Review Lecture: APRIL 2, 2003

Questioning our Assumptions about X*

*where X is some aspect of our computer use**

(**where we question the ethical***issues arising from this use...)

***"a set of principles of right behavior"; considering how we "should" act****....

****What does Ethics in computing involve?

everything....go to sine map http://courses.ncsu.edu:8020/classes-a/computer_ethics/

1. How are our networked environments affecting our identities (who we are)?

1.1 Assumptions about the influence of video games

How does shifting to one kind of entertainment (as opposed to say going to the movies ) affect us?

Explain different interpretations of the effects of violent games ("first person shooter" type) on young males?

1.2 assumptions about our shifting sense of self: Who we are becoming in a networked world?

Rifkin says 21st century men and woman are "breed apart from the bourgeois parents..." (p. 95)

does the difference he draws between "modernism" and "postmodernism" ring true?

while Rifkin may be positive about this development, what are the down sides? (how could this relate to the conflicts about need to have ethical real live vs. freedom to have unethical online life?)

2. Assumptions about computer and work:

> vocabulary differs depending on whose vantage point

dystopic vocabulary (from vantage point of "mass laborers") :

global economy leads to

> domination: displacement, redistribution, deskilling, workplace monitoring

> Hegemony - "power exercised by controlling the VALUES that people use to define themselves and their place in everyday life..." (Mosco, 1989, p. 54)

utopic vocabulary (from vantage point of "elite/boutique" workers + owners / shareholders):

Global economy leads to

> increased productivity (due to labor-saving technology and decreasing cost of technology)

> employment of "elites / boutique workers": work decentralized, collaborative, professional, skilled -- users expected to use intelligence to access shared information

3. Assumptions about what's acceptable behavior when using computers

> how do we know to be ethical in Real Life?

> what makes knowing what's right and wrong more difficult when working with computers?

for instance, how come all of us would agree that someone breaking into our house is a thief, why may some of us see a hacker (breaking into a database with information on us) as a criminal and others as a hero?

>what justifications do hackers come up with for their actions

> what is the range of their actions

>and if we think that their hacking is unethical, what measures do we take to prevent it? (different solutions offered....)

>why might we be less unethical online? how might we "learn" to be more ethical online?

3.1 Access issue

>what are we getting access to?

> who is controlling access routes and content? (what effect is deregulation having?)

> who exactly is getting the access? (issue of "digital divide")

3.2 Is Microsoft's hegemony "right"?

assumptions about microsoft's power depend on whether your focus is on us as consumers or as citizens (or whether you look at it from vantage point of Microsoft's competitors):

> series of cartoons

3.3 when it comes to e-commerce what other ethical issues arise?

>areas of fraud (various kinds -- particularly I pump and dump schemes, identity fraud), vaporware, cybersquatting, deceptive advertising, gambling, spamming term papers, etc...

3.4 how can we assume that computer systems are safe? (think of the "titanic effect")

> lots of examples of failures

> why are computer systems unreliable?

> issues of complexity

> lack of liability (ethical considerations)

> why do we accept this unreliability?

> what kinds of risks are there?

> physical, syntactic and semantic

see http://www.csl.sri.com/users/Neumann/insiderisks.html#137

3.5 Other areas of ethical concern: licensure and whistlblowers (example of microsoft software)

4. Assumptions about AI

How will we know if a computer is intelligent?

> get it to do something an "intelligent" person does? i.e. tower of hanoi puzzle, train puzzle, play chess, etc (the early approach to AI -- problem - solving with limited problem and set rules)

> get it to act like an "expert" in one small task in one small domain

> get it to pass the turing test? (know natural language)

> look at various attributes of "intelligence" that some or all humans exhibit and compare...have an expanded expectation of "coping with the world"

> be prepared to look at various programs that have been developed and see to what extent we would call them "intelligent" -- e.g. Mycin, Deep Blue, CYC

> another approach is to look at the sub-categories o AI and see how can we get computers to represent "information / knowledge"? (will they be able to do this to the same extent as humans?)

decisions / game trees (example of chess -- use of algorithms + heuristics)

rule - based - IF ....THEN

(examples of expert systems ; esp. CYC and the way it represents body - less / male knowledge)

natural language processing: need to figure out syntactic, semantic and pragmatic meanings (example : "time flies like an arrow")

> what about ROBOTS?

>be aware of different approaches to developing artificial life: model robots on insects or humans?

> be aware of how robots COULD evolve (Maravec's vision)

> be aware of different positions on what SHOULD (or SHOULDN'T) be developed...the various positive and negative visions of what will happen to us once his "other species" evolves over next 50 years....Moravec, Asimov, Kurtzweil, Joy.