IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2020 - 13

and serve the common good -
because steer us they will, regardless. We should be asking how mass
media and the algorithmic power of
artificial intelligence can be used
in an ethical and democratic manner to help foster the vitally needed
changes in institutions, values, and
worldviews to achieve the sustainable development goals without
transgressing planetary boundaries.
Girard calls for international data
standards, as the volume of data
flows exponentially increases and the
cost of data collection and storage
decreases. He draws our attention to
the issues that can arise from a lack
of data governance, especially given
the absence of a UN-mandated international framework for digital cooperation. He suggests that, while the
adoption of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals offers
many opportunities for digital cooperation, standards for interoperability
are needed to facilitate the data pooling and sharing required to successfully address these goals. To this effect,
he proposes a concrete framework for
a Data Standards Task Force, which
would create the architecture for a
"single data zone" governed by an
"International Data Standards Board".
We are thankful to all of the contributors to this special issue, both
article authors and to those who
contributed ideas and perspectives
through online dialogues and inperson workshops over the last year.
The articles in this issue highlight
the magnitude of the opportunities
and risks of leveraging the digital
age to drive the transformative systems changes needed to build a
climate safe and equitable world.
They outline critical normative and
ethical questions, point to technical
constraints to progress, explore the
potential for transformative changes,
and illustrate practical approaches
for moving forward. The COVID-19
crisis demonstrates how humanJUNE 2020

ity today is interconnected through
and increasingly dependent on
both the natural and digital worlds.
With these interconnections comes
unimaginable powers that need to
be explored, stark inequities that
need to be addressed, and profound
ethical issues that need to be considered. We hope these papers help
researchers, innovators, and policy
makers navigate the path ahead.

Acknowledgment
The authors would like to thank
CIFAR, U.K. Research and Innovation (UKRI), and the Centre National
de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
for their support of the CIFAR AI and
Society workshop that led to this
special issue. We also thank Jeremy
Pitt for the invitation to produce this
issue and thank him and the Managing Editor, Terri Bookman, for
their patience in pulling this issue
together during a difficult time for the
world. We would also like to thank
Andrea Ventimiglia for her support
in editing. Finally, we thank Nilufar
Sabet-Kassouf for her coordination,
research, and editing support.

Guest Editor Information
Amy Luers is with Future Earth and
with the Center for Sustainability in
the Digital Age, Montreal, Quebec,
Canada.
Lyse Langlois is with the Interna-
tional Observatory on the Societal
Impacts of Artificial Intelligence and
Digital Technologies (OBVIA), Univer-
sité de Laval, Quebec, Canada.
Mathilde Mougeot is with the École
Nationale Supérieure d'Informatique
pour l'Industrie et l'Entreprise (ENSIIE), and with the Center Nation-al de
la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS),
Paris, France.
Sana Kharaghani is with the U.K.
Office for AI.
Alexandra Luccioni is with Mila,
and with the Université de Montréal,
Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
∕

IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

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IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2020