Computer and Society

1. Computer and Society Olayele Adelakun (Ph.D) Assistant Professor CTI Office: Room 735 CTI 7th Floor Phone: 312-362-8231 Fax: 312-362-6116 Email : yele@cs.depaul.edu Web: http://facweb.cs.depaul.edu/yele

2. Computer and the Information Age • Assignment 1 • Write one page paper on the topic: • Has computers make our lives easier: Yes or No

3. Computer and the Information Age • Ways to see the Social Word • What is the quality of live • And what is good, Phaedrus, and what is not good – need we ask anyone to tell us these things? (Robert M Pirsig, 1974.)

4. Computer and the Information Age • Does computer improves our lives quality? • Objective View: Aristotle Philosophy - Realist • Realist - A thing exists if the world cannot function normally without it. • The realist maintains that the social world external to the individual is real and it is made up of hard, tangible and relatively immutable structures. • Regardless of our awareness, they exist as empirical entities. They are independent of the individual appreciation of them.

5. Computer and the Information Age • Does computer improves our lives quality? • Objective View: Aristotle Philosophy - Realist • The Realist Argument: • Took away fine art. There is no point in hanging a painting on a wall when the bare wall looks just as good. • Similarly, other forms of art like comedy and drama will follow the same road as painting. • In sports, ice-hockey will be the first to disappear, followed by baseball and all other games, and then football (please! no) will also disappear. • Alcohol, tea, coffee and tobacco will have to disappear and so on. • The world cannot function normally without “it”

6. Computer and the Information Age • Does computer improves our lives quality? • Subjective View: Socrates philosophy • The measure of all thing is men, but never the scientific instruments. • Socrates was one of the greatest sophists and he died for the ideal that truth is relative, against those who think that there is an absolute truth. • In Socrates philosophy, quality is what we like • It is external to the organization and it is subjective in the user's mind

7. Computer and the Information Age • Does computer improves our lives quality? • Dialect View: Plato philosophy • To Plato, the immortal truths consist of ideas, which are changeless, and appearance, which changes. • Horse vs. Horse-ness • Plato uses dialectic as a means of logical argumentation. It is a technique of cross-examination with which truth is reached. Plato believes that dialectic is the sole method by which the truth can be arrived at

8. Five Things We Need to Know about ITby Nail Postman • Like a Faustian bargain • Technology giveth and technology taketh away. Blessed be the name of technology • I.e For every advantage there is a corresponding disadvantage • Do culture pays a price for technology?

9. Five Things We Need to Know about ITby Nail Postman • The advantage and disadvantage of new technology are never distributed evenly among the population. • Who is benefiting from the development of new technology • Which group • What type of person • Most important who will thereby be harmed • Who are the winners and who are the losers

10. Five Things We Need to Know about ITby Nail Postman • There are hidden ideas • There is a philosophy which expresses how new technology • make people use their minds • In what we do with our body • How to codify and decode the world • How we apply our intellectual reasons • E.g Motorola in China • Can we say that in the computer age, “computer person value information, not knowledge, certainly not wisdom”. In the computer age the concept of wisdom may vanish altogether?

11. Five Things We Need to Know about ITby Nail Postman • Technological change is not additive; it is ecological. • E.g. A drop of red dye in clear water • A new medium does not add something new it changes everything • Fast internet, T1 line, dial up modem • America and TV political campaign • Christianity and TV

12. Five Things We Need to Know about ITby Nail Postman • New technology should be considered as a strange intruder • De factor standard • God-given myth • Technology & Food & nature • E.g Should all high speed connection be done from 9pm-6am • Should the sun go down from 6pm to 5am • Is technology Gods creation • On the 8th day may?

13. Laws of Technology • http://www.jimpinto.com/writings/3laws.html. • Moore’s Law:Formulated by Gordon Moore of Intel in the early 1970s: The processing power of a microchip doubles every 18 months. Corollary: computers become faster - and the price of a given level of computing power halves - every 18 months. • Gilder’s Law:Proposed by George Gilder, prolific author and prophet of the new technology age: The total bandwidth of communication systems triples every 12 months. New developments seem to confirm that bandwidth availability will continue to expand at a rate that supports Gilder’s Law. • Metcalfe’s Law:Attributed to Robert Metcalfe, originator of Ethernet and founder of 3COM: The value of a network is proportional to the square of the number of nodes; so, as a network grows, the value of being connected to it grows exponentially, while the cost per user remains the same or even reduces.

14. Whom to Protect and Howby Blendon, et al. • The public, The Government and the Internet • Between 1985 -1999 computers at homes grew from 30% to 70% • Virtually all American younger than 60 years have used computer for various things • Email, internet, etc. • Sports, entertainment, travel. Etc. • Should the government regulate the internet?