Project 1 Blog Post: Manifesto & Portrait

How much does the Manifesto reflect your individual feelings and thoughts? Is it a warcry? What is it?

How much do you identify with the Portrait? Where do you differ?

How significant are stereotypes to how you view the world and how the world views you? Do you think the presence of a Manifesto or Portrait is helpful or harmful?

Our manifesto strongly reflects the feelings I hold toward the default trajectory of Notre Dame computer science students. It is absolutely a war cry, and I hope it can serve to prompt Notre Dame computer science students into considering their postgraduate options more fully. The manifesto is a critical look at the assumptions underlying the pacing and focus of Notre Dame’s computer science program. It is a call for change, a request to reevaluate how Notre Dame computer science students are prepared for postgraduate life and thus broaden the kinds of opportunities available to them.

Our portrait conveys the stereotypes of Notre Dame computer science students, especially in the context of the broader pool of computer scientists. The portrait highlights some of the differences that makes Notre Dame computer science students unique, including a less “nerdy” demeanor than is stereotypical and a tendency to go out and party on weekends. I would contend that for myself, I am even less “nerdy” than the typical Notre Dame computer science student, and I am likely more liberal as well. For the remainder of the portrait, however, I would consider it to be mostly accurate, if overly stereotypical.

Stereotypes are incredibly powerful; they are the genesis of misunderstandings that are at the center of age-old conflicts. The more we assume about a group of people, the less we are able to engage with their reality. While stereotypes can help a group coalesce by providing initial points of conversation and community, they should never be taken to be more than a social conjecture that serves as a shortcut to fully understanding someone. Manifestos and portraits can serve as critiques of stereotypes and rallying points for change movements, but they should never be taken as a “Constitution” of sorts. Documents taken in that way exclude rather than include, and they reinforce the legitimacy of stereotypes. So, the presence of a manifesto or portrait can have both positive and negative ramifications, depending on the content, tone, and interpretation of the message.

Job hopping

Where do you see your career headed? Do you plan on staying with one company or do you envision moving from job to job?

Is there such thing as company loyalty? Should you be loyal to your company and should your company be loyal to you? How do things such as non-competes and trade secrets influence your opinion? Are these contracts fair? Are they ethical? On the flip side, is job hopping an ethical practice?

My childhood dream was to work for Apple; I never really thought that much about what I would do afterword if I ever achieved that goal. Fast-forward to adulthood and after a successful internship, I have the incredible opportunity to return there full-time. My experiences there this summer brought to my mind the same questions as those asked above; the notions of loyalty, reciprocity, and employee restrictions were constantly on my mind as I evaluated Apple as an employer.

What do you do once you work for your dream company?

Apple inspires an incredible degree of loyalty from both its customers and its employees, and it is fairly unique in this regard. Most companies in the tech sector, and in Silicon Valley especially, are not this way. As many of the articles indicate, moving between jobs is incredibly commonplace, and so most companies are attempting to stifle the degree of turnover in their own ranks for financial reasons. Apple has an additional reason to fear turnover, however: the unique and powerful culture within the company is the result of passionate individuals who love what they work on and “understand” the goals of the company. Turnover for Apple, then, is an indication that the culture is not “sticking” and that employees do not feel a connection to their work. Additionally, each new employee is another factor in the evolving corporate culture and a potential point of culture dilution.

I haven’t thought fully on whether I will try to remain at Apple for a long time or if I will seek employment elsewhere after a few years; I feel it’s absurd to answer this question, as I do not know where I will stand within Apple after a few years. I respect and appreciate the culture that Apple has permeated, and so I used to have a negative opinion of those who cycle through jobs consistently, since it implied to me that they did not engage strongly enough with what they were working on. But the Forbes article we read (http://www.forbes.com/sites/cameronkeng/2014/06/22/employees-that-stay-in-companies-longer-than-2-years-get-paid-50-less/#55e7cbc8210e) reveals that there is more to a job change than dissatisfaction or indifference. If companies do not have the structure to adequately reward and promote employees, then it is justifiable to seek a new employer for that “fresh start.”

