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There will be two sections of this class, both co-taught by Alan Cline
and Elaine Rich. The two sections
(one at 2:00, the other at 3:00) will be identical.
The rest of this website corresponds to the Spring, 2008 offering of
the class. We’ll update it
soon for next spring, but the class will be very similar to the way it was
last spring.
Course Description
In this class, we’ll cover a collection of issues
that:
- Matter
to computer scientists, and/or
- Matter
to our society and that computer scientists have some significant impact
on.
We’ll look at issues from several points of view:
- What
is ethical?
- What
is (or should be) legal?
- What
makes sense economically?
Some specific topics that we’ll discuss are:
- Are
electronic voting machines a good idea?
- What
parts of a computer system can be trademarked and/or copyrighted?
- Where’s
the balance between rights of artists and rights of their customers?
- Who’s
legally liable if your program has a bug and someone dies?
- Is
information technology creating/exacerbating a world of haves and have
nots? Do we care?
- Who
has the right to say what?
- Is
there any role for the professional media in the Internet age?
- Is
privacy a thing of the past?
Should it be?
- How
can we protect ourselves against Internet hackers?
- What’s
happening to people’s jobs?
- What’s the role of
technology in warfare?
- Suppose
we could build artificial people, should we?
- As
professionals, what responsibilities do all of us have with respect to
these issues?
What You’ll Do
We’ll read books and papers and discuss them. You need to check the Schedule of Topics and Assignments and come to each
class prepared to discuss the reading assignment of that day. There will be quizzes at the beginning
of some classes.
In addition, everyone in the class will pick a topic for a
term project. You’ll submit
a final paper, as well as a short video, which we’ll watch in class at
the end of the semester. Check
the term project page for more information,
including the evaluation sheets we’ll use for grading the project.
Contact Information
Alan Cline – cline@cs.utexas.edu
Elaine Rich - ear@cs.utexas.edu
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