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Digital Dreams Have Become Nightmares What We Must Do, 2nd Edition

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English title 《 Digital Dreams Have Become Nightmares What We Must Do, 2nd Edition 》
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Review

"Are you feeling happy about the role of information technology in the world today? You should read this book for a dose of reality. Are you in despair about it? This book is the prescription for that condition, too! Nobody else could cover the landscape as Ron Baecker does."
——Clayton Lewis, Emeritus Professor, University of Colorado Boulder

"This book is a captivating review of important computing developments. Many things talked about as new today have been around for a long time. Much can be learned from the past. The book also teaches a careful and consistent method that enables the reader to do this kind of work as the need arises. The book suggests the need will arise."
——John Leslie King, Emeritus Professor, University of Michigan

Feature

★This book offers a compelling discussion of the digital dreams that have come true, their often unintended side effects (nightmares), and what must be done to counteract the nightmares.

Description

It is intended as an impetus to further conversation not only in homes and workplaces, but in academic courses and even legislative debates. Equally importantly, the book is a presentation of what digital technology professionals need to know about these topics and the actions they should undertake individually and in support of other citizens, societal initiatives, and government. The author begins by introducing the amazing progress made in digital technologies over the past 80 years. Pioneering engineers dreamed of potential uses of technology through their writing and technical achievements, further inspiring thousands of researchers to bring the dreams to life, and to dream new dreams as well. The second part of the book describes the myriad adverse side effects and unanticipated challenges that arose as those dreams were pursued and achieved. Examples include rampant misinformation on social media, ransomware, autonomous weapons, and the premature use of AI before it is reliable and safe.

The book closes with a positive call to action, outlining ways to address the challenges through ethical career choices, careful analysis, thoughtful design, research, citizen engagement, legislation/regulation, and careful consideration of how bad actors may use technology. Readers of Digital Dreams Have Become Nightmares should become more knowledgeable, wiser, and also cautiously optimistic, determined to affect positive changes through their design, creation, and use of technology.

This book offers a compelling discussion of the digital dreams that have come true, their often unintended side effects (nightmares), and what must be done to counteract the nightmares. It is intended as an impetus to further conversation not only in homes and workplaces, but in academic courses and even legislative debates. Equally importantly, the book is a presentation of what digital technology professionals need to know about these topics and the actions they should undertake individually and in support of other citizens, societal initiatives, and government.

The author begins by introducing the amazing progress made in digital technologies over the past 80 years. Pioneering engineers dreamed of potential uses of technology through their writing and technical achievements, further inspiring thousands of researchers to bring the dreams to life, and to dream new dreams as well. The second part of the book describes the myriad adverse side effects and unanticipated challenges that arose as those dreams were pursued and achieved. Examples include rampant misinformation on social media, ransomware, autonomous weapons, and the premature use of AI before it is reliable and safe.

The book closes with a positive call to action, outlining ways to address the challenges through ethical career choices, careful analysis, thoughtful design, research, citizen engagement, legislation/regulation, and careful consideration of how bad actors may use technology. Readers of Digital Dreams Have Become Nightmares should become more knowledgeable, wiser, and also cautiously optimistic, determined to affect positive changes through their design, creation, and use of technology.

Author

Ronald Baecker (born October 7, 1942) is an Emeritus Professor of Computer Science and Bell Chair in Human-Computer Interaction at the University of Toronto (UofT), and Adjunct Professor of Computer Science at Columbia University. He was the co-founder of the Dynamic Graphics Project (DGP), and the founder of the Knowledge Media Design Institute (KMDI) and the Technologies for Aging Gracefully Lab (TAGlab) at UofT. He was the founder of Canada's research network on collaboration technologies (NECTAR), a founding researcher of AGE-WELL, Canada's Technology and Agine research network, the founder of Springer Nature's Synthesis Lectures on Technology and Health, and the founder of computers-society.org. He also started five software companies between 1976 and 2015. He is currently an ACM Distinguished Speaker.

He is the author of Digital Dreams Have Become Nightmares: What We Must Do (ACM, 2024), author of Ethical Tech Startup Guide (Springer Nature, 2023),[ co-author of The COVID-19 Solutions Guide (2020), and author of Computers and Society: Modern Perspectives (Oxford University Press, 2019). His other books are Readings in Human Computer Interaction: Toward the Year 2000 (Morgan Kaufmann, 1995),Readings in Groupware and Computer Supported Cooperative Work: Software to Facilitate Human-Human Collaboration (Elsevier, 1993), Human Factors and Typography for More Readable Programs (Addison-Wesley, 1990) and Readings in Human Computer Interaction: A Multidisciplinary Approach (Elsevier, 1987).


Jonathan Grudin (born December 31, 1949) was a researcher at Microsoft from 1998 to 2022 and is affiliate professor at the University of Washington Information School working in the fields of human-computer interaction and computer-supported cooperative work. Grudin is a pioneer of the field of computer-supported cooperative work and one of its most prolific contributors. His collaboration distance to other researchers of human-computer interactions has been described by the "Grudin number". Grudin is also well known for the "Grudin Paradox" or "Grudin Problem", which states basically with respect to the design of collaborative software for organizational settings, "What may be in the managers' best interests may not be in the interests of individual contributors, and therefore not used." He was awarded the inaugural CSCW Lasting Impact Award in 2014 on the basis of this work. He has also written about the publication culture and history of human-computer interactions.

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