The gang gives their closing thoughts on Notre Dame’s Computer Science/Engineering program.
Group Members: Chris Ray, Dinh Do, Nathan Vahrenberg
Project 4
Group Members: Dinh Do, Chris Ray, Nathan Vahrenberg
The gang gives their thoughts on The Matrix. Note that we make multiple references to The Animatrix regarding the backstory of the entire Matrix series. And yes… We know that this is actually Project 4…
Troll Toll 2: Electric Boogaloo (Reading 12 Response)
Trolling. Ever since I discovered the wonders of online communities and the “interwebz” it seemed that every time I dug deeper into the myriad of comments, forum posts, reblogs, etc. you invariably run into some form of trolling. Some saw it as a bit of slightly mean spirited fun, drumming up a little entertainment from the reactions to their name calling, rude remarks, and general annoyances not unlike the most annoying sound in the world. Others saw it as an art or testament to their wit: luring victims into conversations or debates that ended in logical frustration and or embarrassment. At the end of the day, a troll is pretty much a person who posts content (usually but not necessarily under the guise of anonymity) in an attempt to draw out reactions for their amusement. Unfortunately, there are times when the act of trolling crosses the line and becomes harassment, with extreme cases involving stalking, sexual harassment, death/rape threats, and even impersonating dead relatives.
Trolling that crosses the line into harassment territory is about as ethical as more traditional bullying (you could even go as far as to call it bullying by the people who used to be bullied). Schools and universities have an obligation to suppress traditional bully behavior, so it makes sense that websites such as Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, etc. have a similar obligation to try and suppress/report online harassment. However, technology companies are in the precarious position of having to meet this obligation while maintaining its users rights to freedom of speech/expression. While the current systems of allowing users to block other users or reporting abuse do maintain this balance, they are limited in the fact that (1) the most persistent trolls will still find ways to get to users who have blocked them, (2) requiring a review process of every abuse report slows down response times, and (3) reviewing abuse reports is still subject to errors from human subjectivity as to what constitutes harassment.
Some companies like Google and Blizzard Entertainment (For the Horde!) tried to help deal with online harassment by requiring users to use their real names. Their logic was that removing the veil of anonymity that allowed trolls to be brazen and act with relative impunity would force people to act a little more well behaved. It didn’t work. While some users praised the addition of such features claiming that they had no reason to hide behind a screen name, most reacted negatively for reasons such as wanting to maintain a roleplaying experience (in the case of Blizzard’s games), wanting to maintain anonymity due to hostilities in their home countries, or just simply not wanting their online personas and their real lives to intersect. I personally side with the latter argument, seeing anonymity as both a blessing and a curse. Not only are real name policies ineffective at stopping harassment (just look at the harassment that takes place on Facebook), being anonymous or operating under a screen name allows for some form of escape from regular life. I can go online and interact with communities without having to really worry about any baggage or issues that come for real life. With this freedom, or any other freedom however, comes the choice of using it for good or for evil. You in essence need to let the scum live in order for everyone else to prosper.
I used to be a troll, albeit one who preferred to be a minor annoyance as opposed to someone who sought to harass other people. That form of trolling is not really an issue, and even if it does annoy you there’s always the timeless adage of “don’t feed the troll.” The real issue is trolling that has crossed the line into online harassment, which itself can be a reflection of even larger social issues such as racism, sexism, etc. These trolls are harder to deal with since (1) they tend to be more persistent, (2) ignoring them makes you an emotional punching bag, (3) fighting them may only add fuel to the fire, and (4) their posts/threats cut much deeper emotionally than the most annoying sound in the world. The only way I can see to deal with them is to just educate people and have them realize that such behavior cannot be tolerated and should be openly mocked. At the end of the day these trolls are people on the other side of a computer screen. People get angry. People yell. People get bored. Most importantly: people can be embarrassed. There is no better feeling than watching a troll flailing around for all to trying to defend their views. I will admit there is a bit of irony here, using trolling to combat trolls. I guess we really can’t escape that precarious balancing act between good and evil when it comes to the Internet.
