What better way to spend a Sunday than attending a conference on "Technology in Wartime"? Seriously, this conference, held at Stanford on January 26, promises to be a great forum for spotting "the next big thing." It's no news that the military is a big innovation driver (remember the Internet?), and that defense and enforcement technology, in particular, fund and adopt emerging technologies which may years later shape the mainstream consumer experience.
Aside from that, the conference seeks to examine the ethical implications of high-tech warfare (the official announcement says, "Ultimately we want to engage a pressing question of our time: What should socially-responsible computer professionals do in a time of high tech warfare?"). This should be an interesting discussion given the roster of participants, which ranges from computer scientists, policy makers, and military professionals, to human rights workers, civil liberties legal activists, and academics. Speakers will include Bruce Schneier (Counterpane Security), Barbara Simons (ACM), Herb Lin (National Academy of Sciences), Cindy Cohn (Electronic Frontier Foundation), Patrick Ball (Benetech), Terry Winograd (Stanford University), Neil Rowe (Naval Defense Academy), Nick Mathewson (the Tor project), Ronald Arkin (Georgia Tech's Mobile Robots Lab), and Noah Shachtman (Wired magazine's war correspondent).
Registration is open.
See you there!
Comments