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.

New technologies from artificial intelligence to drones, and biomedical enhancement make the future of the human family increasingly hard to predict and protect. This book explores how the philosophical tradition of virtue ethics can help us to cultivate the moral wisdom we need to live wisely and well with emerging technologies.

The increasingly widespread implementation and use of intelligent assistive technologies (IATs) is reshaping dementia care. This volume provides an up-to-date overview of the current state of IATs for dementia care. The new essays collected here examine what IATs will mean for clinical practice and the ethical and regulatory challenges they will pose.

In a time of ongoing pandemic when well-being is a priority this volume presents latest works across disciplines associated to Virtual Patients, Gamification and Simulation. Chapters herein present international perspectives with authors from around the globe contributing to this impactful third edition to the series following a 2014 Springer book on Technologies for Inclusive Well-Being and a 2017 Springer book Recent Advances in Technologies for Inclusive Well-Being. Digital technologies are pervasive in life and the contributions herein focus on specific attributes and situations, especially in training and treatment programmes spanning across ranges of diagnosis, conditions, ages, and targeted impacts. This volume purposefully does not cover all (even if that was possible) aspects on how virtual interactive space can align to statial computing, which in turn can align with related embodied entities (whatever the terms used e.g. Virtual, Augmented, Extended, Mixed Realities) along with AI, Deep Learning etc. It also doesn’t cover what some may refer to as ‘trendy terms’ such as 360 degree, video, WebXR, cryptocurrency, blockchain, virtual goods, AR museums, travel and teleportation...however, what is covered in this book, and the prior volumes it builds upon (as above), is a sharing and questioning of advancing technologies for inclusive well-being through research and practices from an avant-garde perspective.

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

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.

This book presents current innovative, alternative and creative approaches that challenge traditional mechanisms in and across disciplines and industries targeting societal impact. A common thread throughout the book is human-centered, uni and multi-modal strategies across the range of human technologies, including sensing and stimuli; virtual and augmented worlds; games for serious applications; accessibility; digital-ethics and more. Focusing on engaging, meaningful, and motivating activities that at the same time offer systemic information on human condition, performance and progress, the book is of interest to anyone seeking to gain insights into the field, be they students, teachers, practicing professionals, consultants, or family representatives. By offering a wider perspective, it addresses the need for a core text that evokes and provokes, engages and demands and stimulates and satisfies.

Over the last thirty years or so, there have been tremendous advancements in the area of geospatial health; however, somehow, two aspects have not received as much attention as they should have received. These are a) limitations of different spatial analytical tools and b) progress in making geospatial environmental exposure data available for advanced health science research and for medical practice. This edited volume addresses those two less explored areas of geospatial health with augmented discussions on the theories, methodologies and limitations of contemporary geospatial technologies in a wide range of applications related to human well-being and health. In 20 chapters, readers are presented with an up-to-date assessment of geospatial technologies with an emphasis on understanding general geospatial principles and methodologies that are often overlooked in the research literature. As a result, this book will be of interest to both newcomers and experts in geospatial analysis and will appeal to students and researchers engaged in studying human well-being and health. Chapters are presenting new concepts, new analytical methods and contemporary applications within the framework of geospatial applications in human well-being and health. The topics addressed by the various chapter authors include analytical approaches, newer areas of geospatial health application, introduction to unique resources, geospatial modeling, and environmental pollution assessments for air, water and soil. Although geospatial experts are expected to be the primary readers, this book is designed in such a way so that the public health professionals, environmental health scientists and clinicians also find it useful with or without any familiarity with geospatial analysis.

This book considers the impact of technology on our lives and ways to ensure technology enhances, rather than damages, our psychological well-being.