Professional Issues in Computing

Professional Issues in Computing

• Issues in Computers and Society

Issues and Professionalism

• Blay Whitby, 3R345,
• blayw@.sussex.ac.uk
• Lectures
• There are 2 Lectures per week.
• Wednesday 0900 -1100, ARUN 401
• It would be a good idea to participate in all of them.
• Seminars
• You have one seminar per week.
• You need to participate in all of them.

Orientation

• Why study this?
• Professionalism.
• You will be involved!
• What employers expect from graduates.
• How should we study this?
• Differences from purely technical subjects.
• Varying opinions.
• Many speculations are likely to be be wrong.
• You may need to acquire new techniques.

Techniques

• [This is not an exhaustive list]
• Your aim should be to become able to form your own opinions
• Develop critical views - requires reading a number of differing writers/viewpoints.
• Show awareness of counter-arguments.
• Avoid cliches, slogans, and empty phrases - these are often ways of avoiding the necessity to:-
• Think.

Some Issues

• Some comments on predictions.
• Technological developments.
• Social implications and consequences.
• Revolution?
• Visionaries versus sceptics.
• Separate the technological from the social.

Some comments on predictions

• How reliable are the forecasts?
• Are there too many variables?
• Is it sensible or is it science fiction?
• Beware the glib, but empty, metaphors:-
• 'The Global Village'
• 'The Paperless Office'
• 'The Electronic Revolution'
• Who will decide?

Technological Developments

• Increase in power (=size, speed, etc)of processors, with a decrease in cost.
• Better interfaces - Multimedia, Natural language, V.R.
• Intelligence (" "?) everywhere.
• Bigger, more comprehensive networks, faster data transfer.
• Systems that replace humans.

Some Comments on Revolutions

• Media hype or reality?
• Power.
• Revolution = change of those in power.
• Little evidence of this.
• Computer workers' status
• Does I.T. reinforce power structures? ( ie. The opposite of a revolution!)

Some comments on Revolutions

• How much is changing?
• Work?
• Leisure?
• Values?
• Is the impact of I.T. evolutionary, rather than revolutionary?
• Slow?
• Gradual?
• Diverse? 

Visionaries versus Sceptics

• Daniel Bell. - Knowledge = freedom = intellectual advancement.
• Herbert Simon - Productivity = better quality = better goods and services = more satisfaction.
• Michie and Johnston - Expert systems will solve all the world's problems.
• On the other hand,
• Joseph Weizenbaum. - Computers cannot be a substitute for humans = scapegoats for human failings.;''
• Neil Frude. - People will prefer machine companions to each;''other = isolation = loss of social skills = no human society.;''

Social implications and consequences

• 3 views:-
• 1. Sceptical
• Computers are (or are about to be) destroying human skills and relationships.
• We are becoming (or will be) dependent on technologies which we neither like nor understand.

Social implications and consequences

• 3 views:-
• 2. Optimistic
• More information and knowledge will be available to all.
• Greater access by more people enhances democracy, makes deception more difficult
• Liberation from boring and dangerous work.
• 3. Separate
• Social and technological changes are driven by different and separate processes.