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Post-Helene Welcome Back

Welcome back! I recognize that the past month has been challenging for everyone, and that each of you have been impacted differently, depending a variety of factors and circumstances. My goal is to help you navigate the remaining course content in a way that is manageable, but that helps you learn some of the core software development competencies that will help you going forward. Before talking about content, I wanted to discuss three items of business:

Syllabus & schedule updates
Course format and participation
What’s left?

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Syllabus & Schedule Updates

Homework 2 has been cancelled
Select topics have been consolidated. That said, you can pick a topic of your choosing for the final project, so you will still have the opportunity to explore a dimension of AI that interests you.
Homework and participation grading weights have been flipped.
The schedule has been reworked into a website that is (hopefully) more conducive to remote learning (walkthrough)

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Schedule Walkthrough

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Course Format & Participation

I will still be taking attendance and doing synchronous lectures during regularly scheduled class time over zoom
I will record and post all lecture recordings to the course website.
If you are not able to attend synchronous lectures, you can still earn full credit for “attendance” submitting a 1-page reflection to the moodle that addresses at least three of the lecture discussion questions (posted on the schedule).

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What’s Left

3-4 more discussion posts
3-4 more identity journal posts
~10 more lectures (either attend and participate or submit answers to the lecture questions)
1 project
2 technology labs (computer architecture and machine learning)

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Neoliberalism & Solutionism

What is neoliberalism?

Refers to market-oriented reform policies, which include

Privatizing public resources (schools, prisons)
Globalization and lowering barriers to free trade
Reducing state influence in the economy

What is Solutionism?

An ideology steeped in the belief that technology can solve social and political problems without underlying social and political transformation

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Outline

Welcome back & course updates
The idea of solutionism
Discussion questions

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Evgeny Morozov

Belarus-born technology writer

Worked at Stanford and Georgetown universities in the US.
Wrote The Net Delusion, argued that “Western do-gooders may have missed how [the internet]… entrenches dictators, threatens dissidents, and makes it harder – not easier –to promote democracy.”
To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism

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Morozov: Technological Solutionism

“Recasting all complex social situations either as neat problems with definite, computable solutions or as transparent and self-evident processes that can be easily optimized – if only the right algorithms are in place! – this quest is likely to have unexpected consequences that could eventually cause more damage than the problems they seek to address. I call the ideology that legitimizes and sanctions such aspirations solutionism.”

Source: Book Review in the Atlantic

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Example: Mass Transit

“After decades of neoliberal policy, solutionism has become the default response to so many political problems. Why would a government invest in rebuilding crumbling public transport systems, for example, when it could simply use big data to craft personalised incentives for passengers to discourage journeys at peak times? As the architect of one such programme in Chicago said a few years ago, “Supply-side solutions [like] building more transit lines … are quite expensive.” Instead, What we’re doing is looking at ways that data can manage the demand side ... by helping residents understand the better time to travel.”

Op Ed from the Guardian

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