Computer Ethics (original) (raw)

Administrative

Winter 2021
Time: Wednesdays and Fridays from 3:30 to 4:20pm
Location: Zoom, check Canvas for the link, which is the same for the entire quarter
Instructor: Dan Grossman
Email: djg@cs.washington.edu
Office hours: by appointment (please do ask to chat!)

Please do not hesitate to write to the instructor about any accommodations or questions related to readings or course material.

Description

Be it social-media platforms, robots, or big data systems, the code Allen School students write—the decisions they make—influences the world in which it operates. This is a survey course about those influences and ways to think about them. We recognize, “the devil is in the implementation details.”

The course is divided into two parts: In the first part, we survey historical and local issues in tech, particularly those concerning data. We then engage with critical perspectives from disciplines such as machine ethics and science and technology studies as a framework for students to articulate their own beliefs concerning these systems. In the second part, we apply these perspectives to urgent issues in applied technologies; see the schedule for the topics we plan to consider this quarter.

Throughout, students hone their critical reading and discussion skills, preparing them for a life-long practice of grappling with the—often unanticipated—consequences of innovation.

We approach topics such as: AI ethics, social good, utopianism, governance, inclusion, facial recognition, classification, privacy, automation, platforms, speculative design, identity, fairness, power and control, activism, and subversive technologies.

Objectives

By the end of this course students will:

• Obtain awareness of issues arising from the use of computers in contemporary sociotechnical systems
• Articulate technological harms to individuals and groups in the language of critical perspectives
• Appreciate how historical, cultural, economic, and political factors contribute to how technologies are built and designed
• View themselves as both subjects and creators of sociotechnical systems
• Understand and articulate complex arguments pertaining to values in technology
• Recognize the diversity of stakeholders and views when considering a technology
• Amplify voices and values not traditionally considered in technological development (e.g., in design processes)
• Re-imagine and speculate alternative histories and futures for using and coexisting with computers

Schedule (any changes will be announced a week in advance if possible)

Introduction: A Brief History

history narrative sociotechnical systems

Wed, Jan 06 Groundwork

Required:

• Read"Our Numbered Days: The Evolution of the Area Code" by Megan Garber, 2014 (5 pages)
  Are you a “425” or a “206?” Through an exploration of phone area codes, Megan Garber shows us how cultures can be built up around artifacts spawned by engineering decisions. It traces the history nicely, while also discussing the hype cycle and push back from the community, as well as how such choices continue to resonate long after they are made.
• Read"Why the Luddites Matter" by Z.M.L., 2018 (5 pages)
  “That which makes the Luddites so strange, so radical, and so dangerous is not that they wanted everyone to go back to living in caves (they didn’t want that), but that they thought that those who would be impacted by a new technology deserved a voice in how it was being deployed.”

Before Class:

• Preview the course syllabus, particularly the assignments

Who's behind the keyboard?

ethics equity society of tech

Fri, Jan 08 Groundwork

Required:

• Read chapter one from "Artificial Unintelligence: How Computers Misunderstand the World" by Meredith Broussard, 2018
  In her introductory chapter, computer scientist and data journalist Broussard lays out both her love of and skepticism for computing technology. You might find a bit of yourself in her.
• Read"Be Careful What You Code For" by danah boyd, 2016 (2 pages)
  danah boyd, a researcher at Micosoft and at Data and Society, highlights just how few guardrails there are for developers, from the consequences of algorithmic bias to the implications of crazy metaphors. She offers a call to action, solutions, and ample evidence for considering the implications of code. We highly recommend chasing down some of the links provided.
• Read introduction through page 16 from ["Race after technology: Abolitionist tools for the new jim code"](/courses/cse492e/21wi/uwnetid/reading/Benjamin - 2019 - Race after technology Abolitionist tools for the .pdf) by Ruha Benjamin, 2019
  Benjamin, in a recent book, offers a “race conscious orientation to emerging technology not only as a mode of critique but as a prerequisite for designing technology differently.” Affiliated with Princeton’s Center on Information Technology and Policy, she brings a fresh perspective to many of the foundations of computing.

Optional:

• Read"How to read a book" by Paul N. Edwards, 2000 (8 pages)
  Here, an adroit scholar walks through some tips and tricks for reading more effectively. He hits the major points and includes some bonus tips, like where to best organize your reading notes. This is an invaluable resource as our course’s weekly reading load begins to increase. Skim now, but revisit throughout the course.
• Read"Discussion Leading Guidelines"
  This resource from the Stanford Teaching Commons offers an in-depth analysis of how to have better discussions. Their recommendations, from setting an agenda, asking questions, and increasing discussant engagement are all a part of how to create a better climate for discourse. For leading discussions in this class and beyond, it’s worth a read.

