Your work as a computer scientist mainly focuses on building or technically analyzing software and computer systems. In this project, and throughout the class, you will consider such systems within the context of larger political and social questions. As such, much of your work will be to analyze how technical decisions can have broad, rippling effects in our society. The first part of analyzing a sociotechnical system is to understand and explain it. A computer science education provides you a unique technical background to understand such systems but also poses difficulties in reaching a non-technical audience.
Consider questions such as:
What’s the conceptual or theoretical background on which this technology or system is based?
What data does the system requirements as inputs? What are its outputs?
(if it’s a cyber-physical system) How does it interact with the physical world?
What types of sensors does it use? What are their limitations?
What algorithms does it use? How does it work?
What is the current state of the art of this technology? What are its current limitations?
Articulate a sequence of events that brought it into existence in its current form
For example, one cannot consider early American analog and electronic computers without also considering their role in the Manhattan Project.
Your proposal MUST contain 5 embedded live links directly relevant to your topic. You will get 0 points for not having them.
2. Paper (3 pages, about 1500 words)
In the complete paper you provide a social or moral argument against the system you are describing (similar to the example papers we provided above).
You should start with copying the description of the system from your proposal: the paper should be self-contained (that is, we do not need to go back to your proposal to understand it).
Then you may address the following issues:
Who are the stakeholders of the system? Think about its designers, funders, beneficiaries and benefactors.
What stories do the articles you read tell to justify its existence? Do these narratives accurately describe it?
What are possible blind spots? What people might be overlooked in the development of these systems?
Are there moral positions not accounted for in the discussions you’ve observed?
You paper MUST directly tie your discussion to one or more topics from the textbook. The references to the textbook must be a part of your argument. You will get 0 points for not having them.
We will run your paper through a tool that recognizes text generated via GPT 3. You will get 0 points if your paper is identified as such.
The following link provides some guidance to writing philosophy papers.
https://philosophy.fas.harvard.edu/files/phildept/files/brief_guide_to_writing_philosophy_paper.pdf
