Old Chinese Curse

Old Chinese Curse

“May you live in interesting times!”

Computers & Society - Brendan Tangney Technology & Society 2

The Future of Society

http://www.uvm.edu/~artclass/cyborg/NateCloutier.html

“We are engaged in a revolution; a technological revolution. We have commenced an era where computers, databases, and the internet handle tasks formally completed by the human hand and mind. We live in and at our computers. We do not have to leave the comfort of our own computer station any longer. Everything imaginable can be found on the internet; from research, to shopping, to business transactions, to love.

It is not us that makes technology obsolete, it is our technology which is making us obsolete. We are the computers, the computers are us.”


The Future of Society

Think of your life before the answering machine, the ATM, e-mail. Think of your grandparents' lives before the television and the airplane. Think of your great-grandparents' lives before the telephone. All told, the shift will be that substantial. Machines will recognize our faces and our fingerprints. They will watch out for swimmers in distress, for radioactivity- and germ-laden terrorists, for red-light runners and highway speeders, for diabetics and heart patients.

Imagine devices that monitor the breathing rhythms of infants in cribs, watch toddlers at day care, and track children as they go to and from school; that can keep an eye on our home supply of orange juice and let us know when the milk is sour. Machines might watch our calorie intake and burn-off, monitor air quality in our homes, and look out for mice and bugs.

Envision sensors as large as walls and as small as molecules in your bloodstream sending quiet signals to nearby computers, which will process and relay information to you, your doctor, your lawyer, your grocer, your building manager, your car mechanic, your local fire or police department. As time and technology march on, less and less will escape the attention of sophisticated machines. They'll have us covered.

http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0311/feature1/index.html

http://www.janis-purucker.de/3dgallery/utopia.jpg


Who controls who?

“We shape our buildings and afterwards they shape us.” Winston Churchill.

www.tickintsofcentralohio.org/images/Historical/Horseless_carriage_ca._1915.jpg

www.hasekamp.net/thailand/thailand1.jpg


What was the role of (information) technology in Sept 11th?

http://media.guardian.co.uk/gallery/image/0,8560,-10904255171,00.html

http://www.ptb.be/scripts/center.phtml?section=A1AAAABS


1BA6

COMPUTERS & SOCIETY

Course 1BA6

Brendan Tangney

Room 4.03 Oriel House/Fenian St.

e-mail [email protected]

www.cs.tcd.ie/tangney/ComputersAndSociety


MODUS OPERANDI

1 slot per week Lecture or small group tutorial

Course reading material. Examined by continuous assessment. Attendance and contribution at lectures is a pre-requisite. Written assignments Group presentations Minor written examination Tight feedback loop on assignments and presentations. Written supplemental exam, if required, in the Autumn.


Course Objective

You should be able to demonstrate an understanding of the complexity of the relationship between technology and society.

You should be able to articulate well reasoned and well structured arguments On paper Verbally

You should show some understanding of working in groups.


Resources

The class WWW page www.cs.tcd.ie/tangney/ComputersAndSociety/

Computerization and Controversy: Values Conflicts and Social Choices. R. Kling (ed.) Academic Press. 1996. 2nd Edition. ARTS 301.24 N64

Class reading material.


What is he talking about?

“We have one here at Cambridge; there is one in Manchester and there ought to be one in Scotland as well but that is about all.”

Douglas Hartree 1947 quoted in The Dream Machine p 8.


Growth in technology….

Manchester Mark Iwww.man.ac.uk/Science_Engineering/CHSTM/nahc.htm


IBM 709~1955

http://foodman123.com/

ibm709.htm


DEC 2060 – Early 1980’s

DEC 2060 with 1 million 36-bit words of MOS memory, PDP-11 front end, PDP-11 sync communications, 1 RP06 176 MB disk, 2 RP07 498MB disks. Running TOPS-20 with FORTRAN-20, COBOL-68/74, BASIC-PLUS-2, CPL-20, and MS

(a mail system). http://www.hawaii.edu/infobits/s2000/images/dec2.jpg


Moore’s “Law”

Moore's law (rule of thumb) - processor power doubles every 2 years

List of Intel Processorshttp://www.intel.com/pressroom/kits/quickrefyr.htm


Aside - Numeracy?

www.utep.edu/museum/archive/geology/bignumbers.jpg


Developments

Number of Computers in TCD Since 1980 (Estimated)

01000

20003000

40005000

60007000

80009000

10000

1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005

Year

Nu

mb

er

of

Co

mp

ute

rs


Computers in TCD in 2008

How many computers will there be in TCD when you graduate?

How powerful will they be: processor, memory, etc.

What will the situation be in 2018?


The future of technology….

“Early in the next millennium your right and left cuff links or earrings may communicate with each other by low orbiting earth satellites and have more computing power than your present PC. Your telephone won’t ring indiscriminately; it will receive, sort, and perhaps respond to your incoming calls like a well trained English butler”.

[Being Digital. N. Negroponte, 1995.]