Before Class:

• Daily assignment, due at 8pm the night before class:
  • What do you want to get out of our class discussions?
  • Do you feel able to change outcomes of how tech affects society?
• Preview the course project, part one

Deconstructing a Data System

systems theory economics data and classification

Wed, Jan 13 Data

Required:

• Read"At Amazon's New Checkout-Free Store, Shopping Feels Like Shoplifting" by Jake Bullinger, 2018 (2 pages)
  Jake Bullinger describes the experience had by some of the first shoppers of the Checkout-Free Amazon Go store and considers its economic implications. As you’re reading the article, look for possible tensions, critiques, or questions which it raises. Also think about the ways in which data is used by this store.
• Read"In Amazon Go, no one thinks I'm stealing" by Ashlee Clark Thompson (2 pages)
  Ashlee Clark Thompson reflects on her experience of shopping in the Amazon Go store: “Amazon Go isn’t going to fix implicit bias or remove the years of conditioning under which I’ve operated. But in the Amazon Go store, everyone is just a shopper, an opportunity for the retail giant to test technology, learn about our habits and make some money.”
• Read chapter four from "Artificial Unintelligence: How Computers Misunderstand the World" by Meredith Broussard, 2018
  While focusing specifically on data journalism, Broussard well explains the means to which data can be put to explain the world. In particular, read it to understand the different means people take to “challenge false claims about technology.”

Optional:

• Read"Inside Amazon Go, a Store of the Future" by Nick Wingfield, 2018 (1 page)
  High level description of the store; touches on themes like convenience, how this tech could affect jobs, and the vagueness of plans surrounding the system at this time; Look at the photos if you don’t visit the Amazon Go store.

Before Class:

• Daily assignment, due at 8pm the night before class:
  • Today’s a light reading day, but day four isn’t so we recommend you get started on that.
  • Summarize the Amazon Go readings.
  • How do the readings differ in their views of the Amazon Go store? Did the Amazonians consider each of these perspectives? Should they have? How might you classify them?
  • Have you visited an Amazon Go store? If so, how did you feel? If not, how do you think you would feel? (In non-stay-at-home times, I’d encourage you to visit one, time-permitting.)

Conceptions of Data

theory data and classification knowledge production

Fri, Jan 15 Data

Required:

• Read"Chapter 1: Conceptualising Data" by Rob Kitchin, 2014 (25 pages)
  The introduction to the book describes ways of thinking about what data is (ontologies) and goes on to discuss ethical and political considerations of data. It postulates the framework of “data assemblages” and how thoughts about them influence their own conceptions.
• Read["On Being a Data Skeptic"](/courses/cse492e/21wi/uwnetid/reading/O'Neil - On Being a Data Skeptic.pdf) by Cathy O'Neil, 2014 (26 pages)
  This rapid-fire, well-articulated article is about the advantages and perils of data science, with ample advice and examples to advocate for why those who use data ought to be this special kind of “skeptical”.

Before Class:

• Daily assignment, due at 8pm the night before class:
  Use the following questions as a resource to guide your reading. Then, respond to at least three of them.
  • What is the difference between data, information, and knowledge? How are they related?
  • How can wider or economic concerns “frame” data? That is, in what sense do data act and how? (Answers might include: as an economic resource, as a form of power or knowledge, etc.) Explain why.
  • How have politics or economics influenced how some data have been defined or created?
  • What are reasons or incentives for controlling:
    * The creation of data
    * The access to data
    * The standards of data, such as metrics or units
    * The means of data collection, such as sensors or know-how
  • From “On being a data skeptic” explain “measuring the distortion.”
  • What is the relationship between models and proxies? Why are proxies used? Give an example.
  • Why might O’Neil have singled out “nerds” and “business people” separately? What do the differences in her comments indicate about how those groups view problems differently? Do you agree?
  • Submit a clarifying question which you’d like to discuss in class.

"Data is the new oil": data politics

control and power economics politics sociotechnical systems

Wed, Jan 20 Data

Required:

• Read (skim) from "The world's most valuable resource is no longer oil, but data" , 2017 (1 page)
  A short article that introduces the metaphor that “data is the new oil” which reflects the widely held view that data is now “the world’s most valuable resource”.
• Read"Do artifacts have politics?" by Langdon Winner, 1980 (15 pages)
  In this widely-cited essay, Langdon winner makes the case that technologies embody social relations. He argues that we should develop a language for considering technology which not only focuses on it as a tool, or its use, but also the meaning of its design and social arrangements which it facilitates. Langdon asks: “what, after all, does modern technology make possible or necessary in political life?”. Consider this while you read the piece.
• Read"Anatomy of an AI System" by Kate Crawford et al., 2018 (14 pages)
  Kate Crawford and Vladan Joler consider the production of the Amazon Echo Dot with an astounding breadth by mapping the human labor, data, and material resources required to build it. Kate Crawford is a co-founder of the AI Now institute at NYU which is breaking ground on many questions relevant to the social implications of AI.

Optional:

• Read"How ICE Picks Its Targets in the Surveillance Age" by McKenzie Funk, 2019
  Consider reading this harrowing, and physically proximal, telling of the real-life implications of some of these data systems.

Before Class:

• Daily assignment, due at 8pm the night before class:
  • Pick one aspect of “Anatomy of an AI System” and discuss it with someone outside of class. In a couple of sentences, what did you talk about?
  • Did any aspect of the Amazon Echo AI system surprise or interest you? Which aspect?
  • What conclusions can we draw from the tomato picking example in “Do Artifacts Have Politics?”

