Computer Ethics

Required:

• Read chapter one from "Artificial Unintelligence: How Computers Misunderstand the World" by Meredith Broussard, 2018

  In her introductory chapter, computer scientist and data journalist Broussard lays out both her love of and skepticism for computing technology. You might find a bit of yourself in her.

• Read "Be Careful What You Code For" by danah boyd, 2016 (2 pages)

  danah boyd, a researcher at Micosoft and at Data and Society, highlights just how few guardrails there are for developers, from the consequences of algorithmic bias to the implications of crazy metaphors. She offers a call to action, solutions, and ample evidence for considering the implications of code. We highly recommend chasing down some of the links provided.

• Read introduction through page 16 from "Race after technology: Abolitionist tools for the new jim code" by Ruha Benjamin, 2019

  Benjamin, in a recent book, offers a “race conscious orientation to emerging technology not only as a mode of critique but as a prerequisite for designing technology differently.” Affiliated with Princeton’s Center on Information Technology and Policy, she brings a fresh perspective to many of the foundations of computing.

Optional:

• Read "How to read a book" by Paul N. Edwards, 2000 (8 pages)

  Here, an adroit scholar walks through some tips and tricks for reading more effectively. He hits the major points and includes some bonus tips, like where to best organize your reading notes. This is an invaluable resource as our course’s weekly reading load begins to increase. Skim now, but revisit throughout the course.

• Read "Discussion Leading Guidelines"

  This resource from the Stanford Teaching Commons offers an in-depth analysis of how to have better discussions. Their recommendations, from setting an agenda, asking questions, and increasing discussant engagement are all a part of how to create a better climate for discourse. For leading discussions in this class and beyond, it’s worth a read.

Before Class:

• Daily assignment, due at 8pm the night before class:
  • What do you want to get out of our class discussions?
  • Do you feel able to change outcomes of how tech affects society?
• Preview the course project, part one

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Required:

• Read "Chapter 1: Conceptualising Data" by Rob Kitchin, 2014 (25 pages)

  The introduction to the book describes ways of thinking about what data is (ontologies) and goes on to discuss ethical and political considerations of data. It postulates the framework of “data assemblages” and how thoughts about them influence their own conceptions.

• Read "On Being a Data Skeptic" by Cathy O'Neil, 2014 (26 pages)

  This rapid-fire, well-articulated article is about the advantages and perils of data science, with ample advice and examples to advocate for why those who use data ought to be this special kind of “skeptical”.

Before Class:

• Daily assignment, due at 8pm the night before class:

  Use the following questions as a resource to guide your reading. Then, respond to at least three of them.

  • What is the difference between data, information, and knowledge? How are they related?
  • How can wider or economic concerns “frame” data? That is, in what sense do data act and how? (Answers might include: as an economic resource, as a form of power or knowledge, etc.) Explain why.
  • How have politics or economics influenced how some data have been defined or created?
  • What are reasons or incentives for controlling:
    • The creation of data
    • The access to data
    • The standards of data, such as metrics or units
    • The means of data collection, such as sensors or know-how
  • From “On being a data skeptic” explain “measuring the distortion.”
  • What is the relationship between models and proxies? Why are proxies used? Give an example.
  • Why might O’Neil have singled out “nerds” and “business people” separately? What do the differences in her comments indicate about how those groups view problems differently? Do you agree?
  • Submit a clarifying question which you’d like to discuss in class.

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Required:

• Read introduction (pg. 1 - 16; 31 - 32; 17 pages total) from "Sorting things out: classification and its consequences" by Geoffrey C. Bowker et al., 1999 (377 pages)

  Sorting Things Out is a classic text on classification and standardization. The introduction writes about the importance of considering the ubiquity of classification and the processes that generate them, standardize them, and enforcement. It also looks at how classification has caused harm and how the processes which create standards can at times yield an inferior solution. The authors take an expansive view of classification, so be prepared to think about the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) or VHS vs. Betamax.

• Read "Do algorithms reveal sexual orientation or just expose our stereotypes?" by Blaise Aguera y Arcas et al., 2018 (5 pages)

  This essay sets out to debunk a scientific study which claimed to have built a “sexual orientation detector” using machine learning. “Do algorithms reveal sexual orientation or just expose our stereotypes?” presents a thorough analysis of the offending paper and shows that one move to debunk “junk science” is validate the study’s results against some other baseline. In this case, the authors use Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. As you’re reading this, think about what one can learn from a face?