Reading 11 Response
Artificial intelligence is the field of computer science that focuses on developing computers capable of performing tasks normally performed by humans, especially tasks perceived to involve some human thought. Based on this definition, artificial intelligence imposes no restrictions on how the computers perform these tasks. A computer running software that solves a problem typically done by humans in a way that is completely different from how a human would typically approach the problem is still said to exhibit AI. In fact, there are 3 distinct camps on how to develop AI based on how much of the computing is modeled on human thought. Strong AI focuses on genuinely simulating human reasoning within machines in order to the perform the tasks. Weak AI focuses on just getting the machines to perform the task in any way possible. The 3rd camp is a sort of “in-between” for strong and weak AI, focusing on creating systems that are inspired by human intelligence. This 3rd camp is where most of the modern advancements in AI are taking place.
The big thing that separates AI from human intelligence is the fact that most AI are programmed to perform very specific tasks, while human intelligence is more general and capable of helping us handle the wide variety of challenges we face in everyday life. Take IBM’s Watson as an example. It’s designed recognize patterns and weigh the probability that it has properly recognized the pattern. While that may be helpful in winning Jeopardy or identifying health problems, pattern recognition is still only one task that true human intelligence performs on a daily basis.
This doesn’t discount the overall viability of AI. Platforms such as Watson, AlphaGo, and Deep Blue have made great strides in developing novel ways to push the boundaries of the types of problems computers can solve. While they are still limited by the fact that they were created for very specific tasks, there’s nothing stopping us from adapting them for more practical, commercial use such as Watson being used to aid in medical diagnosis. And while there haven’t really been as many great strides in strong AI, continued research in the field will not only help us create machines with the potential to rival human intelligence, but also ultimately help us understand how our minds work as well.
But what about those AI that have supposedly made the transition from simple calculation to what pretty much can be considered thought by passing the Turing test? While platforms like Eugene Goostman, the AI poet, and lamus, the AI composer, are all impressive in their own right, I do not think they should be viewed as heralds of the age of machines having minds. I do believe that the Chinese room is a good counter argument to the Turing test as its commonly employed. While Eugene Goostman is capable of fooling some judges with his generate conversations, it does not fully understand the meaning behind the words it produces (and can still be fooled if given the right input). While Apple’s Siri is capable to responding to human speech in a way the mimics a conversation, it’s still just code reacting to an input as opposed to a mind that genuinely understands the information it’s processing. I guess what I’m trying to get at is that the Turing test would be a much better measure of intelligence if it took affect and simulated emotion into account as opposed to just being able to carry on a simple conversation. If a machine is capable of somehow expressing joy upon seeing an image of the sunrise or feeling some form of companionship a la Her, who’s to say that the machine doesn’t have a mind of its own?
I do genuinely believe that some computing systems will eventually be considered minds, albeit minds that may function in ways different form our own. Think of it this way: suppose I built a human from scratch using the same biological materials, programmed its mind by implanting memories and a personality to where it would interact and react with the world like a natural born human, and then set it loose in the world. People interacting with my human would probably interact with it with no issue and would have no doubts that it has a mind with intelligence. Why should a computer be any different? What makes substituting the biological building materials for plastic and silicon and the mind with an OS so damning? The ethical implications of this idea would involve redefining what we commonly perceive as thoughts, minds, intelligence, and maybe even what constitutes a person. On a larger scale I think it involves us as a species stepping down from our existential pedestal to realize that we are not the “be all end all” of this vast empty universe.
Reading 10 Response
Net Neutrality, or open Internet, is the idea that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) should not favor or block certain content sources by charging content providers for access to digital “fast lanes” or deliberately slowing down content from sources that may be competing with the ISPs in some way. All of this is meant ensure that the Internet remains a free and open platform where users are able to use their bandwidth however they want, barring illegal activity of course.