Operationalization and Classification

data and classification emerging technologies knowledge production

Fri, Jan 22 Data

Required:

• Read introduction (pg. 1 - 16; 31 - 32; 17 pages total) from "Sorting things out: classification and its consequences" by Geoffrey C. Bowker et al., 1999 (377 pages)
  Sorting Things Out is a classic text on classification and standardization. The introduction writes about the importance of considering the ubiquity of classification and the processes that generate them, standardize them, and enforcement. It also looks at how classification has caused harm and how the processes which create standards can at times yield an inferior solution. The authors take an expansive view of classification, so be prepared to think about the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) or VHS vs. Betamax.
• Read"Do algorithms reveal sexual orientation or just expose our stereotypes?" by Blaise Aguera y Arcas et al., 2018 (5 pages)
  This essay sets out to debunk a scientific study which claimed to have built a “sexual orientation detector” using machine learning. “Do algorithms reveal sexual orientation or just expose our stereotypes?” presents a thorough analysis of the offending paper and shows that one move to debunk “junk science” is validate the study’s results against some other baseline. In this case, the authors use Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. As you’re reading this, think about what one can learn from a face?

Optional:

• Read chapter one (pg. 46 - 50 from "Infrastructure" on) from "Sorting things out: classification and its consequences" by Geoffrey C. Bowker et al., 1999 (377 pages)
• Read"Deep neural networks are more accurate than humans at detecting sexual orientation from facial images." by Yilun Wang et al., 2017
  This is the article critiqued by “Do algorithms…”

Before Class:

• Daily assignment, due at 8pm the night before class:
  • “Do algorithms…” claims to focus on the underlying “science.” Why do you think the authors did so? Why was this distinction important?
  • What strategies did “Do algorithms…” use to make its argument?
  • “Do algorithms…” concludes that the paper it examines was misguided. Perhaps using what you learned from “Sorting Things Out,” think of another method based on misguided assumptions. What is it?

Moral Machines

ethics labor and automation theory

Wed, Jan 27 Critical Perspectives

Required:

• Read"Whose Life Should Your Car Save?" by Azim Shariff et al., 2016 (1 page)
  This is a high-level introduction to the moral machine project that also discusses how politics and business view ethical dilemmas, and that a tragedy of the commons-type scenario could undermine our common expectations for machine behavior.
• Read["Why the moral machine is a monster"](/courses/cse492e/21wi/uwnetid/reading/Jaques - Why the moral machine is a monster.pdf) by Abby Everett Jaques, 2019 (10 pages)
  This paper presents a fierce-yet-thoughtful critique of the Moral Machine experiment. It also highlights the importance of analyzing the structural implications of the problem: “In a slogan, the problem is that an algorithm isn’t a person, it’s a policy. And you don’t get policy right by just assuming that an answer that might be fine in an individual case will generalize. You have to look at the overall structure you create when you aggregate the individual transactions….The right question is what kind of world will I be creating if this is the rule. What will the patterns of advantage and disadvantage be if this preference is encoded in our autonomous vehicles. (pg 5-6)”

Optional:

• Read["The Trolley Problem"](/courses/cse492e/21wi/uwnetid/reading/Thomson - 1984 - The Trolley Problem.pdf) by Judith Jarvis Thomson, 1985 (21 pages)
  Judith Jarvis Thomson marches you through 21 pages of analyzing various hypothetical scenarios in order to expose the difficulty of using abstractions, and how a normative/ethical tenet may on the face seem straight forward, but really be undermined if one looks at the details. Makes it seem difficult to think that there are an exhaustive set of rules to encode which actions are permissible, not to mention moral.
• Read"Ethical Machines (published)" by Irving John Good, 1982 (5 pages)
  I.J. Good discusses problems with certain considerations one should make when thinking about whether and how a machine could exhibit “ethical” behavior.
• Read"Ethical Machines (unpublished)" by Irving John Good, 1980 (16 pages)
  The longer version is able to better parse the implications of the arguments in part because it’s more in depth due to its length. Notable in particular are the final consideration of a “synergistic relation with the boss” and the shakespeare reference.
• Read chapter 7 from "Braintrust: What neuroscience tells us about morality" by Patricia S. Churchland, 2018
  Here Churchland discusses human ethical reasoning as a form of the “brain’s continuous decision-making.” Motivated by neuroscience, she makes the case that to suggest that, “the moral understanding that underlies specific rules is more like a skill than like a concrete proposition.” This has interesting applications for how we approach learning about ethics as well as for how we go about creating ethical systems.

Before Class:

• Daily assignment, due at 8pm the night before class:
  • Judge a few scenarios on the MIT Moral Machines website.
  • Summarize the readings.
  • What are the trade-offs of looking at individual ethics cases (such as in the “Trolley Problem” or “Moral Machines”) as compared to a “structural analysis” as described by Jaques?

