CS 195, Social Implications of Computing CS H195, Honors Social Implications of Computing Brian Harvey 781 Soda Hall 642-8311 bh@cs.berkeley.edu Office hours: Tue 4-6, Wed 5:10-6 General Course Information ========================== The EECS department has introduced an "ethics course" requirement for EECS majors. This course is one of the ways to satisfy the requirement, and so more students are expected than in past years. This will change the course from a small seminar to a large lecture, but I don't want to lose the discussion time for those students who are really interested, hence the two versions. The non-honors version (1 unit) meets once per week, Monday 4-5:30, in 150 GSPP. The honors version (3 units) has the same lecture, plus an additional meeting Wednesday 4-5:30, in 373 Soda. This syllabus is online at http://www-inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs195 and the class newsgroup is ucb.class.cs195 READINGS -------- There are two course readers, although with a lot of overlap, one for each version of the course. Be sure to get the right reader! They're at Copy Central on Hearst Ave. FOR THE NON-HONORS (CS 194 SECTION 11) STUDENTS, ALL ASSIGNED READINGS ARE EITHER IN THE COURSE READER OR ONLINE. The honors version (CS 194 section 12) has two textbooks in addition to the reader: [ES] Computers, Ethics, and Society (Third Edition) edited by M. David Ermann and Michele S. Shauf. Oxford University Press, 1997, ISBN 0-19-514302-7 [Lud] High Noon on the Electronic Frontier: Conceptual Issues in Cyberspace edited by Peter Ludlow. MIT Press, 1996, ISBN 0-262-62103-7 Each week I cull news articles relevant to the course; these will be posted in the class bSpace page and are also part of the week's reading assignment. You don't have to read every word of every article, but skim them and read the interesting ones. DO THE READING, COME TO CLASS ----------------------------- As indicated below, each week has a topic, more or less. This first week is a general overview of the course and the topics. PLEASE READ THE INDICATED PAPERS BEFORE EACH WEEK'S DISCUSSION. Most of the readings should be easy going, with only a few exceptions. (I'll try to warn you about those in advance.) But if you don't do the reading, the quality of the discussions will suffer. You are expected to attend class and participate in discussions. WRITING ASSIGNMENTS ------------------- The course is graded P/NP. In addition to attending all class sessions and doing the assigned reading, the requirement for credit includes three writing assignments. In the non-honors section, these will be short (one or two page) papers on assigned topics, based on the readings and lectures, due Monday of weeks 6 (9/28), 10 (10/26), and 13 (11/16). In the honors section (194/12), the first two will be the same short papers, and the third will be a longer (5-10 page) term paper. Each honors student will pick one topic for more intensive study, leading to a term paper and perhaps a presentation to the class. (Your topic may or may not be the same as one of mine.) Since the term paper is your main written work in this course, I want it to be good -- scholarly, honest, articulate, well-organized. To this end, you will prepare the term paper in three stages: * A one-page proposal (including initial bibliography) due week 6. * A first version (your best effort!) due week 11 (11/2). * A revised version due week 14 (11/23). I'll respond to each of these stages within a week. THESE ARE FIRM DEADLINES; they are chosen to allow time for recovery if what you turn in is not of acceptable quality. (In a typical semester I require post-final versions from one or two out of about 25 students.) Typical papers are 5 to 10 pages, but don't pad; quality counts much more than quantity. ACADEMIC INTEGRITY ------------------ I have strong opinions on some of these topics, and I believe that the road to academic integrity is for me to make my biases clear, rather than to pretend not to have opinions. But it's also my job to be sure that the full range of opinion is fairly presented and taken seriously; if, as sometimes happens, most of the class agrees with me about some point I'll do my best to argue the other side of the question. The same standards apply to your papers: You don't have to agree with me; what you have to do is show that you understand and take seriously points of view different from your own, and try to explain why your arguments are better than theirs. (But not every paper is necessarily an opinion paper!) I hope it goes without saying that everything you turn in should be your own work, not quoting from anyone else's work without proper attribution. SCHEDULE -------- Week Dates Topic Readings 1 8/30,9/1 Intro Williams, "Ethical..." (handout) HONORS: ES 190-202 2 9/6,9/8 Privacy Rachels, "Why Privacy..." Garfinkle: "..." HONORS: ES 137-152; Lud 173-249 Hausman, "Your..." (reader) 3 9/13,9/15 Intellectual Property Stallman, "GNU..." [ES 153-162] Stallman, "Misinterpreting..." (reader) LPF, "Against..." [Lud 47-62] Heckel, "Debunking..." [Lud 63-108] HONORS: Lud 1-121 4 9/20,9/22 Ethics Hospers, "The Best..." [ES 3-11] Rachels, "The Best..." [ES 12-16] Aristotle, "The Best..." [ES 16-20] MacIntyre, _After Virtue_ (reader) HONORS: larger excerpt of MacIntyre (reader) 5 9/27,9/29 Computers and War Chapman, "A Moral Project..." (reader) Page, "Star Wars..." (reader) HONORS: ES 214-231 (HONORS TERM PAPER PROPOSAL DUE Monday 9/27) (FIRST SHORT PAPER DUE Monday 9/27) 6 10/4,10/6 Self Dreyfus, "Using..." [ES 74-81] Turkle, _The Second Self_ and _Life on the Screen_ (reader) HONORS: ES 101-110 7 10/11,10/13 Community Curtis, "MUDding..." [Lud 347-373] Dibbell, "A Rape..." [Lud 375-395] HONORS: ES 85-90, 231-249; Lud 311-457 8 10/18,10/20 Computers and Education Papert, "Mathophobia..." Schank/Cleary, "What Makes..." Sewell, "Software Styles" (reader) HONORS: ES 171-183 Goodman, "The Present Plight.." Buber, "Education" and "The Education of Character" (reader) Week Dates Topic Readings 9 10/25,10/27 Risks Joy, "Why..." [ES 110-122] Neumann, "Illustrative Risks..." (online: www.csli.sri.com/users/neumann/illustrative.html) Levenson/Turner "...Therac-25.." (reader) HONORS: Collins et al, "How Good..." Gladwell, "Blowup" (reader) (SECOND SHORT PAPER DUE Monday 10/25) 10 11/1,11/3 The Nature of Work Forester, "Computerizing..." (reader) HONORS: ES 184-190 Hochheiser, "Workplace Database.." Barbour, "Computers Transform..." Pearson&Mitter "Computeriz..." Dedrick et al, "Computing in..." Forester, "Whatever..." (reader) (HONORS PAPER FIRST VERSION DUE Monday 11/1) 11 11/8,11/10 Pornography and Censorship Godwin, "Virtual..." [Lud 269-273] Goodman, "Pornography, Art..." (reader) HONORS: Lud 251-310 (Wednesday holiday; this topic discussed next week.) 12 11/15,11/17 Cracking Spafford, "Are Hacker..." [ES 64-74] Wright, "Hackwork" (reader) HONORS: Lud 123-163 (but discussion is about censorship) (THIRD SHORT PAPER DUE Monday 11/15) 13 11/22,11/24 Professional Ethics ACM "Code..." Anderson, "Using..." Barger, "Can We Find..." Bok, "The Morality..." [ES 23-54] (REVISED HONORS PAPER DUE Monday 11/22) 14 11/29,12/1 student presentations, summary