker, software executive, and bestselling author Jill Dyché has been thinking about leadership a lot lately. Having consulted with business and IT executives with Fortune 500 companies for most of her career, she has heard a common refrain: “What should we do about shadow IT?” She’s decided to address the answer head-on. With the onslaught of cloud solutions, consumerization of technology, and increasingly tech-savvy business people, it’s time for a manifesto for leaders who recognize—and are nervous about—the demands of the digital age. Whether you’re an executive, department head, or IT manager, The New IT provides an action-ready blueprint for building and strengthening the role of IT in your company—and prescribing IT’s future. Learn how to: ASSESS your current and future IT profile ALIGN your IT organization with business priorities MAP technology delivery plans according to business priiorities ORGANIZE IT according to your company’s culture and strengths REDEFINE innovation and talent management practices BUILD a stronger and enduring role for IT as a business partner By using field-tested techniques to align your IT department with your corporate objectives, you can leverage the power of technology across the entire company. The New IT provides a set of tactical and experienced-based frameworks to help you and your colleagues conceive a new roadmap. It also includes real-world case studies and best practices from successful, technology-enabled companies such as Toyota, Merck, Brooks Brothers, Union Bank, and many others. You’ll hear from major industry pioneers, IT thought leaders, and other change agents who are leading the way in this new frontier. And you’ll learn how to bring your business and IT together in a way that is truly transformative. The new IT is more than computing power. It balances strategy and delivery. It’s interactive and inclusive. It’s as omnipresent as the smart phone and just as revolutionary. It equips you with the tools you need to succeed in reframing the IT conversation and propelling your business forward. Praise for The New IT “Jill has penned a de Toquevillean map of the digital world. Should be a required text for every business leader in the country.” Thornton May, futurist and author of The New Know “Enterprise IT has reached an inflection point in how services are delivered and consumed, requiring our profession to undertake a transformation of our own. Jill Dyché describes well the challenges we face, how to assess them, and how to take action to complete the journey toward modern enterprise IT.” Kimberly Stevenson, Vice President and Chief Information Officer, Intel “Conversational, intuitive, and intelligent, this book goes right to the heart of governance (control), innovation (change), identity (authority), relevance (alignment), and influence (strategy). It’s a timely book that should be read by executives across organizations.” Peter Marx, Chief Innovation and Technology Officer, City of Los Angeles “A highly readable, entertaining book that will help CIOs and their executive partners address the ongoing challenge of converting IT from a strategic liability to a strategic asset.” Peter Weill and Jeanne Ross, MIT Center for Information Research and authors of IT Governance “Everywhere I go I hear complaints about the old IT. Jill Dyché's book provides a comprehensive roadmap to changing IT to suit our analytical, consumer-driven, bring-your-own-device times!” Thomas H. Davenport, Distinguished Professor, Babson College, and author of Competing on Analytics and Big Data @ Work




What Machines Can't Do


Book Description

Virtually every manufacturing company has plans for an automated "factory of the future." But Robert J. Thomas argues that smart machines may not hold the key to an industrial renaissance. In this provocative and enlightening book, he takes us inside four successful manufacturing enterprises to reveal the social and political dynamics that are an integral part of new production technology. His interviews with nearly 300 individuals, from top corporate executives to engineers to workers and union representatives, give his study particular credibility and offer surprising insights into the organizational power struggles that determine the form and performance of new technologies. Thomas urges managers not to put blind hopes into smarter machines but to find smarter ways to organize people. As U.S. companies battle for survival in an era of growing global competition, What Machines Can't Do is an invaluable treatise on the ways we organize work. While its call for change is likely to be controversial, it will also attract anyone who wishes to understand the full impact of new technology on jobs, organizations, and the future of the industrial enterprise.