Social Implications of Computer Technology

CS 195, Fall 2023

Schedule of Topics #

Date Lecture Topic Slides Readings
08/23 01 Free Speech link jump
08/30 02 Social Connection and Time Well-Spent link jump
09/06 03 Data Privacy link jump
09/13 04 Software Risks and Professional Ethics link jump
09/20 05 Technosolutionism link jump
09/27 06 Government Censorship and Surveillance link jump
10/04 07 The AI Debate link jump
10/11 08 [Cancelled] Google AI Ethics link jump
10/18 09 [Pam Samuelson] Generative AI, Part II link jump
10/25 10 Silicon Valley and the U.S. link jump
11/01 11 [Carolyn Chen, Tony Wang] Tech and Labor link jump
11/08 12 [Kelly Billings] CS Education link jump
11/15 13 Memes, Misinformation, and Media Literacy link jump
11/22 – Break: No Class! link jump
11/29 15 Tech and Labor Part II / Closing link jump

Assignments #

See the Syllabus for assignment grading details. All deadlines are 11:59pm Pacific.

Podcast Assignment Due Peer Reviews Due Assignment
Specification
1 Fri 10/13 Fri 10/20 link
2 Mon 11/20 Mon 11/27 link

Readings and Weekly Surveys #

See the Syllabus for grading details on readings and weekly surveys. “Required” readings should be done before class for the discussion to make sense. “Recommended” readings will be used as sources in lecture, but we won’t assume you’ve read them.

11/29 Lecture 15: Tech and Labor Part II / Closing #

Slides: link

Required Survey: https://tinyurl.com/cs195-fa23-week15

Required, choose one of:

  1. Logic Magazine. “The Making of the Tech Worker Movement.”, 2020.
  2. TechCrunch. “East Of Palo Alto’s Eden: Race And The Formation Of Silicon Valley”, 2015.

11/15 Lecture 13: Memes, Misinformation, and Media Literacy #

Slides: link

Required:

  1. Phillips and Milner, You Are Here: Chapter 2, The Root of All Memes, 2021.
  2. Tanksley, “When Black Death Goes Viral: How Algorithms of Oppression (Re)Produce Racism and Racial Trauma”, 2023.

Optional:

11/08 Lecture 12: [Kelly Billings] CS Education #

Slides: link

Guest speaker: Kelly Billings.

Optional Survey: https://tinyurl.com/CS195118

Required

  1. Sepehr Vakil, Jennifer Higgs. “It’s about power”, pg. 31-33, 2019.

Choose one of the case studies:

  1. Case Study 1
    1. Bradford, et. al. “Adaptive Dialog to Support Student Understanding of Climate Change Mechanism and Who is Most Impacted”, 2023.
  2. Case Study 2
    1. Sal Khan, “Harnessing GPT-4, so that all students benefit. A nonprofit approach for equal access”, 2023.
    2. Open AI, “Customer Stories: Khan Academy”, 2023.

11/01 Lecture 11: [Carolyn Chen, Tony Wang] Tech and Labor #

Guest speakers: Professor Carolyn Chen and Tony Wang.

Required:

10/25 Lecture 10: Silicon Valley and the U.S. #

Slides: link

Required:

  1. NPR, “FTC Chair Lina Khan’s lawsuit isn’t about breaking up Amazon, for now”, 2023.
  2. KQED, “Court Upholds Prop. 22 in Big Win for Gig Firms Like Lyft and Uber”, 2023.
  3. Giblin and Doctorow, Chokepoint Capitalism: Chapter 1, 2022.

Optional:

10/18 Lecture 09: [Pam Samuelson] Generative AI, Part II #

Slides: link

Required

  1. Science, “Generative AI meets copyright”, 2023.
  2. The NYT, “35 Ways Real People Are Using AI Right Now”, 2023.
  3. Guardian. “AI machines aren’t ‘hallucinating’. But their makers are”, 2023.

10/11 Lecture 08: [Cancelled] Google AI Ethics #

Note: Lecture was cancelled, but readings are still required.

