Honors Section (CSE 390HA)
Tuesdays, 5:00-6:20pm, in CSE 403
Instructor: Zorah Fung (zorahf@cs.washington.edu)
This quarter, we are offering an honors section for students who are interested in exploring additional topics related to technology and computer science. This is a one-unit, CR/NC course that will be offered in a seminar setting. Sessions will consist of group discussions about various topics and ideas along with some activities. There will be a small amount of homework prior to each session, primarily readings or videos that will be discussed in class. Students must attend eight (8) of the ten (10) scheduled sessions and participate in all discussions and activities to receive credit.
Each week, we will discuss various topics related to computer science. Our sessions will mostly relate to the societal and cultural impacts of technology and CS, and some exploration of some technical concepts. This course is NOT an opportunity to learn more programming or add more "rigor" to 142, nor is any background or familiarity with computer science required. This is an opportunity to think about computer science and other related topics in a broader context.
In this course, we will be reading chapters from 9 Algorithms The Changed The Future by John MacCormick
Week 10 (12/4): Industry Panel; What's Next?
For the last class, we had a panel of past UW students who are now working in various technical jobs in the industry. Thank you so much for a great quarter!
Week 9 (11/27): AmazonGo and Tech Culture in Seattle and the Bay Area
In this week's class we discussed the AmazonGo store and what we think about it, as well as discusses tech culture and the environment in Seattle and the Bay Area.
Homework for next section:
- None! We'll be doing a career panel with various former UW CSE students. Come prepared with questions!
Week 8 (11/20): Technology's impact on social beahvior
In this week's class we answered a series of PollEverywhere questions ranging from the amount of time we spend on our phones, whether we feel dependent on them, how texting has impacted our language and how we feel about interacting with strangers.
Homework for next section:
- Read I spent 53 minutes in Amazon Go and saw the future of retail
- Read Here's the one key advantage Seattle's tech ecosystem has over Silicon Valley
- Read How Big Tech Swallowed Seattle
- Optional: Check out GeekWire, Seattle based tech news site. They have tons of articles about the tech scene in Seattle, including tech culture, impacts on the housing market, tech companies and stories on local tech workers.
Week 7 (11/13): Q&A with Brett!
This week, Brett covered the class, got to know some of you and sharedsome of the things he's excited about.
Homework for next section:
- Download an app that tells you how much time you spend on your phone. You likely already have this built in on your phone if your phone's software is up to date. (Screentime for iOS or Digital Wellbeing for Android.) If not, you can try an app like Realizd or Moment (iPhone only). Try not to use your phone any differently than normal (this is for you, not me)
- Read #Blessed: Is Everyone Happier Than You On Social Media?
- Read Your Smartphone Is Changing the Human Race in Surprising Ways
- Read When Your Punctuation Says It All (!)
Week 6 (11/6): Technology and Politics
In this class we talked about the voting process -- what our personal experiences were and whether we think casting votes should be done via paper or technology. We also discussed whether it's okay for tech compancies to express their political beliefs using their platform.
Mentioned in class
- West Virginia to introduce mobile phone voting for midterm elections
- Are Voting Selfies Legal? Not Always
Homework for next section:
- None! Brett will be covering this class, and you'll generally just get to know him and he'll share things he's excited about. Think about some questions you may want to ask him.
Week 5 (10/30): Artificial Intelligence
In this class we did an exercise where we tried to identify poem as either human-authored or written by a machine. We also discussed the value of human-generated art vs machine-generated art, what is intelligence and whether or not that question is important.
Mentioned in class
Homework for next section:
- Fill out this brief midquarter feedback survey
- Read chapter 7 (Data Compression) from 9 Algorithms That Changed The Future
- Read We Can't Just Play Defense on Voting Access. It's Time to Make Voting Easier.
- Read The Voting Technology We Really Need? Paper
- Optional: Read Knowledge Gap Hinders Ability of Congress to Regulate Silicon Valley
Week 4 (10/23): Machine Learning
Review on Reading: What are the Nearest Neighbors algorithm, Decision Trees and Neural Networks? Biases in Machine Learning Outputs
Homework for next section:
Week 3 (10/16): Public Key Cryptography; Privacy; Security
Review on Reading: How does public key cryptopgraphy work? Is it a company's responsibility to release or protect its data about people?
Homework for next section:
- Read chapter 6 (Pattern Recognition) from 9 Algorithms That Changed the Future
- Read A Q & A with Pedro Domingos: Author of 'The Master Algorithm'
- Read Cognitive Bias in Machine Learning
- Either: 1. Pick your favorite site or app and try to figure out if/how it uses Machine Learning or 2. think of an application for Machine Learning that you think would be cool or beneficial society that you haven't yet heard of (it can be anything you want.) Be prepared to share briefly with the class.
- Completely Optional: Interesting (and hilarious) talk on the rise of machine learning and impact on security. https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity18/presentation/mickens. I admit it's long, but I enjoyed the whole thing and it's a good hybrid between this week's topic on security and next week's discussion on ML.
Week 2 (10/9): Search Indexing, PageRank and Google's Impact on Our Beliefs and Behaviors
Review on Reading: How does Search Indexing and Page Rank work? Google's filter bubble and its responsibilities to address it.
Interesting Links and related reading to what was mentioned in class:
- A beginner's guide to Tor: How to navigate through the underground Internet
- If your curious what demographic google thinks you are and to set your ad personalization preferences, you can go to your ad settings
- Two results from searching "Can google be truly unbiased?" Google says its search can't be biased -- that's not how search works (the first hit) and Of Course Google Is Biased
Homework for next section:
- Read chapter 4 (Public Key Cryptography) from 9 Algorithms That Changed the Future
- Read Useful or creepy? Machines suggest Gmail replies
- Read Police Use Fitbit Data to Charge 90-Year-Old Man in Stepdaughters Killing
Optional related articles: - Set up Two-Factor Authentication for a website or app that you use (e.g. email, Facebook, Instagram, Amazon etc.) and use it to log in at least a few times before coming to class. If you're curious what Two-Factor Authentication is, or why it's useful, read this article
Week 1 (10/2): Welcome!
Course Overview; Get To Know; What is a computer? What is computer science?
Homework for next section:
- Fill out this catalyst survey with your experiences, interests, and goals for the course
- Read chapters 2 (Search Engine Indexing) and 3 (PageRank) from 9 Algorithms That Changed the Future
- Read Google is finally admitting it has a filter-bubble problem
- Read The Trouble With the Echo Chamber Online