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 3-5, Wed 2-3:50
General Course Information
==========================
The one-unit CS 195 is meant to serve the needs of students who are here
to satisfy a requirement. It is meant to be relatively painless and perhaps
to spark an interest in the topic.
The three-unit CS H195 is meant to allow small-group discussion with the
students who are here out of serious interest. It requires more reading
and more writing (a term paper) in addition to the extra discussion time.
The non-honors version meets once per week, Monday 4-5:30, in 306 Soda.
The honors version has the same lecture, plus an additional meeting Wednesday
4-5:30, in 373 Soda.
This syllabus is online at http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~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 Shattuck Square. FOR THE NON-HONORS (CS 195) STUDENTS,
ALL ASSIGNED READINGS ARE EITHER IN THE COURSE READER OR ONLINE. The honors
version (CS H195) 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. ATTENDANCE IS REQUIRED -- THIS WILL BE ENFORCED.
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 (10/1), 9 (10/22), and 14 (11/26).
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 (with initial bibliography) due week 5 (9/24).
* A first version (your best effort!) due week 10 (10/29).
* A revised version due week 13 (11/19).
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 8/27,8/29 Intro
Williams, "Ethical..." (handout)
HONORS: ES 190-202
2 ---,9/5 Monday is a holiday; Wed is about the Honors
term paper.
3 9/10,9/12 Privacy
Rachels, "Why Privacy..." (reader)
Garfinkle: "Privacy Requires..." (reader)
Nissenbaum, "A Contextual Approach..." (reader*)
HONORS: ES 137-152; Lud 173-249
Hausman, "Your..." (reader)
4 9/17,9/19 Intellectual Property
Stallman, "GNU..." [ES 153-162]
Stallman, "Misinterpreting..." (reader)
LPF, "Against..." [Lud 47-62]
Heckel, "Debunking..." [Lud 63-108]
HONORS: Lud 1-121
5 9/24,9/26 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)
(HONORS TERM PAPER PROPOSAL DUE Monday 9/24)
6 10/1,10/3 Computers and War
Chapman, "A Moral Project..." (reader)
Page, "Why Star Wars..." (reader)
Mahnken, "Weapons" (reader)
Dunlap, "The Military-Industrial..." (reader)
Shafer, "Artificial Intelligence..." (reader)
HONORS: ES 214-231
(FIRST SHORT PAPER DUE Monday 10/1)
7 10/8,10/10 Self
Dreyfus, "Using..." [ES 74-81]
Turkle, _The Second Self_ and
_Life on the Screen_ (reader)
HONORS: ES 101-110
8 10/15,10/17 Community
Curtis, "MUDding..." [Lud 347-373]
Dibbell, "A Rape..." [Lud 375-395]
Godwin, "Virtual..." (reader*)
Horrigan, "What Are..." (reader*)
Garrett, "Resisting Political..." (reader*)
Sproull, "Prosocial..." (reader*)
HONORS: ES 85-90, 231-249; Lud 311-457
Clark, "Introduction" (reader*)
Schlozman, "Who Speaks?" (reader*)
9 10/22,10/24 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)
(SECOND SHORT PAPER DUE Monday 10/22)
10 10/29,10/31 Risks
Joy, "Why..." [ES 110-122]
Neumann, "Illustrative Risks..." (online:
www.csl.sri.com/users/neumann/illustrative.html)
Levenson/Turner "...Therac-25.." (reader)
Mulligan, "Doctrine for..." (reader*)
HONORS: Collins et al, "How Good..."
Gladwell, "Blowup" (reader)
Cheshire, "Online Trust..." (reader*)
Cerf, "Safety..." (reader*)
Camp, "Reconceptualizing..." (reader*)
(HONORS TERM PAPER FIRST VERSION DUE Monday 10/29)
11 11/5,11/7 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)
12 ---,11/14 Monday is a holiday; Wed is about Cracking
Spafford, "Are Hacker..." [ES 64-74]
Wright, "Hackwork" (reader)
HONORS: Lud 123-163
12 11/19,11/21 Pornography and Censorship
Godwin, "Virtual..." [Lud 269-273]
Goodman, "Pornography, Art..." (reader)
HONORS: Lud 251-310
Benkler, "WikiLeaks..." (reader*)
(REVISED HONORS TERM PAPER DUE Monday 11/19)
14 11/26,11/28 Professional Ethics
ACM "Code..."
Anderson, "Using..."
Barger, "Can We Find..."
Bok, "The Morality..." [ES 23-54]
(THIRD SHORT PAPER DUE Monday 11/26)
(Papers labelled "(reader*)" are later in the reader than they should be
for chronological topic order.)