Should Everyone Learn Computer Science?

After reading the articles, do you believe that coding is the new literacy? Should everyone be exposed or required to take a computer science or coding class?

What are the arguments for and against introducing everyone to computing or programming? What challenges will schools face as this CS4All push moves forward?

How should computer science fit into a typical K-12 curriculum? Is it an elective or a requirement? Does it replace existing subjects or is it an addition? What exactly should be taught in this CS4All curriculum? Is this computational thinking? programming? logic? computer literacy?

Can anyone learn to program? Should everyone learn to program? Explain why or why not to both.

One of the most rewarding things I’ve done as a student at Notre Dame is pair my major in Computer Science with a minor in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE). PPE, which began at Oxford, focuses on the intersection of the three disciplines and how their various strengths can contribute to improved discussion and analysis of the world at large. Comparing and combining PPE and Computer Science has informed how I’ve evaluated my computer science education in a few ways.

The first has been an understanding of how computer science informs general understanding of thought, in a similar vein as the study of philosophy and mathematics. Studying the theory of computer science especially reveals the nature of problem solving, the ability to quantify the difficulty of problems, and begins to unveil the interconnectedness of many problems, which I believe is essential to a general and abstract understanding of how the world works. I believe that understanding the underpinnings of logic results in a wiser and more prudent individual, which society desperate craves.

The second reason is a greater appreciation for the incredible relevance of computer science. I imagine that many people view computer science in the same vein as I used to view economics and political science. From the outside, I saw these as niche disciplines that inform specific careers but are not as useful in day-to-day living. After taking classes in both fields, however, I was struck by how much of my decision making, whether in purchasing decisions, voting decisions, or future planning, had been influenced by what I had learned. In our society, striving to understand how the economy and our political system work is incredibly important. To try to make decisions without a mental model of these mechanisms is like driving blind.

The growing role of technology in daily life has, in my opinion, risen the importance of studying computer science to at least the level of economics and political science. To be an informed member of society, you need to have a basic understanding of how the Internet and your phone works. Without it, you attempt to make decisions on what to purchase, how to fix problems, and what to do without understanding why. This is already unacceptable and will only become more so as technology becomes increasingly entwined with life.

However, there are challenges to universalizing some study of computer science, and many of them are due to qualities of the field itself. Computer science, perhaps more than any other discipline, relies upon building on others’ work. The goal of coding is often increasing layers of abstraction, and that abstraction can make understanding the underlying principles quite difficult. To have a fundamental understanding of computer is even more difficult: it requires diving deep into the workings of logic gates and registers, which many people are intimidated by.

However, I believe that an introductory understanding of programming languages and how programs are made is helpful; such understanding helps explain bugs and limits in programs. I believe that this kind of understanding will improve the quality of all interactions with technology, since it will no longer be such a black box.

Project 4: AI in Film

Shuyang Li, Meghan Pfeifer, Andrew Russell, and I chose to review the film Ex Machina, and our review can be found here:

Internet Trolls

From the readings and from your experience, what exactly is trolling? How does this behavior manifest itself and what are its causes and effects?

What ethical or moral obligations do technology companies have in regards to preventing or suppressing online harassment (such as trolling or stalking)?

Is anonymity on the Internet a blessing or a curse? Are “real name” policies useful or harmful in combating online abuse?

Is trolling a major problem on the Internet? What is your approach to handling trolls? Are you a troll?!?!?

Anonymity is at the heart of many Internet issues, but anonymity itself does not create conflict; it only enables it. Anonymity removes the ramifications for violating the social norms that protect the dignity of all peoples, allowing bigoted, violent, or ignorant individuals to voice their opinions without fear of reprisal. Worse still, the connective nature of the Internet allows those who share prejudiced beliefs to discuss them, reinforcing their backwards views and shielding them from the larger, more tolerant and progressive societal conversation. In addition, the text-only nature of most Internet communication deprives it of contextual information on sincerity and veracity, allowing strangers to inflame other strangers with barely effort at all.

