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Patrice Koehl |
Ethics of Technology: Fall 2024General information
In-person course
Optional Textbooks
Overview
Foundations of normative ethics for technology, its relationships to moral philosophy and to the law. Technologies and their impacts on the environment and society. Justice, meritocracy, and computer science and engineering. Ethical issues with AI and machine learning. My goal is to increase your inclination to think about, and act upon, the ethical implications of your personal and professional choices, and our collective work as technologists. I’d also like you to read a lot, to write a fair amount, and to become more comfortable participating in oral discussions. The course material will be broad, open-ended, and unlike anything else that begins with the letters ECS most of the class time will be spent with you guys talking. At the end of the term, your evaluation will state the following: My goal is to increase your inclination to think about, and act upon, the ethical implications of your personal and professional choices, and our collective work as technologists. I'd also like you to read a lot, to write a fair amount, and to become more comfortable participating in oral discussions and giving an oral presentation. Being responsible for your gradesLate policyIf you turn in a written report late, you will only receive partial credit. If it is less than 24 hours late, you will receive 50% credit; if it is between 24 hours to 48 hours late, you will receive 25% credit; if it is more than 48 hours late, you will receive 0 credit. The only exception is when you provide a doctor's note. Grade breakdown
Academic ConductThe rules for conduct in UC Davis classes can be summarized with two principles:
Be politeAs adults meeting in a professional context, we should all behave professionally: this means being polite and respectful to everyone we deal with. As the instructor and reader, it is our responsibility to teach as well as we can and to be available, polite and respectful to students. In email, you must include ECS 089 in the subject line. This enables the instructors and reader to respond much faster. Your email, with the required subject line, will be responded within a day in most cases (excluding weekends and holidays). Examples of suitable subject line are "ECS 089 - Report", "ECS 089- term paper", etc. You are responsible for treating us and your fellow students politely and with respect. Take the time to be polite and respectful when emailing the instructors and reader. For example, this email to the reader is not appropriate: > R U givng us fdback Fr? The question is fine, but the style is all wrong. It is not an appropriate professional communication, because it is not polite and respectful. Don’t cheatAs the instructor and teaching assistants, it is our responsiblity to make tests and assignments that are fair, to grade fairly, to look for cheating, and to refer students who cheat to Student Judicial Affairs for possible sanctions. The English department made the largest number of referrals to SJA last year, but Computer Science was in the top 10. It is sometimes unclear to a student when s/he is cheating on a written assignment. We want you to help each other, and we want you to look at examples of similar essays. So how do you know when helping and looking crosses the line into cheating? Here’s the simple basic rule: You should design and write your essay yourself, and you should know what it contains. Writing an essay/report can be very, very frustrating. Sometimes you don’t know how to start. Sometimes you feel confident about what you wrote, but it may be out of topic, unclear, or incorrectly organized. Talk to the other students, to friends, to the reader, to anyone who can help! You should ask people for advice, have them look at your essay, talk about its overall structure, talk about details…. but make sure when the conversation is over that you implement whatever changes are suggested yourself. If your friend is telling you exactly what to type, you are cheating. If you are asking chatGPT to write your essay, you are cheating. Acknowledgements |
Page last modified 14 October 2024 | http://www.cs.ucdavis.edu/~koehl/ |