"Techne" and Belonging

labor and automation gender and sexuality theory

Fri, Jan 29 Critical Perspectives

Required:

• Read"Patriarchy, technology, and conceptions of skill" by Judy Wajcman, 1991 (16 pages)
  When considering the future of work, one question that’s often raised is how technology negatively impacts the amount of “skill” required to complete a task, aka “deskilling”. In “Patriarchy, Technology, and Conceptions of Skill”, Judy Wajcman questions the underlying assumption that skill is entirely technically derived. Instead, she considers how men’s historical control over technology in the workplace has extensively influenced the ideological and material conceptions of skill, thus concluding in part that “definitions of skill, then, can have more to do with ideological and social constructions than with technical competencies which are possessed by men and not by women”.
• Read"Gender Equality Paradox Monkey Business: Or, How to Tell Spurious Causal Stories about Nation-Level Achievement by Women in STEM" , 2020 (5 pages)
  A widely known study argued that countries with more gender equity in society have fewer women studying STEM, but this article accompanies a peer-reviewed publication casting doubt on the study’s analysis – a scholarly back-and-forth also playing out in the blogosphere.

Optional:

• Read"Technically Female: Women, Machines, and Hyperemployment" by Helen Hester, 2016 (10 pages)
  This essay surveys a history of “electronic secretaries” to frame relevant questions of today’s tech, such as: Why are AI assistants so often feminized? We question what it means for technology to “do gender” and in service of which “imagined technology user”? Yet we can turn that question around and ask who “does technology”? and how does labor gets redistributed with the introduction of new software and AI assistants? Ultimately, Hester asks us to confront questions concerning lived experiences of gender and how its programmed, productive vs. reproductive labor, and the (dis)advantages of automation.
• Read"Testosterone rex: unmaking the myths of our gendered minds" by Cordelia Fine, 2017
  If you were looking to throw the book at someone who continues to insist that sex differences are sufficient to explain gender differences, this would be that book. Take her word for it: “Every influence is modest, made up of countless small instances of its kind. That’s why everything—a doll packaged in pink, a sexist joke, a male-only expert panel—can seem trivial, of intangible effect. But that’s exactly why calling out even seemingly minor points of sexism matters. It all adds up, and if no one sweats the small stuff, the big stuff will never change.” And it’s funny, too: “If we stop believing that boys and men are emotional cripples and fly-by-night Casanovas who just want sex, and start believing that they’re full, complete human beings who have emotional and relational needs, imagine what might happen.”

Before Class:

• Daily assignment, due at 8pm the night before class:
  On “Patriarchy, technology, and conceptions of skill.”
  • What is “skill”?
  • Is “autonomy” a form of de-skilling?
  • Why do so many engineers want to build robotic maids?
    On “Gender Equality Paradox Monkey Business.”
  • What do the authors mean by a spurious causal story?
  • What’s another spurious causal story that you’ve heard about?
  • How do we combat such stories? Does paying attention to detail help?

Latent Identity and Privacy

control and power data and classification surveillance and privacy

Wed, Feb 03 Critical Perspectives

Required:

• Read["It's Not Privacy, and It's Not Fair"](/courses/cse492e/21wi/uwnetid/reading/Dwork and Mulligan - IT’S NOT PRIVACY, AND IT’S NOT FAIR.pdf) by Cynthia Dwork et al., 2013 (6 pages)
  This law review paper is the missing link between the concept of control and of privacy as represented by the (optional) Deluze piece and the Barocas piece, respectively.
• Read"Think You're Discreet Online? Think Again" by Zeynep Tufekci, 2019 (2 pages)
  How ought we make sense of questions such as privacy, classification, tracking, and surveillance in the era of big data and computational inference? Zeynep Tufeci asks us to consider these questions by looking at examples of the collective implications of a “privacy-comprised world”.
• Read"Big data's end run around procedural privacy protections" by Solon Barocas et al., 2014 (2 pages)
  Solon Barocas and Helen Nissenbaum, both well-known AI ethics scholars, consider “why the increasingly common practice of vacuuming up innocuous bits of data may not be quite so innocent: who knows what inferences might be drawn on the basis of which bits?”

Optional:

• Read"Deleuze the Societies of Control"
  This video highlights some significant passages in “Postscript” and explains what’s going on by connecting it back to contemporary questions of control. Only the first 10 minutes actually cover the essay and the next 12 or so are on “commentary”, by posing relevant questions and extrapolating “Postscript”’s ideas into the future.
• Read["Postscript on the Societies of Control"](/courses/cse492e/21wi/uwnetid/reading/Deleuze - Postscript on Societies of Control.pdf) by Gilles Deleuze, 1992 (4 pages)
  “[J]ust as the corporation replaces the factory, perpetual training tends to replace the school, and continuous control to replace the examination. Which is the surest way of delivering the school over to the corporation.” Deleuze considers the technologies of power, and what it means to be in a “control state”. One wonders what he would have to say about this virtual world.

Before Class:

• Daily assignment, due at 8pm the night before class:
  Identify a new system or one we’ve discussed in class that makes decisions which affect people’s lives in some meaningful way. Describe it and then answer the following questions:
  • Does this system rely on data collection to make these decisions?
  • Where does this information come from?
  • What’s the consent model?
  • What questions related to individual privacy does it raise?

