Computer Science | Grinnell College

We will discuss the ethical decisions that machines have to make as automation plays a larger role in society, and we will examine some of the ways that machines are already making ethical decisions. We have two readings for the upcoming discussion:

• Can You Program Ethics Into a Self-Driving Car? N. Goodall. IEEE Spectrum, 31 May 2016.
• Why Machine Ethics? C. Allen, W. Wallach, and I. Smit. IEEE Intelligent Systems, July/August 2006.

Computer science table (CS Table) is a weekly meeting of Grinnell College community members (students, faculty, staff, etc.) interested in discussing topics related to computing and computer science. CS Table meets Tuesdays from 12:00–1:00pm in JRC 224A (inside the Marketplace). Contact the CS faculty for the weekly reading. Students on meal plans, faculty, and staff are expected to cover the cost of their meals. Visitors to the College and students not on meal plans can charge their meals to the department (sign in at the JRC front desk).

On February 28, 2017, we’ll be looking at applications of machine learning to judge people by their faces. Faces have the potential to convey much information about a person’s emotion and intent, but extracting that information from a face alone is a difficult task (and arguably impossible or impractical depending on which side of the research you fall on). Computers equipped with machine learning and computer vision algorithms have the capacity to perform these sorts of analyses on faces. What is possible with this sort of technology? Are there any ethical ramifications to consider?

• Malcom Gladwell. Blink (Excerpt: The Mysteries of Mind Reading).
• Emerging Technology from the arXiv. Machine-Vision Algorithm Learns to Judge People by Their Faces. November 1, 2016.
• Emerging Technology from the arXiv. Neural Network Learns to Identify Criminals by Their Faces. November 22, 2016.

Paper copies of the readings are available outside Prof. Curtsinger's office. Computer science table (CS Table) is a weekly meeting of Grinnell College community members (students, faculty, staff, etc.) interested in discussing topics related to computing and computer science. CS Table meets Tuesdays from 12:00-1:00pm in JRC 224B. Contact the CS faculty for the weekly reading. Students on meal plans, faculty, and staff are expected to cover the cost of their meals. Visitors to the College and students not on meal plans can charge their meals to the department.

This week in CS Table, we’ll be examining the use of technology in the gambling industry to create games that everyone can enjoy (perhaps a little bit too much…)! Modern-day slot machines are a beautiful combination of technology, psychology, and data science that power a $150 billion industry. And more recently, the video game industry is looking towards them to understand how to power experiences that are not “gambling” at first glance, but are heavily inspired by it. We’ll discuss what goes into a modern-day gambling experience as well as its ethics.

1. Brendan I. Koerner. How one man hacked his way into the slot-machine industry. Wired.com. July 15, 2011.
2. Andrew Thompson. Engineerings of addiction: slot machines perfected addictive gambling. Now, tech wants their tricks. Theverge.com.
3. Robert Rath. Why cops are raiding arcades over a fishing game. Vice.com. November 23, 2016.
4. Mike Rose. Chasing the whale: examining the ethics of free-to-play. Gamesutra.com. 2013.
5. Finally, here’s an extra fun “reading” video: an example of a modern day Japanese pachinko machine (warning, NSFW Aussie language).

Computer science table (CS Table) is a weekly meeting of Grinnell College community members (students, faculty, staff, etc.) interested in discussing topics related to computing and computer science. CS Table meets Tuesdays from 12:00-1:00pm in JRC 224B. Contact the CS faculty for the weekly reading. Students on meal plans, faculty, and staff are expected to cover the cost of their meals. Visitors to the College and students not on meal plans can charge their meals to the department.

This week at CS Table, we will consider a recent article on the potential power of Google to swing elections:

Rogers, Adam (2015). “Google's Search Algorithm Could Steal the Presidency.” Available on line at http://www.wired.com/2015/08/googles-search-algorithm-steal-presidency.

IMAGINE AN ELECTION -- A close one. You're undecided. So you type the name of one of the candidates into your search engine of choice. (Actually, let's not be coy here. In most of the world, one search engine dominates; in Europe and North America, it's Google.) And Google coughs up, in fractions of a second, articles and facts about that candidate. Great! Now you are an informed voter, right? But a study published this week says that the order of those results, the ranking of positive or negative stories on the screen, can have an enormous influence on the way you vote. And if the election is close enough, the effect could be profound enough to change the outcome.

In other words: Google's ranking algorithm for search results could accidentally steal the presidency. “We estimate, based on win margins in national elections around the world,” says Robert Epstein, a psychologist at the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology and one of the study's authors, “that Google could determine the outcome of upwards of 25 percent of all national elections.”

Those of you who want to delve more deeply into the issue can read (or skim) the full journal article:

Epstein, Robert, and Robertson, Ronald E. (2015). “The Search Engine Manipulation Effect (SEME) and Its Possible Impact on the Outcomes of Elections.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112 (33). Available on line at http://www.pnas.org/content/112/33/E4512.abstract.