While it is understandable for employers to want to avoid employe defection, non-compete and other agreements do so artificially. A company should strive so that its employees are engaged with what they do, compensated appropriately, and have no desire to leave. The prevalence of job hopping is a manifestation of the market of employees affecting the value of wages, and non-compete and other agreements stifle those market forces at employees’ expense. It’s a violation of the tenets of capitalism for the market to be restrained in this way. Ideally, employees would simply not work for companies with these agreements, but if all companies are sharing in the same practice, the market force is again stifled by a kind of “monopoly.” So, in this case, such agreements should not be allowed, as they synthetically affect the true value of work.

Hackers

From the readings and from your experience, what exactly is a hacker? That is, what are the key characteristics of the hacker archetype? Do you identify with these attributes? That is, would you consider yourself a hacker? What is your reaction to this characterization?

It is true that the original notion of the hacker was one of “subversion” (https://aeon.co/essays/how-yuppies-hacked-the-original-hacker-ethos). The word “hacker” and its societal connotations confirm this sentiment, as hackers are often perceived to be undermining security and infrastructure. Paul Graham discusses the connections between the hacker as creator and the hacker as infiltrator, remarking that the spirit behind both personas is the same: one of originality, iteration, and expression.

The intent of a hacker is central to his identity, and this is where a shift in the notion of “hacker” has occurred as hacking has become more mainstream. Originally, as indicated by “The Conscience of a Hacker,” hackers were intentionally amoral: driven by curiosity rather than ambition, they would break into things to prove a point instead of to acquire something. A rejection of traditional goals and application of ability confuses many, and this lack of understanding is central to how hackers relate to the world. Hacking used to be a kind of civil disobedience.

In today’s world, however, hacking has taken on a new meaning. The rise of hackathons demonstrates this evolution. While hacking used to represent a refusal of ambition, now it represents it fully. Hackathons were originally conceived as a way for individuals with similar interests to collaboratively build things and mentor each other. This already indicates a shift away from traditional hacker ideology: instead of iconoclasts, hackers were now team-builders. The very skills that alienated them from society now served as focal points for nascent communities.

While the social component of the notion of hacker was transformed by hackathons, hackers also began to be tempted by the financial rewards of hacking new technologies. It was quickly discovered that many of the resulting projects of hackathons were worthy ideas that could potentially become profitable businesses. A new kind of hacker began to attend hackathons: ambitious individuals seeking to create the next big thing. Now the intent of hackers began to change as well: profit motives supplemented and in some cases replaced curiosity.

The final change (so far) to hacker culture occurred when large corporations began to realize that some of the brightest potential hires were hackers. Technical ability, the original hallmark of a hacker, was now one of the most desirable traits for an employee, and hackathons became the best recruiting events an ambitious student could attend.

So, in order to claim the status of “hacker,” one must clarify with which version of hacker you identify. Personally, I have never felt alienated or defined by my technical ability, and I enjoy collaboration with others and integration with society. I also don’t tinker with technology in my spare time like many traditional hackers do. At the same time, I don’t look to technology as a profit waiting to be realized as many of those who now attend hackathons do. For me, I love that I can apply my skills to create something that benefits others. In no other discipline can your ideas be realized so quickly and the results of your work be so widely felt.

I go further than just a desire to change the world, however. George Hotz, the first person to hack the iPhone, represents the traditional ideals of the hacker reborn. In an interview, he remarks that “I don’t care about money… I want power. Not power over people, but power over nature and the destiny of technology. I just want to know how it all works” (http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2015-george-hotz-self-driving-car/). Rather than just pursue technology for its potential to disrupt, I see technology as a means to improving the lives of others. I try to avoid decontextualizing technology, as doing so evicts moral notions from computer science.