Reimagining

narrative reimagining systems theory

Fri, Feb 05 Critical Perspectives

Required:

• Read page 151 until chapter end from ["Rise of the machines: A cybernetic history"](/courses/cse492e/21wi/uwnetid/reading/Rid - 2016 - Rise of the machines A cybernetic history.pdf) by Thomas Rid, 2016 (8 pages)
  Rid, a scholar of conflict and information technology, aptly summarizes the act of reimagining as it took place around the idea of the “cyborg,” particularly as evoked by Donna Haraway (see optional readings). This kind of reimagining is important to consider in the historical development of technology. Note how this work references I.J. Good and other thinkers in the history of AI and ethical machines.
• Read"Dynamicland and the Whimsical Digital Object" by Olivia Kan-Sperling, 2019 (3 pages)
  A relatively short piece that comments on a programming lab–dynamicland–which, while situated near Silicon Valley, eschews the ethos of human transcendence. The article is sweet and attentive to the project, without withholding criticism, but concludes that the conceptual indulgences it is most weary of are also what make it amazing and notable.
• Read"The Internet Is Acid, and America Is Having a Bad Trip" by Douglas Rushkoff, 2018 (1 page)
  Douglas Rushkoff, a noted media theorist, draws connection between software and hallucination. Keenly attuned to the wild abstractions and metaphor used in computation: “Computers and networks were part of a much larger cultural phenomenon: a realization that reality is a collaboration…It seemed as if the world was about to become a whole lot more like a lucid dream, where the future was less a place we arrived at than a thing we created together.” Where are we today? Where do we go from here?

Optional:

• Read sections 1 and 5 (10 pages total) from "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late 20th Century" by Donna Haraway, 2006 (42 pages)
  Readers not familiar with critical theory will likely struggle with this reading, particularly the fluid language and arcane references. Haraway uses the extended metaphor of cyborg as a vehicle to explore the relationship between gender and identity, nature and technology—pushing back on traditional conceptions of radial feminism and affinity vs. identity politics, and fiercely critiquing the language of capitalism. Although much tech has changed since 1991 when it was written, the essay stays as influential as ever.
• Read"Mother of Invention" by Nnedi Okorafor, 2018 (11 pages)
  This story is giving voice to themes concerning motherhood and giving birth in a way that’s not often reflected in futurist narratives. Also talks about the notion of symbiosis between Anwuli and Obi 3 (the house), and how tech can be an extension of self. It shows a vision where the computer has agency to exhibit an ethic of “care”.

Before Class:

• Daily assignment, due at 8pm the night before class:
  Choose one of the media documents linked below. In a couple of sentences, summarize what it does and how it connects to the readings.
  • Zach Lieberman became known for co-creating openFrameworks, an open source c++ toolkit for creative coding. Have a look at some of his delightful daily sketches which he continues to update on his Instagram.
  • Morehshin Allahyari’s lecture titled On Digital Colonialism and Re-Figuring: here she talks about the use of digital technologies and activism, digital colonialism, and re-figuring as it relates to the process of making her project called Material Speculation; also check out She Who Sees the Unknown.
  • “The Glass Room” is an interactive installation produced by Firefox and curated by Tactical Tech that acts as “a place to explore how technology and data are shaping our perception, experiences, and understanding of the world.”
  • “Onyx Ashanti is designing a process for reprogramming himself utilizing his own musical comprehension and sound design, he calls it Sonocybernetics.” Learn more about Onyx’s work here and view a video of sono-cybernetics performed: “of gesture and laser cymatics.”
  • Adam Harvey is an American artist and researcher currently based in Berlin. His work engages with issues surrounding AI, surveillance, and computer vision.
  • “The Computer for the 21st Century” is an article about Xerox Parc’s prototypes into ubiquitous computing. It can be viewed as a harbinger for the current IoT revolution.
    Choose one of the following technological futures (such as Obi 3 in “Mother of Invention”). What do you see as the purpose of re-imagining it?
  • Computer use (such as in “Dynamicland” or the procedurally generated sketches of Zach Lieberman),
  • Our belief in the abstraction of software (such as in “Acid Trip”),
  • The exclusivity of classifications and labels (such as in “The Cyborg Manifesto”),
  • The role of technology in nature (such as in “The Cyborg Manifesto”),
  • Or any other media which we’ve covered.
• Finish the course project, part one by tonight.

Platform or Publisher?

control and power society of tech

Wed, Feb 10 Misinformation and Platforms

Required:

• Read chapter one (pg. 1 - 24) from ["Custodians of the internet: platforms, content moderation, and the hidden decisions that shape social media"](/courses/cse492e/21wi/uwnetid/reading/Gillespie - 2018 - Custodians of the internet platforms, content mod.pdf) by Tarleton Gillespie, 2018 (288 pages)
  Tarleton Gillespie, a social media scholar, establishes the groundwork for understanding social media platforms. Beginning with an example of content moderation on Facebook, he makes the case that content moderation is an essential element of these social media companies and that the act of providing content to users comes with many value laden decisions–picking up myths of openness, free speech, neutrality, and more.
• Read"Why Facebook Can't Fix Itself" by Andrew Marantz, 2020 (5 pages)
  Here we get a close look into the implementation of content moderation strategies at Facebook. Pay attention to how what Gillespie talks about applies.
• Read introduction (9 pages) from "Kill All Normies" by Angela Nagle, 2017 (11 pages)
  This does a better job of describing some of the thorny “grey” areas and mechanisms for radicalization that we will otherwise discuss on the platform days, and is an illustrative antidote to the clearer cut “malicious” content mentioned in the other pieces.

