"SECRETS ARE LIES. SHARING IS CARING. PRIVACY IS THEFT. -- David Eggers, The Circle

“It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.”-- Albert Einstein

“Men have become the tools of their tools.” -- Henry David Thoreau

“We've arranged a civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology.” -- Carl Sagan

"All the interests of my reason, speculative as well as practical, combine in the three following questions: 1. What can I know? 2. What ought I to do? 3. What may I hope?" -- Immanuel Kant

17200/17630/19211: Ethics and Policy Issues in Computing S'19

Tuesdays and Thursdays 1:30-2:50

GHC 4307

Professor: James Herbsleb

Email: jdh@cs.cmu.edu
Alternate email: jim.herbsleb@gmail.com
Web: http://herbsleb.org
Office: WEH 5307
Office hours by appointment

Teaching Assistants:

Amelia Smith amelias@andrew.cmu.edu

Maggie Oates moates@andrew.cmu.edu

In this course, students will study the social impacts of computing technology and systems. The course will provide a brief introduction to ethics and policy, and to the new and difficult questions modern computing technology presents us with. It will focus on a number of areas in which computers and information technology are having an impact on society including data privacy, social media, and autonomous technologies.

This course is intended for undergraduate and masters students from across the university. There are no pre-requisites.