There has been a tremendous amount of press on the astonishing advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) and the negative impacts that it could have on our society. Former Computing Community Consortium (CCC) council member, Eric Horvitz recently published a piece about the Benefits and Risks of Artificial Intelligence. Others have commented that AI could take our jobs and even potentially kill us. Elon Musk, Tesla chief executive, called artificial intelligence our biggest existential threat at the MIT Aeronautics and Astronautics department’s Centennial Symposium in October. I think we should be very careful about artificial intelligence. If I were to guess like what our biggest existential threat is, it’s probably that. So we need to be very […]
Computing Community Consortium Blog
The goal of the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) is to catalyze the computing research community to debate longer range, more audacious research challenges; to build consensus around research visions; to evolve the most promising visions toward clearly defined initiatives; and to work with the funding organizations to move challenges and visions toward funding initiatives. The purpose of this blog is to provide a more immediate, online mechanism for dissemination of visioning concepts and community discussion/debate about them.
Are Robots Our Friends?
February 19th, 2015 / in policy, research horizons, Research News, resources / by Helen Wright2015 NSF Early-Career Investigators Workshop on Cyber-Physical Systems in Smart Cities
February 18th, 2015 / in awards, NSF, Research News / by Helen WrightThe 2015 NSF Early-Career Investigators Workshop on Cyber-Physical Systems in Smart Cities will be held in Seattle, WA on April 13-17, 2015. This year’s workshop is implemented in conjunction with the IEEE/ACM CPS Week 2015 – the idea is that participants of the 2015 ECI-CPS workshop will also be able to attend CPS Week 2015. The purpose of the early-career workshop is to identify, develop, and strengthen the CPS research community, particularly in the emerging area of Smart Cities. Participation in this workshop is thus prioritized for early-career researchers (i.e., senior Ph.D. candidates, postdoctoral fellows, research scientists, and assistant professors). Participation and contribution is encouraged from all research disciplines, including computer and […]
Privacy by Design Workshop: Concepts and Connections
February 17th, 2015 / in CCC, workshop reports / by Helen WrightThe following guest blog post is contributed by Ph.D. students Nick Doty and Richmond Wong working with Deirdre Mulligan from the University of California Berkeley School of Information. For years, lawmakers, advocates and engineers have touted the potential benefits of Privacy by Design, of integrating privacy throughout the technical design process rather than an after-the-fact. Nonetheless, we still struggle with how to practice Privacy by Design, whether it’s how to conceptualize privacy, how to build privacy in the engineering process, how to present those privacy designs to users or how to incentivize practice of and compliance with Privacy by Design. In order to identify a shared research vision to support these different facets of the practice of Privacy by […]
DARPA: Nobody’s Safe on the Internet
February 13th, 2015 / in policy, Research News / by Helen Wright60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl interviewed Dan Kaufman, Director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)’s Information Innovation Office (I2O), for the following clip called Nobody’s safe on the Internet which aired on February 8th. The 13 minute clip highlights how hacking is now a matter of national security, something many in the computer science community have been saying for a long time. As our society continues to become more technologically advanced the situation will only become more serious. Internet connectivity will become embedded in everything from our baby monitors to refrigerators, through Internet of Things technologies, and our privacy and security to be compromised. This is an issue that is beginning […]
Addressing Privacy Issues at Davos
February 12th, 2015 / in policy, research horizons, Research News, workshop reports / by Shar SteedRecently, the world’s top leaders and thinkers gathered for the World Economic Forum’s annual conference in Davos, Switzerland. In addition to the great variety of world issues discussed, there were a few discussions on how technology is impacting the economy, laws, and society. Margo Seltzer, a CRA Board Member, traveled to Switzerland for the conference and participated in a panel discussion, “New Cyber World Order,” organized by Harvard University. Since then, the discussion has attracted a lot of attention. While articles in Digital Journal and Daily Mail led with the dramatic headline, “Privacy is dead,” Seltzer emphasized to me that the main points conveyed during the session were more practical. Today we share an […]
30 Under 30: Young Scientists Who Are Changing The World
February 11th, 2015 / in awards, policy, Research News / by Helen WrightThe Forbes 30 Under 30, is a tally of the brightest stars in 20 different fields under the age of 30. What these young men and women have accomplished in their lifetime is astonishing. Now is the time to be young and ambitious! Here are just a few examples: Sophie Milam, 26, Chief Engineer at HI-SEAS, designs control systems for so-called tensegrity robots (held together by tension). Elizabeth Beattie, 24, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering and Applied Science, designed the Titan Arm, an exoskeleton that gives the wearer an extra forty pounds of bicep strength. John Mittermeier, 29, a Ph.D. candidate at Oxford University, is applying […]