Optional:

• Read"How We Analyzed the Cost of Trump’s and Biden’s Campaign Ads on Facebook" by Jeremy B Merrill, 2020
  This article details how one media outlet, The Markup, in conjunction with data from an NYU research project, attempts to measure the influence of social media companies and their moderation.
• Read"Facebook Seeks Shutdown of NYU Research Project Into Political Ad Targeting" by Jeff Horwitz, 2020
  Here find more details about Facebook’s efforts to push back against the very research described above.
• Read"Inside Nextdoor's "Karen problem"" by Makena Kelly, 2020
  Notice how content moderation can have racial disparate impacts.
• Read"The Moderators" by Adrian Chen, et al.
  Watch this 20 minute documentary on content moderators, but beware of graphic content.
• Read["Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy"](/courses/cse492e/21wi/uwnetid/reading/Fraser - 1990 - Rethinking the Public Sphere A Contribution to th.pdf) by Nancy Fraser, 1990 (56 pages)

Before Class:

• Daily assignment, due at 8pm the night before class:
  In 150 - 300 words, address the following: What are platforms? Why does this term matter so much? Who are the stakeholders?

Content Moderation Algorithms and Free Speech

emerging technologies narrative sociotechnical systems

Fri, Feb 12 Misinformation and Platforms

Required:

• Read"It's the (Democracy-Poisoning) Golden Age of Free Speech" by Zeynep Tufekci, 2018 (4 pages)
  Zeynep Tufekci considers how power to censor functions on our oversaturated social networks, and the role of misinformation and the attention economy in this. The article provides striking clarity to issues we collectively face on this platform.
• Read"The Problem of Free Speech in an Age of Disinformation" by Emily Bazelon, 2020 (14 pages)
  Read this article for an up-to-date account of free speech and its history in the United States. Notice the similarities between analog and social media. It questions how different governmental approaches to speech may be making us more or less free.
• Read chapter four (pg. 74 - 110; 36 pages total) from ["Custodians of the internet: platforms, content moderation, and the hidden decisions that shape social media"](/courses/cse492e/21wi/uwnetid/reading/Gillespie - 2018 - Custodians of the internet platforms, content mod.pdf) by Tarleton Gillespie, 2018 (288 pages)
  Read the whole chapter, but, if you’re short on time, focus on the “automatic detection” section (pg. 97 to 110). Tarleton Gillespie, a social media scholar, establishes the groundwork for understanding social media platforms. In chapter 4, “Three Imperfect Solutions to the Problem of Scale”, Gillespie considers several models for content moderation, one of which is algorithmic “automatic detection” techniques.

Optional:

• Read["The Risk of Racial Bias in Hate Speech Detection"](/courses/cse492e/21wi/uwnetid/reading/Sap et al. - 2019 - The Risk of Racial Bias in Hate Speech Detection.pdf) by Maarten Sap et al., 2019 (9 pages)

Before Class:

• Daily assignment, due at 8pm the night before class:
  January 2021 was likely a major shift in social-media content moderation as well as platform hosting. But as these events are so recent, we stuck with older readings and perspectives that have withstood some test of time to help inform current events. Now for your assignment, do the opposite: Find two articles, blog posts, etc. about social-media content moderation, banning users, etc. written after January 6, 2021 – one article you agree with and one article you disagree with. Post just the articles on the discussion forum not even indicating which is which regarding agree/disagree, but come to class prepared to summarize the articles’ contents, your opinions of them, and how they relate to the assigned readings.

History Forward and Backward

politics reflection and practice

Wed, Feb 17 Course Project Related Discussions

Required:

• Read"The Rape Kit's Secret History" by Kennedy, Pagan, 2020
  Here is a nearly-lost history of the effort behind getting a technology widely adopted. It is not a computing example, but it is an excellent example of writing about the context behind something now in our society, the challenges are often not technical, and the leaders often go unrecognized. The whole thing is fascinating, but it is long, so if you need to skim, try to focus on the politics needed for this technology to succeed.
• Read page 5 onwards from ["The Triple Revolution (original)"](/courses/cse492e/21wi/uwnetid/reading/Box and Barbara - ON THE TRIPLE REVOLUTION.pdf) , 1964 (16 pages)
  This famous memo to President Lyndon B. Johnson was drafted by the Ad Hoc Committee of the Triple Revolution, comprised of notable social activists, scientists and technologists, among others. It warns that revolutions in social justice, automation, and weapon development, and that if urgent social and economic changes are not made “the nation will be thrown into unprecedented economic and social disorder”.