Optional:

• Read chapter one (pg. 46 - 50 from "Infrastructure" on) from "Sorting things out: classification and its consequences" by Geoffrey C. Bowker et al., 1999 (377 pages)

• Read "Deep neural networks are more accurate than humans at detecting sexual orientation from facial images." by Yilun Wang et al., 2017

  This is the article critiqued by “Do algorithms…”

Before Class:

• Daily assignment, due at 8pm the night before class:
  • “Do algorithms…” claims to focus on the underlying “science.” Why do you think the authors did so? Why was this distinction important?
  • What strategies did “Do algorithms…” use to make its argument?
  • “Do algorithms…” concludes that the paper it examines was misguided. Perhaps using what you learned from “Sorting Things Out,” think of another method based on misguided assumptions. What is it?

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Required:

• Read "Patriarchy, technology, and conceptions of skill" by Judy Wajcman, 1991 (16 pages)

  When considering the future of work, one question that’s often raised is how technology negatively impacts the amount of “skill” required to complete a task, aka “deskilling”. In “Patriarchy, Technology, and Conceptions of Skill”, Judy Wajcman questions the underlying assumption that skill is entirely technically derived. Instead, she considers how men’s historical control over technology in the workplace has extensively influenced the ideological and material conceptions of skill, thus concluding in part that “definitions of skill, then, can have more to do with ideological and social constructions than with technical competencies which are possessed by men and not by women”.

• Read "Gender Equality Paradox Monkey Business: Or, How to Tell Spurious Causal Stories about Nation-Level Achievement by Women in STEM" , 2020 (5 pages)

  A widely known study argued that countries with more gender equity in society have fewer women studying STEM, but this article accompanies a peer-reviewed publication casting doubt on the study’s analysis – a scholarly back-and-forth also playing out in the blogosphere.

Optional:

• Read "Technically Female: Women, Machines, and Hyperemployment" by Helen Hester, 2016 (10 pages)

  This essay surveys a history of “electronic secretaries” to frame relevant questions of today’s tech, such as: Why are AI assistants so often feminized? We question what it means for technology to “do gender” and in service of which “imagined technology user”? Yet we can turn that question around and ask who “does technology”? and how does labor gets redistributed with the introduction of new software and AI assistants? Ultimately, Hester asks us to confront questions concerning lived experiences of gender and how its programmed, productive vs. reproductive labor, and the (dis)advantages of automation.

• Read "Testosterone rex: unmaking the myths of our gendered minds" by Cordelia Fine, 2017

  If you were looking to throw the book at someone who continues to insist that sex differences are sufficient to explain gender differences, this would be that book. Take her word for it: “Every influence is modest, made up of countless small instances of its kind. That’s why everything—a doll packaged in pink, a sexist joke, a male-only expert panel—can seem trivial, of intangible effect. But that’s exactly why calling out even seemingly minor points of sexism matters. It all adds up, and if no one sweats the small stuff, the big stuff will never change.” And it’s funny, too: “If we stop believing that boys and men are emotional cripples and fly-by-night Casanovas who just want sex, and start believing that they’re full, complete human beings who have emotional and relational needs, imagine what might happen.”

Before Class:

• Daily assignment, due at 8pm the night before class:

  On “Patriarchy, technology, and conceptions of skill.”

  • What is “skill”?
  • Is “autonomy” a form of de-skilling?
  • Why do so many engineers want to build robotic maids?

  On “Gender Equality Paradox Monkey Business.”

  • What do the authors mean by a spurious causal story?
  • What’s another spurious causal story that you’ve heard about?
  • How do we combat such stories? Does paying attention to detail help?

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Required:

• Read page 151 until chapter end from "Rise of the machines: A cybernetic history" by Thomas Rid, 2016 (8 pages)

  Rid, a scholar of conflict and information technology, aptly summarizes the act of reimagining as it took place around the idea of the “cyborg,” particularly as evoked by Donna Haraway (see optional readings). This kind of reimagining is important to consider in the historical development of technology. Note how this work references I.J. Good and other thinkers in the history of AI and ethical machines.

