Philosophy of Engineering

Call for abstracts released! The 2026 Forum on Philosophy, Engineering and Technology (fPET) will be June 9-11 at the University of Maryland College Park. 500 word abstracts due January 25th! Since 2007, fPET meetings have been a place for engineers and philosophers to meet and deepen understanding of engineering. Link to the CFA in the next tweet

We've announced a series of transformative initiatives to achieve America's National Space Policy, reflecting upcoming opportunities for world-changing science and discovery. Learn more about our plans for the Moon, Mars, and beyond: go.nasa.gov/3PG9mDv

I can't believe it! Super excited to start this project, and very grateful to the ERC for the vote of confidence!

Call for abstracts! philosophyengineering.com/fpet2026

Call for abstracts released! The 2026 Forum on Philosophy, Engineering and Technology (fPET) will be June 9-11 at the University of Maryland College Park. 500 word abstracts due January 25th! Since 2007, fPET meetings have been a place for engineers and philosophers to meet and deepen understanding of engineering. Link to the CFA in the next tweet

Neat paper! Hope you got good feedback from Cowen’s highlight I’ve worked a bit on this in ‘space ethics.’ I think you well highlight disciplinary norms on content, negativity, incentives, but I think your argument could be made deeper by looking at broader cultural disconnects of humanities from tech/engineering developers. In writing below, I did worry about the types of biases you note and tried to make the report be framed from outside a singular disciplinary frame. Ref, especially observation 2 on cultural differences between engineers and humanities scholars: ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/2023… -Zach

“There’s this new AI tool, and it’s awesome” doesn’t make for an acceptable AI ethics paper — but “There’s this new AI tool, and it’s deeply problematic” does. As a consequence, the field of AI ethics suffers from excessive negativity about AI. link.springer.com/article/10.100…

I'm humbled by the people I admire who offered blurbs for my now-preorderable MAINTENANCE book. Kyle Wiens @kwiens. Kevin Kelly @kevin2kelly. Matt Ridley @mattwridley. Bruce Sterling @bruces. 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚕𝚎𝚜 𝙲. 𝙼𝚊𝚗𝚗 @CharlesCMann. George Dyson. And Danny Hillis.press.stripe.com/maintenance-pa…

This week on Construction Physics, an engineering history of the Manhattan Project. construction-physics.com/p/an-engineeri…

Wrote something for University World News about why we should be cautious of embracing private industry and Big Tech with the cutting of public funds, and why all science—like all business—is political. universityworldnews.com/post.php?story…

My book, "The Origins of Efficiency", is now officially available for preorder. construction-physics.com/p/my-book-the-…

Read the new SFRA Review for features on queer ethics of AI and the classification tensions of hard vs soft SF, plus #reviews of fiction and nonfiction in a world of #scifi 🌌🤖 sfrareview.org/vol-55-no-3-su…

I just got the new book by UVA’s Rider Foley, The Myths of Regional Innovation! Thoughtful and uses extensive interview data to explore broader ways we should consider innovation It was fun to think through what books it should sit next to on my bookshelf!

I am pleased to announce that two new papers on inventions made by AI have just been accepted. One will appear in "Prometeica" (in Spanish), and the other (co-authored with Ana Cuevas-Badallo) in Law, Culture and the Humanities. I hope you find them interesting, stay tuned!

The Spring 2025 issue of the SFRA Review is now live! I'm very excited because this issue features our "Alternative Governance" symposium, which I ran and edited. I'm really proud of our work and I hope you enjoy it. sfrareview.org/vol-55-no-2-sp…

We have been here before. Engineering has always been entwined with power—sometimes resisting it, sometimes enabling it. In a time of rising authoritarianism, our latest editorial calls on us to stay vigilant, critical, and hopeful. Hope dies last. tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…

Watch Firefly land on the Moon! After identifying surface hazards and selecting a safe landing site, #BlueGhost landed directly over the target in Mare Crisium. A historic moment on March 2 we'll never forget. We have Moon dust on our boots! #BGM1

Dick Nelson was a prolific scholar of evolutionary economics who we had the privilege of calling a friend here at @IIPP_UCL. In honour of his passing, we have republished a working paper he wrote for us in 2017 on rethinking technology policy through an “innovation systems” framework rather than the traditional “market failure” framework. He will be sorely missed here at IIPP and around the globe, but the impact of his work will be felt for years to come. Read the paper here ➡️ ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/publi…

Really useful paper in @nberpubs this morning from Gullo, Page, Weiner & @heidilwilliams_, surveying the literature on returns to R&D and suggesting ways federal agencies might better incorporate this evidence into their own analyses and projections.

Call for Applications--Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) History & Archiving Fellowship Program. For projects in whole or part advancing ACM history. Applications due 28 Feb. 2025. Info @ link @SIGCIS @SocHistTech @4sWeb #historyofcomputing #sts history.acm.org/wp-content/upl…

New essay by me – I argue that the best way to understand artificial intelligence is via the Tinkerbell Effect. This technology's existence requires us to keep channeling our psychic energy into the dreams of mega-corporations, tech billionaires, and venture capitalists.