Optional:

• Read"Is this time different? The opportunities and challenges of artificial intelligence" by Jason Furman, 2016 (17 pages)

Before Class:

• Daily assignment, due at 8pm the night before class:
  Keep the historical and argument sections of your course project in mind as you do the readings and try to answer some of these questions or other questions of your own.
  • Both of these readings describe trying to change the world where the challenge was not primarily about creating a new technology. Who were the protagonists trying to convince? What actions did they take to succeed?
  • What was the purpose of each article? What were some techniques used in the writing to achieve this purpose?
  • How is writing about the future different than writing about the past?
  • Beyond writing about the future vs. the past, how else are these articles different?

Experiences of Injustice in Computing

control and power society of tech equity

Fri, Feb 19 Computing and Racial Equity

Required:

• Read["Critical Race Theory for HCI"](/courses/cse492e/21wi/uwnetid/reading/Ogbonnaya-Ogburu et al. - 2020 - Critical Race Theory for HCI.pdf) by Ihudiya Finda Ogbonnaya-Ogburu et al., 2020 (1–16 page)
  This article calls human-computer interaction research, and computing research more generally, to explicitly attend to race, namely through critical race theory. Through this theory, analysis of the field, and storytelling, the authors show that despite (some) efforts in computing, racism persists and bares redressal. Pay particular attention to the stories.
• Read particularly minutes 15 through 30 from "Episode 12: Confronting Our Reality: Racial Representation and Systemic Transformation with Dr. Timnit Gebru" by Dylan Doyle-Burke et al.
  Gebru, who received her Ph.D. from Stanford and then worked for Google before very publicly not working for Google, discusses the necessity of focusing on your values (hers being racial justice) in conjunction with your work.

Optional:

• Read introduction (16 pages) from ["Stuck in the shallow end: education, race, and computing"](/courses/cse492e/21wi/uwnetid/reading/Margolis - 2008 - Stuck in the shallow end education, race, and com.pdf) by Jane Margolis, 2008 (201 pages)
  This introductory chapter details an early 2000s study which attempted to figure out why so few black and latinx students were enrolling in computer science courses. It, “shows how segregation and inequality along racial lines operate on a daily basis in our schools, despite our best intentions” (16).

Before Class:

• Daily assignment, due at 8pm the night before class:
  Answer at least two of the following.
  • What is interest convergence?
  • Why do you think the authors of “Critical Race Theory for HCI” include information about their background? What does this achieve?
  • Why do the authors of “Critical Race Theory for HCI” contend that theory is an important focus?
  • Do you have any stories along the lines of those shared? Would you be interested with sharing any with the group?
  • What does “true recognition of the pervasiveness of racism” (9) require?
• Finish the course project, part two by tonight.

Critiques and Suggestions

action reflection and practice equity

Wed, Feb 24 Computing and Racial Equity

Required:

• Read introduction through page 12 from ["Dark matters: On the surveillance of blackness"](/courses/cse492e/21wi/uwnetid/reading/Browne - 2015 - Dark matters On the surveillance of blackness.pdf) by Simone Browne, 2015
  Packed with cultural African American references (from DuBois to hooks) and in the vernacular of criticism, this reading can be hard to understand but is well worth the effort. Browne clearly demonstrates how black folk were some of the first to face the “mise en fiches de l’homme,” Fanon’s phrase for human formatting, of modernity. She says, “Dark Matters suggests that an understanding of the ontological conditions of blackness is integral to developing a general theory of surveillance and, in particular, racializing surveillance–when enactments of surveillance reify boundaries along racial lines, thereby reifying race, and where the outcome of this is often discriminatory and violent treatment” (8).
• Read["Roles for computing in social change"](/courses/cse492e/21wi/uwnetid/reading/Abebe et al. - 2020 - Roles for computing in social change.pdf) by Rediet Abebe et al., 2020 (9 pages)
  In comparison to Browne, this reading offers more concrete suggestions specific to computing research. It advances four roles such research can play in discussions around fairness, bias, and accountability.

Before Class:

• Daily assignment, due at 8pm the night before class:
  On “Dark Matters.”
  • What does the author mean by “embodied psychic effects of surveillance?”
  • Motivated by Fanon, the author notes the “the facticity of surveillance in black life.” Why? What does this mean?
  • The author notes how Ralph Ellison accused the discipline of sociology as making black life “unvisible” (11). What are ways in which computing technologies and computer science make black life “unvisible?”
    On “Roles for Computing in Social Change.”
  • Choose one of the roles.
    * How might your work as a computer scientist engage with your chosen role?
    * What social problem would you like to work on?

Techno-Utopianism

labor and automation narrative society of tech

Fri, Feb 26 The Society of Tech

Required:

• Read"The Automation Charade" by Astra Taylor, 2018 (5 pages)
  Astra Taylor urges: “We shouldn’t simply sit back, awestruck, awaiting the arrival of an artificially intelligent workforce. We must also reckon with the ideology of automation, and its attendant myth of human obsolescence.”
• Read["The Dark Side of Techno-Utopianism"](/courses/cse492e/21wi/uwnetid/reading/Marantz - 2019 - The Dark Side of Techno-Utopianism.pdf) by Andrew Marantz, 2019 (6 pages)
  A summary of technologists’ relationships with media and how looking at books and the printing press can help us understand how contemporary technologists idealize their own creations.