Proponents of Net Neutrality argue that Internet access should be treated as a utility, like water or electricity, where all users have the same level of access. Not enforcing Net Neutrality would also give ISPs too much power that could potentially be abused, creating situations where ISPs block traffic from competing content providers or limit traffic from popular services in order to make a profit. These abuses would in turn limit the ability of smaller websites or services to compete with larger content providers capable of paying off the ISPs for bandwidth, stifling innovation as a whole.
Opponents of Net Neutrality argue that pro-Net Neutrality legislation actually impairs innovation on the ISP level and that ISPs actually have the right to distribute their networks across different services, similar to how people can pay for different levels of cable service or, in some areas in California at least, pay a lower electric bill in exchange for reducing power consumption during peak hours. Opponents also argue that charging content providers for increased bandwidth may actually be necessary, such as Comcast’s argument that Netflix should pay for the necessary updates to the ISPs infrastructure needed to handle the increased traffic caused by the service.
It should be noted that both opponents of Net Neutrality as well as some proponents of the principle argue that the government’s relatively heavy-handed method of enforcing net neutrality may actually end up hurting the free market and American innovation in the long run. Some argue that users in a world without Net Neutrality will ultimately gravitate towards the ISPs who provide them with the cheapest access to all of their desired content while others argue that establishing a set of brittle rules which lawyers can now comb over to find loopholes and exceptions to (as opposed to a set of flexible standards) may actually result in an Internet that is even less neutral than it is today.
I personally am in favor of Net Neutrality and am in favor of this method of enforcing it: create a set of standards and a dedicated team of FCC investigators to handle complaints from users who feel that their ISPs have violated their standards. This not only limits government regulation except in cases that actually warrant investigation, but would also force ISPs to self-regulate and innovate in order to keep their customers happy with truly neutral access.
I do believe that the Internet is a public service and should be treated like any other utility. The Information Age pretty much requires that those who want to innovate and move humanity forward be connected. Even just having to entire sum of human knowledge just a few clicks away is incredibly empowering/enlightening to any average user. Having fair access offers such huge advantages to a user that it should be considered a fundamental right. However, I do believe that what constitutes fair access should be solidified before we go ahead and officially declare my right to surf to my heart’s content a right.
Project 03 Response
This is a response to this post.
Is encryption a fundamental right? Should US citizens have access to technology capable of completely locking out law enforcement, to the point where government officials are asking tech companies to build back-doors to bypass encryption and security measures? I certainly believe so, albeit to an extent.
The 4th Amendment of the Constitution guarantees “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.” In other words, so long as there is no warrant we as citizens have a right to privacy and can take measures to protect that privacy. Adding encryption to a device is similar to adding locks to your doors or placing valuable physical documents in a safe. Yes these measures may frustrate law enforcement in the fact that they can’t complete their job at a faster pace, but they also frustrate the bad guys who may have more malicious intents than throwing you in jail for a few nights. Would the same people who say they “have nothing to hide” and therefore argue that encryption methods should not be necessary/be easily bypassed in the name of national security also advocate leaving their doors unlocked or leaving their valuable documents out on the living room coffee table? Hopefully not. As we mentioned in the project, these people with supposedly no secrets probably do not realize just how pervasive encryption really is to modern society as well as how powerful the bad guys can be if they get your sensitive information.
The encryption/data privacy issue is one that is very important to me after having worked with the information security team at my last internship as well as coming from a family with a military/government background. I’ve been able to see both sides of the argument and really has shaped my views about government, technology, and human rights. I believe that technology that has not caused any serious harm should not be banned because it is not fully understood (or, perhaps in our government’s case, because their agents aren’t smart enough to actually crack the encryption or find other creative solutions for gaining intel besides spying on US citizens). It is our duty as informed voters to learn all we can about emerging technologies in order to keep up with scientific and technological innovation, which will ultimately bring even more issues and debates to light. It is also our duty to support those candidates and officials who do the same as opposed to spreading rhetoric of fear and control from “the man.”
