CS 312 - Computing, AI, Ethics, and Society

Undergraduate Course · Fall 2024 · Instructor: Joyce Ho

Course Description

Computing innovations bring an era of exciting new technologies to society like social networks, microblogging, the Internet of Things, autonomous vehicles, and chatbots. At the same time, society is growing increasingly concerned that these new capabilities bring a host of unwelcome side effects. Recent concerns include election interference, surveillance capitalism, and killer robots. How can we critically assess whether a technology causes more harm than good? This course covers the ethical, societal, and policy implications of new computing technology. It situates recent developments in computing and their impact on society in the context of fundamental principles from computing, policy, ethics, and social sciences. The first part of the class covers foundational issues such as privacy, fairness, personal autonomy, agency, and sustainability. The remainder of the course focuses on challenges presented by recent technological developments and analyses of these new situations as they emerge at the interface of computing and society.

Schedule

Lesson	Readings	Assignments
Lesson 1Class Overview	AdditionalLimitations of Asimov's Laws
Lesson 2Virtue Ethics	Dangers of Online Conversation AdditionalWhy We Should Have Seen That Coming
Lesson 3Utilitarianism	Designing Ethical Self-Driving Cars	Group Assignment on an ethical analysis of current computing event
Lesson 4Additional Ethical Frameworks	Leading a Discussion Gender Shades AdditionalOriginal Gender Shades Paper
Lesson 5Computer Ethics	Facebook Emotion Study AdditionalBe Careful What You Code For Additional10 Commandments of Computer Ethics AdditionalACM Software Engineering Code of Ethics
Lesson 6Privacy	Police Chatbots The Nothing-to-Hide Argument Why Privacy Isn't Merely an Individual Right
Lesson 7Privacy (continued)	Oh the Places Your Data Will Go Gold Mine of Transaction Data AdditionalData Capitalism	Group Assignment on identifying and mitigating LLM bias
Lesson 8Fairness	World of Stereotypes AdditionalCultural Representation
Lesson 9IP / Plagiarism	AI Comic
Lesson 10Accountability	Humans vs. AI in the Stock Market	Final Project (AI Assistant) Proposal
Lesson 11Sustainability	Telephone Operation
Lesson 12Autonomy	Hidden Costs Student Dropout Case Study
Lesson 13Agency	Manipulation of Privacy Choices AI Decision Making
Lesson 14 AI Defense Mechanisms	Guardians of Creativity Stopping Training Data AdditionalA Pretrainer's Guide to Training Data (p. 14)	Group Assignment on AI-generated video advertisement
Lesson 15Mental Health	Does AI Know You Better? Emotional AI Companion
Lesson 16Personal Information	Tattoo ID Case Study Privacy Paradox
Lesson 17Class-Led Discussion	Chest X-Ray Targeted Advertising
Lesson 18Class-Led Discussion	Turk Wars Carbon Neutral Software
Lesson 19Class-Led Discussion	Business of War Tesla's Self-Driving Feature
Lesson 20Class-Led Discussion	Amazon Algorithm Uber or Amazon Data
Lesson 21Class-Led Discussion	Voice-Based Moderation Trauma Floor
Lesson 22Class-Led Discussion	Facebook Whistleblower How to Fix Social Media
Lesson 23Class Reflection
Lesson 24Final Project Presentations

Assignments and Grading

The final grade will be determined by a weighted average of all the graded items.

Component	Type	Weight
Participation + Reading Exercises	Individual	25%
Leading In-Class Discussion	Group	15%
Peer Evaluation of In-Class Discussion	Individual	10%
3 Assignments	Group	24%
Final Project (checkpoint, report, presentation)	Individual	26%

AI Tool Policy. You may use generative AI tools such as Co-Pilot and ChatGPT in the same manner as an Internet resource. You must credit the interaction source much the same way you would attribute reference to a textbook, article, or webpage. You are not allowed to solicit direct answers or duplicate responses from these tools. You may not use any generative AI writing assistants to create the "written aspects" of the assignments and final project. Each assignment will indicate the aspects where you are allowed to use generative AI and when you are not allowed to use it.