Optional:

• Read["The Microsoft Provocateur"](/courses/cse492e/21wi/uwnetid/reading/The Microsoft Provocateur.pdf) by Ken Auletta, 1997 (14 pages)
  This piece shows us the thinking of tech folks at a pivotal time when the nature of the internet was not yet decided. Skim the sections which are just about Mhyrvold’s life—we mean to focus on founders and their utopian visions.
• Read"Origin Stories of Tech Companies if Their Founders Had Been Women" by Ginny Hogan, 2019 (1 page)

Before Class:

• Daily assignment, due at 8pm the night before class:
  • What historical precedents do you find are useful for thinking about tech, technologists, and their power in society?
  • Do you find the analogy to books and publishers in “The Dark Side of Techno-Utopianism” compelling?
  • What are utopias you’ve heard described when talking about emerging technologies? Do you find those utopias compelling? Why or why not?

Harder, Faster, Better, Stronger?

control and power economics society of tech

Wed, Mar 03 The Society of Tech

Required:

• Read["Three Expensive Milliseconds"](/courses/cse492e/21wi/uwnetid/reading/Krugman - 2014 - Three Expensive Milliseconds.pdf) by Paul Krugman, 2014 (1 page)
  While reading this article, consider: who is today’s infrastructure for? What are some metrics being optimized for which have led to some (perhaps) unexpected consequences? How are these metrics and systems shaping our world?
• Read chapter 1 (pg. 13 - 36; 23 pages total) from "Pressed for time: The acceleration of life in digital capitalism" by Judy Wajcman, 2015
  Wajcman, whom we saw previously in “Techne” and Belonging, investigates the demand for speed and efficiency in our current society, particularly as encouraged by technologies (like smartphones) and their creators (like silicon valley corporations).
• Read"Survival of the Richest" by Douglas Rushkoff, 2019 (3 pages)
  From Douglas Rushkoff, also the author of “The Internet is Acid, and America is Having a Bad Trip”: “Apocalypto – the intolerance for presentism leads us to fantasize a grand finale. “Preppers” stock their underground shelters while the mainstream ponders a zombie apocalypse, all yearning for a simpler life devoid of pings, by any means necessary. Leading scientists – even outspoken atheists – prove they are not immune to the same apocalyptic religiosity in their depictions of “the singularity” and “emergence”, through which human evolution will surrender to that of pure information.” This idea is investigated more deeply in his book “Present Shock”.

Before Class:

• Daily assignment, due at 8pm the night before class:
  Describe acceleration and at least one way it has shaped our world.
  Recall that in the “The Triple Revolution,” the authors observe:

  There is no question that cybernation does increase the potential for the provision of funds to neglected public sectors. Nor is there any question that cyberna­tion would make possible the abolition of poverty at home and abroad. But the in­industrial system does not possess any adequate mechanisms to permit these poten­tials to become realities. The industrial system was designed to produce an ever-increasing quantity of goods as efficiently as possible, and it was assumed that the distribution of the power to purchase these goods would occur almost automati­cally. The continuance of the income-through-jobs link as the only major mechanism for distributing effective demand—for granting the right to consume—now acts as the main brake on the almost unlimited capacity of a cybernated productive system.
  In what ways has the current structure of our regulatory and political framework allowed for cybernetic systems (such as social media platforms and the stock market) to shape our world? Is this the world that the systems’ creators set out to create? If not, list some unintended consequences. What are the mechanisms that shape these systems? Who gets to decide?

Responses

action reimagining society of tech

Wed, Mar 10 Participating in the Society of Tech

Before Class:

• Daily assignment, due at 8pm the night before class:
  • Look back through the “relevant responses” associated with each day of class. Choose two to focus on (or provide two of your own which fit the theme). Why did you choose these two? How would you categorize them? Describe the response taken. Might you act similarly? Why or why not?
  • At this point in the class, do you feel empowered to act on your values? Why or why not?

Departure

ethics reflection and practice

Fri, Mar 12 Participating in the Society of Tech

Required:

• Read chapter 12 from "Artificial Unintelligence: How Computers Misunderstand the World" by Meredith Broussard, 2018
  Having read Broussard’s commentaries on the first day and as an introduction to the data unit, we now finish with her conclusion: a renewed plea for computing technology to serve the people who made it—humans.
• Read foreward and introduction (pg. xi - xxvi; pg. 1 - 5; 23 pages total) from "Hope in the dark: Untold histories, wild possibilities" by Rebecca Solnit, 2016
  Solnit, a writer and activist, reflects on our desire for social, cultural, or political change given the appearance that we have not arrived there (considering issues from global warming, to human rights abuse). Originally responding to the war in Iraq, she explores how news cycles and our personal narratives frame these issues and makes the case for hope nonetheless–“tiny and temporary victories”

Before Class:

• Daily assignment, due at 8pm the night before class:
  • Do you feel able to change outcomes of how tech affects society?
  • What’s an idea from this course that every UW CSE student ought to understand?
• Finish the course project, part three by tonight.