The Home of The Future

Changing Places/House_n The MIT Home of the Future Consortium - architecture.mit.edu/house_n/

Welcome to the Broadband Home of the Future Wired Magazine article January 2004 www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.01/wiredhome_1.html


Cybernetics

“I was born human. But it was an accident of fate – a condition merely of time and place. I believe it’s something we have the power to change…..”

www.kevinwarwick.com


“Impact Of IT Upon Society

Good Things

See notes….

Bad Things


IT Communications

Content

Applications

Convergence

Convergence!

ComputersCommunications


IT Communications

The Information Society

The Information Society


Ireland in the Info Age

Ireland in the information age will be “a unique community, rich in culture, learning and

creativity where the Information Society is embraced: to support the talents of our people; to create employment, wealth and vibrant, inclusive communities; and where citizens participate more actively in government.”

“Information Society Ireland : Strategy for Action” December 96. Page iii. Initial publication of the Information Society Steering Committee set up by the Minister of Enterprise & Employment in 1996.

http://www.isc.ie/


A day in the life…..

Many examples in the press and media of home and work in the future…..

www.arch.usyd.edu.au/kcdc/vds96/elective/images/nc.gif


Technology & Society

“NAIVE MODEL” OF TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT

Set of feasible applications- expanding

ART

WORK

LAW

LEISURE

ECONOMY

Technology

Society


2 Things to Note

Pervasive != Important

Rate of change


Rate of Change

The first steam powered cotton mill in the US dated from 1847 - sixty three years after its adoption in Britain.

The first electronic computers were developed in the mid forties.

Fifty years later we have………..


Pervasive

Not All Pervasive Technologies Are “Important”

Zip fasteners and matchsticks are clearly not all that important.

The automobile, radio and TV, electricity and printing have greater claims to importance.

Why is this?


What does history tell us?

Technology has always had a huge influence upon the development of society.

Examples?


Some Previous Technologies & Social Change

Farming settled life, villages.

Industrial revolution. Output increased faster than labor input. Work centralized in factory units. Land declined as the chief source of wealth. Urbanization.

Train network, printing press, sanitation, mechanical clocks, the telescope etc. etc.


The Telegraph

See “The Victorian Internet” for a very interesting discussion.

Effects include Commerce – stock exchange The .com phenomenon News reporting – Crimean

War/Florence Nightingale World Peace!”

"It brings the worlds together. It joins the sundered hemispheres. It unites distant nations, making them feel that they are members of one great family". [Standange 98] http://www2.arts.gla.ac.uk/SESLL/STELLA/STARN/scotplay/

SMITH/CARNEGIE/act1.htm


The Case of the Automobile [Kling 96]

Originally promoted as a clean mode of private transport. Today society is strongly dependent upon the private car with

accompanying, pollution and traffic jams. Deaths due to accidents

400-500 each holiday weekend in the USA. (Kling) Figures in Ireland in range from 400-500 per annum.

(National Roads Authority). Helped give rise to suburbia and the decline of urban centers. The road infrastructure requires huge on going public investment

c.f. structural funds, the LUAS row etc. etc. Dependence upon oil.

1970’s oil crisis, the Gulf War (I) and (II), Carrickmines…..


Neutral

Technology May Not Be Neutral

Often With Technology Society Gets More Than It Bargained For!


A Variety of Views

http://www.filmarchiv.at/events/lang/metropolis.htm

http://www..pensacolabeach.com/ domeofahome/


Dawn of a new age….

“Within a few short decades, society rearranges itself - its worldview, its basic values, its social and political structures, its arts, its key institutions. Fifty years later there is a new world. And the people born then cannot even imagine the world in which their grandparents lived and into which their own parents were born.”

Peter Drucker. Post Capitalist Society, 1993.


Negroponte’s View

The change from atoms to bits is irrevocable and unstoppable. P4 Computing is not about computers any more it is about living. P6. Early in the next millennium your right and left cuff links or earrings may

communicate with each other by low orbiting earth satellites and have more computing power than your present PC. Your telephone won’t ring indiscriminately; it will receive, sort, and perhaps respond to your incoming calls like a well trained English butler. P6.

On-demand information will dominate digital life. We will ask explicitly and implicitly for what we want, when we want it. P169.

The information superhighway is more than a short cut to every book in the Library of Congress. It is creating a totally new, global social fabric. P183.

[Being Digital. N. Negroponte, 1995.]


Chris Evans’ View (1980)

In the home in the short term future (early 1980s) there will be “speaking bathroom scales, freezers which remind you to restock

them, cookers which tell how the meat is coming along, telephones that tell you how many people have rung in your absence……thermometers which advice you what to wear before you get up." (p79)

“The first practical shift will be reflected in a cut in the working week to an average of 30 hours, a retirement option at fifty five or even fifty, and annual vacations of at least six weeks”. (p95)

[Evans C., The Mighty Micro, Cornet, 1979]


Ireland in the Info Age

Ireland in the information age will be “a unique community, rich in culture, learning and

creativity where the Information Society is embraced: to support the talents of our people; to create employment, wealth and vibrant, inclusive communities; and where citizens participate more actively in government.”