Required

  1. Wired, “What Really Happened When Google Ousted Timnit Gebru”, 2021.
  2. Platformer. “The withering email that got an ethical AI researcher fired at Google”, 2020.
  3. Google Walkout For Real Change. “Standing with Dr. Timnit Gebru — #ISupportTimnit #BelieveBlackWomen”, 2020.

Optional

  1. Google. “Our AI Principles”.
  2. Harvard Business Review. “A Lesson from Google: Can AI Bias be Monitored Internally?”, 2022.

Extra Research

  1. Google. “The value of a shared understanding of AI models”.
  2. Gender Shades. “How well do IBM, Microsoft, and Face++ AI services guess the gender of a face?”.
  3. ACM. “On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big? 🦜”.
  4. ProPublica. “How We Analyzed the COMPAS Recidivism Algorithm”.
  5. ACM. “Datasheets for Datasets”.

10/04 Lecture 07: The AI Debate #

Slides: link

Required

  1. VentureBeat. “Open letter calling for AI ‘pause’ shines light on fierce debate around risks vs. hype”, 2023.
  2. VentureBeat. “Titans of AI Andrew Ng and Yann LeCun oppose call for pause on powerful AI systems”, 2023.
  3. Berkeley News. “UC Berkeley historian of science ponders AI’s past, present and future”, 2023.
  4. Office of the Governor. “Governor Newsom Signs Executive Order to Prepare California for the Progress of Artificial Intelligence”, 2023.

Optional:

09/27 Lecture 06: Government Censorship and Surveillance #

Slides: link

Required Survey: https://tinyurl.com/cs195-fa23-week06

Required

  1. NPR, Surveillance And Local Police: How Technology Is Evolving Faster Than Regulation, 2021.
  2. Slate, “The Cruel New Era of Data-Driven Deportation”, 2020.
  3. NPR, “A decade on, Edward Snowden remains in Russia, though U.S. laws have changed”, 2023.

Optional

  1. NPR, “Know It All: AI, facial recognition, and police surveillance”, 2023.

09/20 Lecture 05: Technosolutionism #

Slides: link

Fill out this (optional) survey: https://tinyurl.com/cs195-fa23-week05

Required:

Optional:

09/13 Lecture 04: Software Risks and Professional Ethics #

Slides: link

(Optional) Survey on Ethical Decision Making: link

Readings:

Required:

  1. Fabio, “Killed by a Machine: The Therac-25”, 2015.
  2. The ACM, “Code of Ethics”, 2018.
  3. Miller, “Designing Ethical Self-Driving Cars”, 2023.

Optional:

  1. Linders, “Why Should We Care about Technology Ethics? The Updated ACM Code of Ethics”, 2019.
  2. IEEE, “The Software Engineering Code of Ethics and Professional Practice”, 1999.

09/06 Lecture 03: Data Privacy #

Slides: link

Readings:

Required:

  1. The New York Times, “The Rise of the Worker Productivity Score”, 2022.
  2. EU, “What is GDPR, the EU’s new data protection law?”, 2022. Wired. (references child abuse).
  3. The New York Times, “Are You in a Gang Database?”, 2020.

Optional:

08/30 Lecture 02: Social Connection and Time Well-Spent #

Slides: link

Readings:

Required:

  1. Pew Research Center, “Teens and social media: Key findings from Pew Research Center surveys”. 2023.
  2. Nature. “How social media affects teen mental health: a missing link”. 2023.
  3. NPR. “New Research Casts Doubt On Connection Between Smartphone Use And Teen Mental Health”. 2019.
  4. Nylon. “For plus-size creators, Tiktok presents a new wave of challenges”. 2022.

Optional:

08/23 Lecture 01: Free Speech #

Slides: link

Required Survey: Please fill out the welcome form ideally by the first day of class; otherwies by Friday 8/25 11:59pm PT.

Attendance: No lecture attendance will be taken for this lecture, though relevant content will be covered.

Interested in CS H195? Check out the Discussion Info page in the sidebar and fill out the interest form listed on the Course Catalog. Course applications are reviewed on a rolling basis, so get it in ASAP.

Optional: