Slides prepared by Cyndi Chie and Sarah Frye A Gift of Fire Sara Baase Chapter 1: Unwrapping the Gift

What We Will Cover Rapid Pace of Change New Developments and Dramatic Impacts Issues and Themes Ethics

Rapid Pace of Change The last days of 20 th century and the beginning of 21 st are characterized by the ubiquity of computers, include: Mainframes, personal computer Embedded chips that control machines. Information, entertainment and communication devices. Internet, news, discussion groups, chat rooms, , database.

Rapid Pace of Change 1940s: The first computer is built 1956: First hard-disk drive weighed a ton and stored five megabytes by IBM. 1991: Space shuttle had a one-megahertz (one million cycles per second) computer 2006: Pocket devices hold a terabyte (one trillion bytes) of data 2006: Automobiles can have 100-megahertz computers

Discussion Question What devices are now computerized that were not originally? Think back 10, 20, 50 years ago Rapid Pace of Change

Problems and controversies accompany the conveniences and wonders of new computer technologies and applications: Pcs and floppy disks increased storage, speed, and connectivity web, browser and search engines online commerce. Cells phones

Rapid Pace of Change With came spam With increased storage, speed, and connectivity came the database with details of our personal and financial lives With web, browser and search engines came more threats to privacy and challenges of copyright. online commerce brought identity theft and variety of scams. Cells phones increase risk of car accidents.

Rapid Pace of Change Recognizing the benefits is important to value the technology.

Rapid Pace of Change Social Networking: First online social networking site was in Founded in 2003, Myspace had roughly 100 million member profiles by 2006.Myspace Facebook was started at Harvard as an online version of student directories Social networking is popular with hundreds of millions of people because of the ease with which they can share aspects of their lives.

Rapid Pace of Change Social Networking (cont.): Businesses connect with customers. Organizations seek donations. Groups organize volunteers. Protesters organize demonstrations and revolutions. Individuals pool resources through “crowd funding”.

Rapid Pace of Change Collaboration: Wikipedia, the online, collaborative encyclopedia Open Directory Project (ODP) Collaboration between scientists in different states or countries

Rapid Pace of Change Communication and the Web In the 1980s, messages were short and contained only text. People worldwide still use , but texting, tweeting, and other social media are now preferred.

Rapid Pace of Change Communication and the Web Blogs (“Web log”) began as outlets for amateurs wanting to express ideas, but they have become significant source of news and entertainment. Inexpensive video cameras and video-manipulation tools have resulted in a burst of amateur videos. Many videos on the Web can infringe copyrights owned by entertainment companies.

Rapid Pace of Change Blogs (Word made up from ‘web log’): Began as outlets for amateurs who want to express ideas or creativity Appealing because present personal views, are funny and creative, and present a quirky perspective on current events

Rapid Pace of Change Blogs (cont.): Now used as alternatives to mainstream news and for business public relations Popular blogs have 100,000 to 500,000 readers per day and can peak at several million views per day Sites hosting blogs for free Example : Technorati-blog search and indexing site track more that 50 million blogs.

New Developments (cont.) Video Sharing: Rise of amateur videos on the web Boom of websites like Youtube and Myspace Many videos on the web can infringe copyrights owned by entertainment companies

E-commerce Amazon.com started in 1994 selling books on the Web. It has grown to be one of the most popular, reliable, and user-friendly commercial sites. Amazon.com eBay.com facilitates online auctions. eBay.com Traditional brick-and-mortar business have established Web sites. Online sales in the United States now total hundreds of billions of dollars a year. Sellers can sell directly to buyers, resulting in a peer-to-peer economy.

E-commerce and trust concerns People were reluctant to provide credit card information to make online purchases, so PayPal.com grew out of need for trusted intermediary to handle payments. PayPal.com Encryption and secure servers made payments safer. The Better Business Bureau established a Web site to help consumers see if others have complained about a business. Auction sites implemented rating systems.

New Developments (cont.) Cell Phones: Can now be used for travel, last minute planning, taking pictures and downloading music Talking on cell phones while driving is a problem Cell phones can interfere with solitude, quiet and concentration Cameras in cell phones and privacy issues

Rapid Pace of Change Cell Phones Relatively few in 1990s. Approximately five billion worldwide in Used for conversations and messaging, but also for:  taking and sharing pictures  downloading music and watching videos  checking and playing games  banking and managing investments  finding maps Smartphone apps for many tasks, including:  monitoring diabetes  locating water in remote areas

Rapid Pace of Change Cell Phones (cont.): Location tracking raises privacy concerns. Cameras in cell phones affect privacy in public and non-public places. Cell phones can interfere with solitude, quiet and concentration. Talking on cell phones while driving is dangerous.

Rapid Pace of Change Artificial Intelligence (AI), Robotics, and Motion: AI suited to narrow, specialized skills Robotic devices often special-purpose devices, and may require AI to function Motion sensing devices are used to give robots the ability to walk, trigger airbags in a crash and cushion laptops when dropped

Discussion Questions How will we react when we can have a conversation and not know if we are conversing with a human or a machine? How will we react when chips implanted in our brains enhance our memory with gigabytes of data and a search engine? Will we still be human?

Rapid Pace of Change Tools for Disabled People: Restoration of abilities, productivity and independence Screen readers and scanners Speech recognition Researchers are experimenting with chips that convert brain signals to controls for leg and arm muscles.

Rapid Pace of Change What’s Next? Medical records on chips attached to medical bracelets Biological and computer sciences will combine new ways to insert micro- processors or controlled devices on human bodies

Issues and Themes Issues: Unemployment Alienation and customer service Crime Loss of privacy Errors

Issues and Themes (cont.) Themes: Old problems in a new context: crime, pornography, violent fiction Adapting to new technology: thinking in a new way. a new set of rules to guide people behavior and to specify what will be permitted and what will not. Varied sources of solutions to problems: natural part of change and life

Issues and Themes (cont.) Themes (cont.): Global reach of net: ease of communication with distant countries. the Net makes information and opportunities more easily available to people isolated by geography or by political system. Social behavior laws passed in one country may have little effect, because services can move outside the country. Trade-offs and controversy: increasing security means reducing convenience, e.g. how strict copyright law should be. Difference between personal choices, business policies, and law: laws are fundamentally different from personal choices and organizational policies

Ethics What is Ethics: Study of what it means to “do the right thing” Ethical theory assumes people are rational and make free choices Ethical rules are rules to follow in our interactions with other people and our actions that affect others Ethical rules apply to all of us and are intended to achieve good results for people in general and for situations in general

Ethics Ethics: Discovering Right and Wrong (laws of science) Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong (rules we make up likes rules of baseball.

Ethics (cont.) Ethical Views: (1) Deontological: emphasizes duty and absolute rules, to be followed whether they lead to good or ill consequences in particular cases. Example, “Do not lie”. An act is ethical if it complies with ethical rules and is chosen for that reason

Ethics (cont.) Kant ideas: A - Principle of universality: we should follow rules of behavior that we can universally apply to everyone. B – Logic or reason determines rules of ethical behavior C – Principle of interacting with other people: one must never treat people as merely means to ends, but rather as ends in themselves

Ethics (2) Utilitarianism: is the main example of consequentialist theory. Its guiding principle is to increase happiness or utility as expressed by john Mill. A person’s utility is what satisfies the person’s needs and values. We should consider the consequences. Utilitarianism has many variation : -act Utilitarianism :apply to individual actions and judge the action by its impact -rule Utilitarianism: not to individual action but to general ethical rules.

(3) Natural rights: let people make their own decisions without interference by others. They think that they are doing what is best for people involved or for humanity in general. Called natural rights because they come from nature or can be derived from the nature of humanity

Ethics (4) No simple answers We cannot solve ethical problems by applying a formula or an algorithm Human behavior and real human situations are complex Ethical theories do not provide clear and correct positions on most issues But they help to identify important principles or guidelines

Ethics (cont.) Important Distinctions: Right, wrong and okay: it is better f acts as either ethically obligatory, ethically prohibited, or ethically acceptable. Negative rights (liberties)  The right to act without interference (e.g. the right to use your property, skills, mind) Positive rights (claim-rights)  An obligation of some people to provide certain things for others  E.g. government has to setup job programs for people who are not out of work Negative rights and positive rights often conflict because it is impossible to enforce claim rights for some people without violating the liberties of others

Ethics (cont.) Important Distinctions (cont.): Difference between wrong and harm  Needlessly causing harm is wrong  Harm alone is not sufficient criterion to determine that an act unethical  Many ethical acts can make other people worse off: you may accept a job offer knowing someone else wanted the job and needed more than you do. Separating goals from constraints  Ethics tell us what actions are acceptable or unacceptable in our attempts to achieve the goals  The ethical character of the company depends on whether the actions taken to achieve the goal are consistent with ethical constraints

Ethics (cont.) Personal preference and ethics:  Distinguish between what we consider ethically right or wrong and what we personally approve or disapprove. (ex. Anti- abortion)  It is a good idea to try to distinguish between actions we find distasteful, rude, or ill-advised and actions that we can argue convincingly are ethically wrong Law and Ethics  While is not ethically obligatory to obey all laws, that is not an excuse to ignore laws, nor is a law ( or lack of a law) an excuse to ignore ethics

Ethics Discussion Question Can you think of examples of liberties (negative rights) and claim-rights (positive rights) that are at opposition to each other?