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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

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Professional Issues in Computing

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  1. Professional Issues in Computing Issues in Computers and Society

  2. 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. 

  3. 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. 

  4. 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. 

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

  6. 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?

  7. 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. 

  8. 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!)

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

  10. 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.;''

  11. 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.

  12. 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. 

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