• Read "Dynamicland and the Whimsical Digital Object" by Olivia Kan-Sperling, 2019 (3 pages)

  A relatively short piece that comments on a programming lab–dynamicland–which, while situated near Silicon Valley, eschews the ethos of human transcendence. The article is sweet and attentive to the project, without withholding criticism, but concludes that the conceptual indulgences it is most weary of are also what make it amazing and notable.

• Read "The Internet Is Acid, and America Is Having a Bad Trip" by Douglas Rushkoff, 2018 (1 page)

  Douglas Rushkoff, a noted media theorist, draws connection between software and hallucination. Keenly attuned to the wild abstractions and metaphor used in computation: “Computers and networks were part of a much larger cultural phenomenon: a realization that reality is a collaboration…It seemed as if the world was about to become a whole lot more like a lucid dream, where the future was less a place we arrived at than a thing we created together.” Where are we today? Where do we go from here?

Optional:

• Read sections 1 and 5 (10 pages total) from "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late 20th Century" by Donna Haraway, 2006 (42 pages)

  Readers not familiar with critical theory will likely struggle with this reading, particularly the fluid language and arcane references. Haraway uses the extended metaphor of cyborg as a vehicle to explore the relationship between gender and identity, nature and technology—pushing back on traditional conceptions of radial feminism and affinity vs. identity politics, and fiercely critiquing the language of capitalism. Although much tech has changed since 1991 when it was written, the essay stays as influential as ever.

• Read "Mother of Invention" by Nnedi Okorafor, 2018 (11 pages)

  This story is giving voice to themes concerning motherhood and giving birth in a way that’s not often reflected in futurist narratives. Also talks about the notion of symbiosis between Anwuli and Obi 3 (the house), and how tech can be an extension of self. It shows a vision where the computer has agency to exhibit an ethic of “care”.

Before Class:

• Daily assignment, due at 8pm the night before class:

  Choose one of the media documents linked below. In a couple of sentences, summarize what it does and how it connects to the readings.

  • Zach Lieberman became known for co-creating openFrameworks, an open source c++ toolkit for creative coding. Have a look at some of his delightful daily sketches which he continues to update on his Instagram.
  • Morehshin Allahyari’s lecture titled On Digital Colonialism and Re-Figuring: here she talks about the use of digital technologies and activism, digital colonialism, and re-figuring as it relates to the process of making her project called Material Speculation; also check out She Who Sees the Unknown.
  • “The Glass Room” is an interactive installation produced by Firefox and curated by Tactical Tech that acts as “a place to explore how technology and data are shaping our perception, experiences, and understanding of the world.”
  • “Onyx Ashanti is designing a process for reprogramming himself utilizing his own musical comprehension and sound design, he calls it Sonocybernetics.” Learn more about Onyx’s work here and view a video of sono-cybernetics performed: “of gesture and laser cymatics.”
  • Adam Harvey is an American artist and researcher currently based in Berlin. His work engages with issues surrounding AI, surveillance, and computer vision.
  • “The Computer for the 21st Century” is an article about Xerox Parc’s prototypes into ubiquitous computing. It can be viewed as a harbinger for the current IoT revolution.

  Choose one of the following technological futures (such as Obi 3 in “Mother of Invention”). What do you see as the purpose of re-imagining it?

  • Computer use (such as in “Dynamicland” or the procedurally generated sketches of Zach Lieberman),
  • Our belief in the abstraction of software (such as in “Acid Trip”),
  • The exclusivity of classifications and labels (such as in “The Cyborg Manifesto”),
  • The role of technology in nature (such as in “The Cyborg Manifesto”),
  • Or any other media which we’ve covered.
• Finish the course project, part one by tonight.

Required:

• Read "It's the (Democracy-Poisoning) Golden Age of Free Speech" by Zeynep Tufekci, 2018 (4 pages)

  Zeynep Tufekci considers how power to censor functions on our oversaturated social networks, and the role of misinformation and the attention economy in this. The article provides striking clarity to issues we collectively face on this platform.

• Read "The Problem of Free Speech in an Age of Disinformation" by Emily Bazelon, 2020 (14 pages)

  Read this article for an up-to-date account of free speech and its history in the United States. Notice the similarities between analog and social media. It questions how different governmental approaches to speech may be making us more or less free.

