1Tue-1A-5a: Why Take a Course about the Social Consequences of Technology?

Class | This course is completed

Zoom: 5 weeks

Apr 9-May 14, 2024

9:30 AM-11:00 AM on Tue

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$50.00

Are humans doomed because of Artificial Intelligence?  Has authoritarianism been reinvented by technology to create the Surveillance State?  Are there ethical and legal approaches to controlling AI’s negative impacts?

 

Whether you are technologically knowledgeable or don’t know how to use technical devices, this course offers you an opportunity to explore such critical questions.  

 

Technology has increased connectivity, allowing new friendships regardless of distance and increasing immediate access to information and resources. Consider how healthcare, communications, commerce and even sports have been improved. What would life be without smartphones, GPS, algorithms and even electronic media?

 

Technology has also contributed to unemployment, corporations and governments gathering vast amounts of personal information, ever more destructive weapons, undermining the truth of facts and raised fundamental questions about the ability of societies to provide fundamental services to its citizenry.

 

Artificial Intelligence is only one of a number of emerging technologies.  Neuroinformatics is a field that combines informatics and neuroscience.  Virtual Reality has been described as the learning aid of the 21st century contributing to advances in education.   Neuroprosthetics has led to devices that can substitute a motor, sensory or cognitive modality that might have been damaged as a result of an injury or a disease.  Robotics is central to Amazon’s operations.  And tissue engineering researchers have grown ovaroids which are ovarian cells in a lab that mimic the parts of the ovary that nurture a woman’s eggs before they are released for fertilization.

 

The challenges we are facing require new thinking about neuroethics, computer ethics and even nanoethics.  Legal attention to these new technologies will challenge some basic foundational concepts and will require quickly applicable new and creative thinking about the role of the law.  And social media is just at its beginning stages of development and already has been disruptive in how we live, understand, vote and even exist.  

 

In this course, we will highlight various technologies which have created large social consequences. We will also explore some of the developing technological developments and examine whether and how society can control or manage their impact.  There will be a lot of classroom interaction in discussing topics. An overview of each week's topic will be presented. A variety of readings will be posted for review, and weekly preparation time should be around two hours. Participants' questions and comments will be especially sought. Welcome to our exploration.



  • Books and Other Resources:

     

    For each week I will suggest links to several articles addressing the topic under study.  Some of these articles will be technical while others will be easy to understand overviews.  In addition, important books may be suggested.

     


I was trained as a sociologist, specializing on criminology issues, and then became a computer security and privacy consultant, writer, and lecturer. I have taught at various universities, was invited for a variety of media engagements, led seminars, and given speeches in many domestic and international settings. As an ex-president, I am active at Congregation Beth El in Sudbury. Having flunked retirement, I have taught ESL to adult immigrants and now serve on a patient research ethics and safety board (IRB) at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. I am currently a mentor in the College Behind Bars program. At several lifelong learning programs, I have taught a variety of topics including crime and criminal justice, the sociology of “deviant” behavior, the invisible forms of manipulation, the death of privacy, and surviving the Inquisition as a Secret Jew/Crypto Jew.