The encryption debate will ultimately be resolved by the balance that we as a society strike between national security and privacy. The way I see it, the balance will continue to shift towards national security so long as people continue to be controlled by fear and terror. I’m not sure what good I can do on my own, but I will still fight to make sure people are educated about technology, their rights to privacy, and of the dangerous precedents that could be set by allowing the government to intentionally weaken digital security.
Project 03
Project submission: Encryption Letter
Group Members: Dinh Do, Chris Ray, Nathan Vahrenberg
Yo Ho Yo Ho(Reading 09 Response)
The DMCA handles digital piracy through its “safe-harbor” provisions, which protect service providers form monetary liability due to the activity of infringing 3rd parties. Specifically, the provisions require service providers to comply with their conditions, including performing a “notice and takedown” of allegedly infringing content, if they want this protection. However, the provisions also allow for users whose content has been taken down to challenge the ruling. The logic behind the “safe-harbor” provisions is that by giving copyright holders a quick and easy way to take down allegedly infringing (read that as “pirated”) content, the provisions are actually allowing online intermediaries like YouTube to continue providing services without fear of liability while maintaining the rights held by copyright owners. Some would even view this as “essential to the growth of the Internet as an engine for innovation and free expression.” This sounds all well and good, but does the average Internet user really care about digital piracy? Is digital piracy ethical in the average user’s eye? Is piracy even an issue in light of services like Netflix and Spotify?
I think the best response to the question of the ethics of digital piracy ironically comes in the form of this clip from South Park. While pirating content is unethical in the sense that it prevents creators from collecting their just dues/royalties for their work, people should realize that the creators who have the resources to legal action against pirates (or at least the ones that have received the most media attention) have more than enough to not be seriously hurt from those lost profits. Look at Mettallica v. Napster, Inc. or Kanye seeking legal action against The Pirate Bay. These aren’t your starving musicians barely making enough to survive, they’re multimillion dollar artists whose names have a global reach. Even if their music gets pirated, they’re still going to make money off live performances, merchandise, corporate sponsorships, and even good old fashioned people legitimately buying their content because they are dedicated fans. Lets not forget that at the end of the day, a creator whose work has been pirated is still having their work viewed/appreciated by an audience who, if they become dedicated fans, may switch over to actually purchasing content.
I am one of the many Internet users who have shared pirated content, typically in the form of movies and music. I’ve never done it because I couldn’t pay up or out of some need to hoard information. I did it to be able to view content that I normally do not have access to (like shows from the BBC) or download music from smaller bands whose material is not available through conventional means. Being able to view content that you are normally aren’t able to access, whether through geographic location, time, money, etc., is what I think drives most people towards online piracy. However, with the advent of services like Netflix and Spotify, these barriers are slowly disappearing and piracy is on the decline. I wouldn’t call these services solutions to piracy, since there are still movies, shows, songs, etc not available through these services that people will resort to pirating to obtain. Until the day when streaming services are able to offer up every bit of desired content to every user on the Internet, online pirates will continue to sail their digital seas. Are they a problem? Ethically yes. Are they a problem worth dedicating a lot of resources to? Probably not, so long as artists and creators continue to have dedicated fans and supporters.
The Troll Toll (Reading 08 Response)
According to the WIPO’s Document What is Intellectual Property?, a patent is an exclusive right granted to products or processes that provide new ways for doing things or provide new technical solutions for problems. Patents provide owners with protections by giving owners the ability to limit who can make, use, or sell their product or process for a limited amount of time (usually 20 years), after which point the invention enters the public domain. Patents are meant to provide incentives for inventors to disclose the details of the work in exchange for protection and possible material reward, thereby encouraging innovation and benefitting society as a whole by increasing the total body of technical knowledge.
