CSE 142

Winter 2001 

John Zahorjan
Hal Perkins

"To answer that question, I'll draw on a time-worn technique of your most annoying professors. I'll answer this question with another question."
 Al Gore, University of Pennsylvania, February 14, 1996

Friday's class will be a discussion of something usually referred to as ethics.  The list below has a few short, essential readings as preparation, plus links to optional, longer (sometimes much, much longer) source information.

  1. Why Do This?  Justification Based on External Influences

    People love to tell other people what to do: Ethics codes of computing related professional societies.

  2. Why Do This? Part II

    Technology has a profound influence on society.  As members of society you're subject to the good and bad that technology brings.  As likely contributors to future technologies, you're complicit in those effects.

    Reading 1:  A Treatise on the Effects of Technology on Society

    Excerpts for a long treatise on technology and society.
    (A complete version of the treatise is here.)
    (The author of the treatise has been purposefully omitted, but will be revealed at the lecture.  If you recognize the piece, or even just have a good guess who the author might be, please try to refrain from spreading that information around until the appropriate time in the lecture.  (It'll be obvious when that time comes.))

    Reading 2:  "Why the future doesn't need us"

    Abbreviation:
    Excerpts from the Joy article and comments made by the community about it.

    Full Length:
    "Why the future doesn't need us," by Bill Joy (cofounder and Chief Scientist of Sun Microsystems).
    Reactions to the Bill Joy article (as Letters to the Editor).

    Related Reading :  A Chronological Sequence of Selected Headlines (about human cloning)

    Even Further Afield Related Readings:

     

  3. A Particular Issue:  Privacy

    Here are just a couple of items I came across while thinking about (and looking for) what to include for this lecture.  They're on the issue of privacy.  I don't claim that they form a cohesive whole.

    Doubleclick.com's statement about why you shouldn't want to be anonymous.  (See at least the paragraph "Why shouldn't I opt-out of this cookie?")

    An editorial by James Fallows on privacy and porn from 1995.
    This month's issue of The Atlantic has a cover story on privacy, oriented not towards the threat it poses but rather the business opportunity.