Computer Science as Science or Engineering

Is Computer Science an art, engineering, or science discipline? Explain your thoughts and the implications of your assessment.

This is an interesting question to consider, and in order to form a more complete answer, multiple perspectives have to be explored.

From the perspective of another engineer, Computer Science may not exist clearly within the realm of the engineer. Engineers are often said to apply math, science, and technology to solve real-world problems. They are challenged with creating robust solutions to the challenges that face society using existing knowledge, perhaps in novel ways. Computer scientists do much of this: they apply math within the context of technology to create tools that improve life. But is a computer scientist who works on games (or other projects less foundational to society) considered an engineer? Computer Science has grown into a field that encompasses a huge scale of problems, and not all seem to fit into the scope of an engineer.

If not an engineer, perhaps an artist? Many aspects of Computer Science contribute to things seen or heard by others, including graphics and sound. However, most would argue that a sound engineer or graphics specialist is not “inspired” in the way other artists are thought to be. Some would argue that some algorithms, by nature of their brilliance or simplicity, could be considered art. If art is taken to be those things that reveal truths about the world and ourselves, algorithms could be art in the same way that math could be, but I believe that the argument is weak. Art cannot be “proven,” but an algorithm can.

Computer scientists also generate new knowledge to a greater degree than is expected of a traditional engineer, and this is consistent with the other sciences. Areas such as artificial intelligence, computer vision, and natural language processing all require immense amounts of research into the human mind and body. They are subjects pursued not only for real-world benefits but for a greater understanding of the world and how we interact with it. Science, unlike engineering, has the direct goal of acquiring new foundational knowledge, as opposed to applying existing knowledge in new ways. “Experimentation” as it is envisioned in biology or chemistry does not as often occur, however, and so Computer Science does not completely align with the other sciences.

Ultimately, I believe that Computer Science is closer to engineering than the other sciences due to the easy applicability of findings toward solving problems, and it is closer to science than the other engineering disciplines due to the new knowledge that is being generated by the discipline. In this unique space, Computer Science excels at building on past success and iterating rapidly into the future. Computer scientists discover and improve the world simultaneously.

This pace of progress can be dangerous, however, as it leaves little time for computer scientists to consider the moral implications of their advances. For example, the field of self-driving cars is rapidly advancing, and it is unclear if society is ready for the questions of morality that will accompany the technology’s adoption. Many computer scientists do not consider it to be their duty to explore these issues, and the retreat into either the guise of scientist or engineer in order to deny culpability. The scientist can claim that he simply discovers the knowledge, and it is the engineer who applies it that is morally responsible. The engineer can claim that the discovery of the knowledge itself by the scientist ushers in moral questions, and the engineer’s purpose is simply to apply the knowledge that has been discovered. Since Computer Science has feet in both of these camps, computer scientists are uniquely unable to escape moral culpability in this way.

Introduction

In your first blog post, please write a short introduction to who you are, what your interests are, why you are studying Computer Science (or whatever your major is), and what you hope to get out of this class.

Hi! I’m Zach Waterson, a senior CS major minoring in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE). I’m originally from the SF Bay Area and plan to return there after I graduate. I’m interested in consumer technology, specifically the ways in which it can improve the lives of others. I’m a huge fan of Apple for this reason.

I hope to learn from Ethics the ways in which technological progress should be pursued and the relevance of morals to the development of technology. When is it appropriate to reevaluate a technology on moral grounds?

Additionally, in your opinion, what are the most pressing ethical and moral issues facing Computer Scientists? Which ones are you particularly interested in discussing this semester?

I’d love to explore how the profit motive can legitimize potentially immoral uses of technology, for example in the area of consumer data collection. Artificial intelligence and the inevitable elimination of many jobs are also complex topics I’d also love to discuss. How will society need to restructure as more and more jobs are replaced by skilled automation techniques? Can we guarantee the creation of a generic AI that is benevolent?

Additionally, in today’s world, the balance between encrypted communications and national security should be investigated.