Internet search rankings have a significant impact on consumer choices, mainly because users trust and choose higher-ranked results more than lower-ranked results. Given the apparent power of search rankings, we asked whether they could be manipulated to alter the preferences of undecided voters in democratic elections. Here we report the results of five relevant double-blind, randomized controlled experiments, using a total of 4,556 undecided voters representing diverse demographic characteristics of the voting populations of the United States and India. The fifth experiment is especially notable in that it was conducted with eligible voters throughout India in the midst of India’s 2014 Lok Sabha elections just before the final votes were cast. The results of these experiments demonstrate that (i) biased search rankings can shift the voting preferences of undecided voters by 20% or more, (ii) the shift can be much higher in some demographic groups, and (iii) search ranking bias can be masked so that people show no awareness of the manipulation. We call this type of influence, which might be applicable to a variety of attitudes and beliefs, the search engine manipulation effect. Given that many elections are won by small margins, our results suggest that a search engine company has the power to influence the results of a substantial number of elections with impunity. The impact of such manipulations would be especially large in countries dominated by a single search engine company.

Computer Science Table is a weekly meeting of Grinnell College community members (students, faculty, staff, etc.) interested in discussing topics related to computing and computer science. CS Table meets Tuesdays from 12:00-12:45 in JRC 224C. Contact the CS faculty for the weekly reading. Students on meal plans, faculty, and staff are expected to cover the cost of their meals. Visitors to the College and students not on meal plans can charge their meals to the department.

This Friday at CS Table, we will discuss the ACM Code of Ethics. Along the way, we will consider the purpose and roles of professional codes of ethics and what it means to think of yourself as a “professional.”

Computer Science Table is an open weekly meeting of Grinnell College community members (students, faculty, staff, etc.) interested in discussing topics related to computing and computer science.

On Sunday, May 19, 2013, the Grinnell Computer Science Department hosted its first annual Pledge of the Computing Professional, a rite of passage ceremony that provides graduating seniors with an opportunity to reflect on their ethical and social responsibilities. Grinnell College is the second node in the state of Iowa. We were honored by the presence of Nathaniel Borenstein '80, who is one of this year's honorary degree recipients.

At this Friday's session of Women in Computing / CS Table, we'll discuss the recent Adria Richards fiasco. If you don't know about it, any of the readings below will give you a quick overview.

Our primary reading is

• “I have a few things to say about Adria”
  Sarah Milstein, Dogs and shoes, March 24, 2013
  http://www.dogsandshoes.com/2013/03/adria.html

This reading includes a number of forum comments. You should take the time to read some of them. Since the case involves the way people behave publicly and using online communication tools, forum comments are particularly relevant.

This reading also includes a number of links which you may find it useful to follow.

Other relevant articles:

• “Here's the real reason SendGrid fired the woman who complained about ‘dongle’ jokes”
  Julie Bort, Business insider, April 1, 2013
  http://www.businessinsider.com/exclusive-why-sendgrid-got-a-bum-rap-for-firing-adria-richards-over-donglegate-2013-3
• “Cyber debate continues over Adria Richards's firing”
  Vanessa Williams, She the people, March 26, 2013
  http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/she-the-people/wp/2013/03/26/cyber-debate-continues-over-adria-richardss-firing/
• “Sexism in the tech world rears its head at Adria Richards”
  Kailani Koenig-Muenster, MSNBC, March 30, 2013
  http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/03/30/sexism-in-the-tech-world-rears-its-head-at-adria-richards/
• “Fired SendGrid developer evangelist Adria Richards speaks out”
  Liz Gannes, All things D, March 27, 2013
  http://allthingsd.com/20130327/fired-sendgrid-developer-evangelist-adria-richards-speaks-out/

Computer Science Table is a weekly meeting of Grinnell College community members (students, faculty, staff, etc.) interested in discussing topics related to computing and computer science. CS Table meets Fridays at noon in the Day PDR (the first PDR at the top of the stairs in the Marketplace/Cafeteria, also known as Rosenfield 224A). Faculty, staff, and students on meal plans are expected to pay the cost of their meals. Students not on meal plans can charge their meals to the department.

On Thursday, September 1, Assistant Professor Juan Pablo Hourcade of the University of Iowa will speak:

Peace is an important value for the human-computer interaction research community, yet it has not resulted in the development of a research sub-community or even a research agenda. In this presentation I seek to address this void by first motivating the need for computing research on promoting peace and preventing war. I will then review evidence on the factors that affect the likelihood that armed conflict will occur, as well as the aspects involved when individuals make moral decisions on whether or not to support a war. Based on this review,I propose a research agenda, citing research examples from the human-computer interaction literature and discussing new ideas.

Refreshments will be served at 4:15 p.m. in the Computer Science Commons (Noyce 3817). The talk, “HCI for Peace,” will follow at 4:30 p.m. in Noyce 3821. Everyone is welcome to attend!