“Information Society Ireland : Strategy for Action” December 96. Page iii. Initial publication of the Information Society Steering Committee set up by the Minister of Enterprise & Employment in 1996.

http://www.isc.ie/


Thoreau (1850)

Technology for Technology’s Sake?

“...so with a hundred other ‘modern improvements’

..... our inventions are wont to be pretty toys which distract our attention from serious things.

They are but an improved means to an unimproved end..…”

“Walden” by Henry Thoreau 1818-1862


Kling’s View

The Seductive Equation of Technological Progress with Social Progress.

“Social Revolutions are based on changes in ways of life, not just changes in equipment…..”


Steve Talbott

“No law seems more certain than this one: the next generation of computers will be better than the last. Yet no law conceals a more socially devastating lie.” [Netfuture, #1, Dec, 1995]

“I recently heard an industry pundit say, "As voice recognition technology gets more sophisticated, we can expect computers to become more user-friendly.“ Self-evidently true? Let's consider. Perhaps the most conspicuous application of voice recognition today is in telephone answering systems. The idea, of course, is that better listening skills will enable the software to deal more flexibly with your and my needs. The notorious klunkiness of the current answering systems will yield to friendlier capabilities.

In a sense, this is true. When I call a business in the future, the options will be more numerous, and I'll be able to negotiate those options with voice commands more

complex than "yes" and "no." But this is to ignore an obvious fact about the new capabilities: their reach will be extended. Where earlier software eventually routed you to a human operator, the

"friendlier" version will replace the operator with a software agent who will attempt to conduct a crude conversation with you.

So the earlier frustrations will simply be repeated -- but at a much more critical level. Where once you finally reached a live person, now you will reach a machine. And if you thought the number-punching phase was irritating, wait until you have to communicate the heart of your business to a computer with erratic hearing, a doubtful vocabulary of 400 words, and the compassion of a granite monolith!

The technical opportunity to become friendlier, in other words, is also an opportunity to become unfriendly at a more decisive level. This is the prevailing law of technological development, underlying nearly every claim of progress. “

[Netfuture, #1, Dec, 1995, http://www.netfuture.org/1995/Dec1495_1.html#3]


Digital Age Nonsense

I sometimes wonder whether the folks at the M.I.T. Media Lab are pulling our legs. Are they stand-up comedians in disguise? It seems that a lot of energy at the prestigious lab (which claims to be "inventing the future") is going into the redesign of the American kitchen. For example, one project involves training a glass counter top to assemble the ingredients for making fudge by reading electronic tags on jars of mini-marshmallows and chocolate chips, then coordinating their quantities with a recipe on a computer and directing a microwave oven to cook it.

Dr. Andrew Lippman, associate director of the Media Lab, says that "my dream tablecloth would actually move the things on the table. You throw the silver down on it, and it sets the table."

One waits in vain for the punch line. These people actually seem to be serious. And the millions of dollars they consume look all too much like serious money. Then there are the corporate sponsors, falling all over themselves to throw yet more money at these projects.

Nowadays this kind of adolescent silliness is commonly given the halo of a rationale that has become respected dogma.

[Netfuture, #87, March 30, 1999, http://www.netfuture.org/1999/Mar3099_87.html#2c]


Views of/on Technologists

“Computer Science … is the systematic study of algorithms….” [ACM task force quoted in Kling p33].

“A man trained in computer science alone is by any definition an uneducated man” – [C. Holland, The Idea of A University].

“Whether or not it draws upon new scientific research, technology is a branch of moral philosophy, not of science”, [Kling, p33].


IT Communications

The Information Society is a Global Society

Globalisation


Charles Handy - Globalisation

In the large

“Today we are faced with the complexity of the global community. Decision makers have to operate beyond the traditional limits of national boundaries and regulations, beyond the conventions of a particular culture.”

In the small

“Life is now horribly confusing. We are mixing up home and work, and work is no longer secure.”

Charles Handy


Essential Argument

The role of (Digital) Technology in all this change, globalisation, information society, employment, views of humanity etc. etc.

The role of Engineers in all this…..

The role of Education in all this…..


Course Content

Q1. How did Digital Technology get to where is today ?(And how might it develop?)

Q2. What are the social implications of the growth of Digital Technology?

Q3. How do we approach studying a (soft) topic like this.


MODUS OPERANDI

1 slot per week Lecture or small group tutorial

Course reading material. Examined by continuous assessment. Attendance and contribution at lectures is a pre-requisite. Written assignments Group presentations Minor written examination Tight feedback loop on assignments and presentations. Written supplemental exam, if required, in the Autumn.


Course Objective

You should be able to demonstrate an understanding of the complexity of the relationship between technology and society.

You should be able to articulate well reasoned and well structured arguments On paper Verbally

You should show some understanding of working in groups.


Resources

The class WWW page www.cs.tcd.ie/tangney/ComputersAndSociety/

Computerization and Controversy: Values Conflicts and Social Choices. R. Kling (ed.) Academic Press. 1996. 2nd Edition. ARTS 301.24 N64

Class reading material.

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Old Chinese Curse

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