However, anonymity is also one of the Internet’s greatest strengths. In no other medium can one’s identity be so easily veiled without reducing one’s ability to communicate, and this has enabled many conversations that could not otherwise take place. Whether it is whistleblowing on immoral activities, support for lived experiences of discrimination, or organizing protests of unjust situations, the anonymous Internet has been a powerful force for change. I’m not sure that removing the ability to be anonymous in order to combat negative speech is worth the loss of the Internet as pressure-release for oppressive regimes and discriminatory practices. Requiring a sort of identification to follow you around the Internet opens up a whole host of privacy issues, ranging from advertising tracking to corrupt governments hunting down dissidents. It’s an enormous amount of information to place online, and the potential for misuse is enormous.

Trolling, then, represents a manifestation of some of the grosser aspects of humanity, which is allowed to burst forth hatefully because anonymity causes the individual behind the troll to be stereotyped and vilified. Instead of screening out trollish communications, attempts to end trollish behavior should strike at the underlying causes, such as self-esteem issues, prejudices, and pleasure derived from angering others. These psychological issues affect more than just Internet behavior, and so just treating one manifestation of them is simply hiding the symptoms of a deeper problem. If needed, crowd-voted communication platforms such as Reddit and Yik Yak offer ways to screen out trollish comments without completely sacrificing the open forum the products create.

Encountering trolls can be a frustrating experience, because the reality of the human on the other side is obscured and often deliberately ignored. However, the experiences  reminds all of the larger reality that there are people out there whose lives are filled with hate; the Internet just brings us closer to them. We must meet these people with love and compassions, though not necessarily over the same communication: denying trolls of the attention they crave may help to teach them of the uselessness of their comments.

Artificial Intelligence

From the readings, what is artificial intelligence and how is it similar or different from what you consider to be human intelligence?

Are AlphaGo, Deep Blue, and Watson proof of the viability of artificial intelligence or are they just interesting tricks or gimmicks?

Is the Turing Test a valid measure of intelligence or is the Chinese Room a good counter argument?

Finally, could a computing system ever be considered a mind? Are humans just biological computers? What are the ethical implications are either idea?

The study of intelligence is one that has confounded nearly every approach from science to sociology. In essence, discussions on intelligence concern themselves with evaluating how a specific actor makes decisions in response to stimuli. Certain response are considered more intelligent than others, and how often those intelligent decisions are chosen determines an actor’s overall intelligence. Already subjectivity is introduced into the definition, for declaring which decisions are intelligent grows exponentially more difficult with the complexity of a situation. Evaluating the decision-making process becomes even more difficult, however, when looking more deeply into how decisions are made; the field of philosophy in particular offers logical arguments against the feasibility of evaluating intelligence. One relevant field of thought is called skepticism.

One of the most famous philosophical statements (in its full form) is Descartes’ “I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I am.” His claim is that we cannot be deluded as to our own existence: if we did not exist, then there would be no target of delusion, therefore we must exist, at the very least so we can doubt our own existence. Descartes’ conclusion reveals a central concept in the study of intelligence: the most informed perspective on a specific intelligence is the intelligence itself. The skeptic takes this conclusion and goes further, claiming that the only intelligence that we are sure exists is our own. A popular expression of this belief is the question, “What if everyone else is a robot?” There is no way to be completely sure that the people surrounding us are not deterministic facsimiles of humans, since we cannot see into their heads.

We can, however, see into the minds of artificial intelligences. But does this actually make it easier to classify and define intelligence? Many intelligence evaluation experiments choose to ignore this access: the Turing test is one of the most famous, and it uses only external signals to infer intelligence. The skeptic denies that passing the Turing test is a result with any real meaning, since there is no way to know how the behavior exhibited during the test came to be. But even if we knew, what can we conclude? Intuitively, we don’t consider a finite state machine, which simply acts on a set of rules given an input, to be an intelligence, no matter how sophisticated. We also intuitively consider ourselves to be intelligent beings, but we aren’t even sure of how we as humans come to decisions! And even if we were, it seems shortsighted to claim that only our method of decision-making qualifies as sufficiently intelligent.

Observation-based approaches such as the Turing test, while useful in order to colloquially call something “intelligent,” fall short of describing a complete definition of intelligence, as shown by the skeptic’s argument outlined above. Some argue that such a definition is not needed, but without one, we are unprepared to answer moral questions on the rights of artificial intelligences and the nature of our existence in comparison. We must investigate our own decision-making process further as well as those of any other intelligences we discover in order to build a stronger catalog of those decision-making processes we intuitively consider intelligent. Only then will we be in a position to decree what qualifies as intelligent.