User:Vtaylor/Computers and Society/Summary 7

Summary 7.Evaluating and Controlling Technology

Who needs internet access? Who decides? - This week we will be looking at some broader issues. There are many issues that are less well defined than some we have explored. What are the implications for a global society as more of the world's population have access to computers and computing, while many other people do not? Will this imbalance lead to unrest or encourage the have-not's to work harder to close the gap? What technologies are being developed? Who decides what we "need"?

Ethics - Great discussion with lots of personal information and sharing. It is important to understand that your personal choices do make a difference to the social influence that these companies have. Continue to be aware of these problems yourself, and try to make others aware as well.

Contract workers - Consider this. Employer share of healthcare and other benefits often exceed the amount paid as salary. Companies have to decide if this employee’s work contributes that total to the company over the long term. Does this work have to be done on a regular daily basis to justify having a permanent employee for this work? If not, using contract workers is better. Although there is some abuse of contract workers, many contractors are treated and paid fairly. Many contractor appreciate the freedom and flexibility that contract work offers.

Internet of Things. Now that many people have smart devices in their homes, it is becoming an issue when these homes are sold. Often the seller does not remember all of the passwords and installed features. These may continue to report a lot of personal information about the new owner to the previous owner.

Smart cars are already here. A friend’s Tesla can put itself in the garage and close the door from a command on his phone. However it also locked him out of the house when it closed the garage door.

Hopeful. Most of the responses to human / technology relations are very hopeful and recognize that we have come a long way with innovation in a very short time. We will look at future trends in technologies in more depth in an upcoming module. It was great to get your perspective at this point.

Coming up...

8. Risks, Failures and Responsibilities

In this topic Risks, Failures and Responsibilities, we will look at some of the uses of computers where they have very direct personal implications for our health and safety. Who is responsible for the use and abuse that can result from these relationships and interactions? Computers themselves are not capable of original thought but they can act as through they "think". Computers have capabilities to "remember" vast amounts of information and apply the information according to millions of rules that have been defined by hundreds of programmers over decades. How does this all come together? What happens when there are conflicts within the rules or data and something goes wrong?