For the most part, patents have been beneficial for society an industry. An example of this was mentioned in the “When Patents Attack!” episode of This American Life, which explains how if Eli Whitney had decided to keep the cotton gin to himself, American industry and innovation as a whole would have been stifled. Current patent laws for the most part work as intended when dealing with physical/tangible artifacts. Unfortunately, software ironically introduces some bugs to these laws. This is because, in general, developing software does now take as much time or resources as developing something physical like a new type of engine. In addition, a piece of software is in essence an implementation of an algorithm, which courts have historically ruled as not patentable.
Should patents even be granted to software? The short answer is yes. The long answer comes from an example from our good friends in the CBE department. You cannot patent the actual science and chemistry behind a reaction, but you can patent a unique process or unique equipment used in that process. By extension, while you should not be able to patent the algorithm the underlies a piece of software, you should definitely be able to patent your unique implementation of that algorithm.
Some may point to the rise of patent trolls as well as Elon Musk’s decision to relinquish control over all of Tesla’s patents to the public domain in an attempt to stimulate the industry as signs of how the current system is broken and actually hinders innovation. And I agree with them, to an extent. It seems as though the current trend, at least within the software industry, is to try and patent very broad processes that encompass a wide variety of common practices in today’s Internet-centered world, such as the ability to update software through the Internet or the ability to conduct in-app purchases. This, as well as the fact that the courts are limited in their technical knowledge, does in fact point to a system in need or repair that is currently hurting the industry. However, just as a programmer doesn’t completely scrap a piece of software because of a bug, we should not completely do away with the patent system. We should instead work to establish a legal precedent of evaluating software on how it implements its underlying algorithm as opposed to the algorithm itself.
Why aren’t you using Adblock? (Reading 07 Response)
I have no ethical concerns with online advertising. While I, like plenty of other Internet users, feel that online ads are annoying and a tad distracting from the actual content that I was browsing for (seriously, support the Adblock guys and watch your online life change), I personally do not see anything wrong with the current ways companies target ads towards specific user. Specifically, I do not see an issue with the practice of collecting and performing data analytics on user data such as purchase history, search history, and social media activity in order to discern patterns in users and thus create more accurate profiles for advertisers to work with. What I do have are some qualms is how much control users ultimately have over their data.
It should really come as no surprise that there is a tradeoff between convenience and surveillance when it comes to online advertising. After all, we make similar tradeoffs every day when we’re not online. We allow stores to monitor us on security cameras in exchange for being able to browse their wares. We allow banks to monitor our accounts in exchange for protection against fraud, identity theft, etc. We even give up some of our personal freedom in order to be governed and live in the relative safety of society as opposed to, say, endless nights of brutal anarchy. The issue for most users and for me personally doesn’t lie in the fact that they data is being collected (after all, they are getting access to free services like Gmail in return), but in the fact that they feel as if they are not in control of their data. This can be seen in the results from a survey by Carnegie Mellon’s Lorrie Cranor and Stanford’s Aleecia McDonald: users cared less about data privacy when they found out that their data was already being tracked, but were more likely to care about privacy if they were being asked to release some data for tracking (i.e. were losing control). While companies like Google and Facebook own the user profiles and thus control how the data flows, I do believe that the users still ultimately control their data. Companies are therefore in a unique position to at least alleviate some of the anxiety that comes with users relinquishing control of their data by being completely transparent about what that data will be used for (similar to what Facebook does now, but with even more detail) and and always giving users to option to opt out. Even better would be giving users a degree of control such that they can specify what kind of data gets released, e.g. allowing stuff like search history to be tracked while holding back more sensitive information such as credit card purchases. Once users have given some form of consent the companies would then be free to do as they pleased with the in essence public data, such as sell it to 3rd parties. The only exception to this would of course be official government warrants requesting user data available to the companies.
As a whole, I find online advertising less invasive and more of a nuisance easily solvable with the plugin Adblock, which allows for a more enjoyable browsing experience free from any distractions. And for those who question whether or not it is ethical to use tools like NoScript and Adblock, is it unethical to unsubscribe from certain magazines and catalogs whose products you have no interest in?
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