• Read chapter four (pg. 74 - 110; 36 pages total) from "Custodians of the internet: platforms, content moderation, and the hidden decisions that shape social media" by Tarleton Gillespie, 2018 (288 pages)

  Read the whole chapter, but, if you’re short on time, focus on the “automatic detection” section (pg. 97 to 110). Tarleton Gillespie, a social media scholar, establishes the groundwork for understanding social media platforms. In chapter 4, “Three Imperfect Solutions to the Problem of Scale”, Gillespie considers several models for content moderation, one of which is algorithmic “automatic detection” techniques.

Optional:

• Read "The Risk of Racial Bias in Hate Speech Detection" by Maarten Sap et al., 2019 (9 pages)

Before Class:

• Daily assignment, due at 8pm the night before class:

  In 150 - 300 words: Identify a system that attempts to alleviate some of the concerns raised about platforms. What does it do? What ideologies and values inform it? What potential abuses might be overlooked by this design?

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Required:

• Read "Critical Race Theory for HCI" by Ihudiya Finda Ogbonnaya-Ogburu et al., 2020 (1–16 page)

  This article calls human-computer interaction research, and computing research more generally, to explicitly attend to race, namely through critical race theory. Through this theory, analysis of the field, and storytelling, the authors show that despite (some) efforts in computing, racism persists and bares redressal. Pay particular attention to the stories.

• Read particularly minutes 15 through 30 from "Episode 12: Confronting Our Reality: Racial Representation and Systemic Transformation with Dr. Timnit Gebru" by Dylan Doyle-Burke et al.

  Gebru, who received her Ph.D. from Stanford and now works on computer vision at Google, discusses the necessity of focusing on your values (hers being racial justice) in conjunction with your work.

Optional:

• Read introduction (16 pages) from "Stuck in the shallow end: education, race, and computing" by Jane Margolis, 2008 (201 pages)

  This introductory chapter details an early 2000s study which attempted to figure out why so few black and latinx students were enrolling in computer science courses. It, “shows how segregation and inequality along racial lines operate on a daily basis in our schools, despite our best intentions” (16).

Before Class:

• Daily assignment, due at 8pm the night before class:

  Answer at least two of the following.

  • What is interest convergence?
  • Why do you think the authors of “Critical Race Theory for HCI” include information about their background? What does this achieve?
  • Why do the authors of “Critical Race Theory for HCI” contend that theory is an important focus?
  • Do you have any stories along the lines of those shared? Would you be interested with sharing any with the group?
  • What does “true recognition of the pervasiveness of racism” (9) require?

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Required:

• Read "The Dark Side of Techno-Utopianism" by Andrew Marantz, 2019 (6 pages)

  A summary of technologists’ relationships with media and how looking at books and the printing press can help us understand how contemporary technologists idealize their own creations.

• Read "Communist Commentary on "The Triple Revolution"" by Richard Loring, 1964 (10 pages)

  This essay was published contemporaneously to the “Triple Revolution”, and is largely favorable of the reforms demanded. It also touches on the utility of utopianism in futurism, while considering labor issues in a distinctly Marxist, but still American, manner. In particular, the authors summarize, and take issue with, the Triple Revolution as saying “it is useless to fight the path progress is taking and they should therefore re-direct the aims of their fight to seek a better future in a world in which labor and its role will no longer be a basic factor.” The scan we have is a bit difficult to read, but we have been unable to find another.

Optional:

• Read "The Microsoft Provocateur" by Ken Auletta, 1997 (14 pages)

  This piece shows us the thinking of tech folks at a pivotal time when the nature of the internet was not yet decided. Skim the sections which are just about Mhyrvold’s life—we mean to focus on founders and their utopian visions.

• Read "Origin Stories of Tech Companies if Their Founders Had Been Women" by Ginny Hogan, 2019 (1 page)

Before Class:

• Daily assignment, due at 8pm the night before class:
  • What historical precedents do you find are useful for thinking about tech, technologists, and their power in society?
  • Do you find the analogy to books and publishers in “The Dark Side of Techno-Utopianism” compelling?
  • What are utopias you’ve heard described when talking about emerging technologies? Do you find those utopias compelling? Why or why not?

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Before Class:

• Come to class prepared to share a bit about your project.