[NYCUUVAGC] NAE President John Peterson address on unintended consequences

Discussion in class considered this quote as well as one related to what does "global sustainability" mean when most of the globe doesn't participate in building and governing technoscience.

These and other examples demonstrate that engineers should seriously consider potential impacts of a design or invention on individuals, society, and nature. The connection between engineering and society should be tighter than it is. Could a new technology cause harm to segments of the population and widen the gap between the haves and have-nots? Is there racial or ethnic bias in the algorithms we are developing for artificial intelligence and automated systems? Could a new product damage the environment, or negatively affect the way humans interact? Some unintended consequences are foreseeable. In retrospect, it should have taken little imagination to realize that curved, reflective surfaces concentrate light and heat. Yet the famed architect Rafael Viñoly designed two buildings that created what some called “death rays” across public spaces under certain conditions, resulting in costly remediations